Tradition

It has been almost exactly one year since I've posted here. It's hard for me to believe how time has gone by so quickly. I just turned 50. An entirely new age group. I'm still continuing to deal with how this happened and what it means. 

In the meantime I am trying to get back to writing more, which means blogging more, and one of the best things I ever did, back in the day, was start doing 100 Word Challenge. So, I am going to make a commitment to do this each week.

You can view other responses and the prompt here.

This week's word is "tradition." 

to all a good night

a Santa’s sled

glows red

from the top

of a mountain

inside a metal container.

brown cardboard boxes,

flaps worn, tape exhausted

“books” scrawled in uneven hand.

some neglected, few unread.

the frame of a bed,

source of

an argument

with my mother.

a nod to our only tradition.

clear tape twinkles in the darkness,

slashes of marker advise:

donate, keep, or family piece.

disassembled evergreen; family in pieces.

inside the box

that mountain left undisturbed.

a reprieve from the task at hand.

door rattles shut, money flutters out of my purse

down

            the gravel drive

and out of sight.

ITS A CARD CATALOG

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to a convention with my new boss. My new boss, the editor at the paper where I work, is much younger.....MUCH younger. Like half my age younger. Never before have I felt so old but so young at the same time as when I hang out with him. 

He's a lot of fun to work with, talk to and hang out with. Generally he makes me feel young because his mindset about everything is so much more laid back than mine, and I feel he is a good influence on me that way.

While we were in Lexington, Ky for the convention, we braved the single digit temperatures to go to dinner together. He was meeting friends after dinner, and was kind enough to take the “old lady” out to a nice restaurant.

We had a great dinner with great conversations, the restaurant he picked was very modern and chic and the food was delicious. When our checks came to the table, they were on small pieces of wood, held down by a band stretched across the wooden plank. 

I commented on them, I like unusual touches, and he agreed. “It's the little things,” he said. 

I told him about a restaurant in Atlanta, the West Egg Cafe, where my husband and I had eaten this summer. How the décor was library and literary oriented, with old books and library tables and other cool touches. This “exchange” followed. 

Me: When they brought the check, it came in a card catalog drawer. It was really cool. 

*blank stare*

Me: You know what I mean? A card catalog. Like in libraries?

*blank stare*

Me: Before the internet, every book in the library had its information written on an index card. 

*blank stare* 

(I'm pretty sure I lost him at "before the internet." after all, he was born in 1991 I have mouse pads older than him)

Me: They were in a drawer in this card catalog. You pulled out the drawer and went through them until you found the one you wanted? *gesturing with my hands how you'd file through them*

Him: Oh, yeah. Ok. 

I'm pretty sure he said it just to make me feel better. Or to get me to shut up. 

I've never felt so old as I do right now....honestly.....

In my tribe

Opinions and events depicted in this post are solely those of Tinfoil Magnolia and Ms. Marsha and do not reflect those of her employer, husband, parents or anyone else in her life. These opinions stand as of this day and this moment and are subject to change on a whim. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty, so if you leave a comment we'll all know who you are. Complaints can be sealed in an envelope and burned. Thanks.

In 2013 I saw a side to people that I hadn't seen before. And I didn't like it.

Despite my tendency to be a realist about life in general, I usually give the benefit of the doubt to people who are my friends. People I call friends, and assume call me the same, well, I assume they are genuinely good people underneath everything.

Regardless of political, social or religious views I have always tried to keep friends who I really like and believe are good people. Sometimes friends come from work, or clubs, or common interests that you have. However this year, I've had to reevaluate the meaning of the word friend.

Merriam-Webster defines the word friend as:

: a person who you like and enjoy being with
: a person who helps or supports someone or something (such as a cause or charity)

1 a :  one attached to another by affection or esteem

b :  acquaintance

2 a :  one that is not hostile

b :  one that is of the same nation, party, or group

3 :  one that favors or promotes something (as a charity)

4 :  a favored companion

Freedictionary online defines it as:

1. a person known well to another and regarded with liking, affection, and loyalty; an intimate

2. an acquaintance or associate

3. an ally in a fight or cause; supporter

4. a fellow member of a party, society, etc

5. a patron or supporter: a friend of the opera.

But what is a friend, really?

I've had a tendency in my life to call most of my acquaintances friends. If I know them, have had discussions with them or spent time with them outside the normal, “hey, how are you,” then I call people a friend. Which does fit one of those definitions, to be sure.

But I think when you call someone friend, people assume a certain level of attachment, loyalty or whatever that you might have with this person. They assume an underlying relationship that isn't always there just because I use the “f” word.

The difference for me was made apparent during the course of 2013. I had an awful year. Awful. And please, don't tell me how yours was worse, how mine couldn't have been THAT bad, how I'm exaggerating, how at least I'm alive and I don't have cancer or flesh eating bacteria so it couldn't have been so awful.

It. Was. Awful. It was a horrible, scary, invasive, mind fucking year that left me sifting through the rubble to find the lesson to take away. And I know people had worse things happen to them and likely I'm being dramatic, but you didn't have to live through the year I had so my point is, don't judge.

My stress level at work was through the roof because I was literally doing the job of 2 people after my editor left in early March. Literally. 100% of the job I already had been doing, and probably at least 75% of his. I can't say I did 100% of his because there were some people who helped out from time to time. But it was rough.

It was a lot of responsibility that was dumped on me with no warning. A job that I felt utterly unqualified and unprepared to do. Every Sunday night for the first month or so I sobbed uncontrollably knowing the stress that was ahead to meet my Tuesday deadine.

I couldn't do the parts of my job that I loved. I didn't have time to write and tell people's stories. I didn't have time to take pictures like I wanted. I had to cut corners, I had to use my time more wisely, I had to spend way more time at the computer and way less in the community.

As a result, I had to listen to complaints. I had to hear what a horrible job I was doing and how I wasn't honoring the community/people's kids/churches/businesses/schools- fill in the blank here- it doesn't matter really. Everyone has their “pet” project that they want to see front and center whether it's actually news or not.

I was blamed for not doing things that hadn't been done in years, it was just an excuse. I was expected to just listen and take it and take responsibility for things that were mostly out of my control. But hearing these complaints week after week, when I was sacrificing my personal life, my well being, my time off, weekends, sleep and sanity for my job. Well, it was hard. And it took a toll. Quickly.

I became snappy and irrational. I stopped listening and began defending, something that I don't really normally do in my life. I didn't have time to chat with people or be friendly or open with anyone. It's not right but that's how it was.

What I did, how I reacted, the way I treated people at times–I know it wasn't right. I know it wasn't the way to gracefully handle things, and for that I am sorry. But I did a job for 8 months that I shouldn't have been asked to do for more than a week or two. I was under a lot of pressure, a lot of stress and a lot of crazy.

The way friends reacted to me...well, that was nothing less than eye opening. Life changing. People who I thought were my friends, who I had been friends with for years, stopped talking to me. I was excluded from activities and get togethers. They didn't text to see if I was doing ok. They didn't ask how they could help, ask if I needed someone to listen, try to make me feel better, or exhibit any forgiveness whatsoever for my “transgressions” i.e. being in a bad mood. Sometimes they snapped back. Sometimes they stopped talking to me completely. Mostly they just stayed away.

I can't say that I blame them. It's fine. But what was eye opening for me was the reaction of three or four “new” friends–people I didn't even know or know well at all before 2013 began. These ladies, along with my husband, kept me holding on to my one thread of sanity. I couldn't have made it without them.

Even when I was mean, even when I was grumpy, even when I was crying and frightened and completely freaked out or dramatic, these women made me smile, laugh, and feel like I had people who were ok with me being crazy because, well, they were crazy and dramatic and freaky too.

They showed up at my house with nothing more in mind than, “let's get drunk.” They listened to my crazy conspiracy theories. (which later turned out to be truth) They let me smoke their cigarettes and drink liquor and cry, yell, rant and rave. 

They told me when they thought I was wrong, and why. They gave me solicited and unsolicited advice. They called and texted me at just the right times, and left me alone when they knew they should. They shared their problems with me, despite what I had going on, which took my focus off my own stresses all the time.

These are girls, with the exception of one, who I hadn't known for much more than a few months. Who I really don't have much more in common with other than geography, a level of crazy that doesn't fit in this town and a love of sarcasm.

I'm not trying to attack my old group, but neither am I going to defend them. It happens. Perhaps they would be better friends to others among the group than they were to me. Maybe it's just because I'm so different from the rest of them, or just some personal dynamics and loyalties that I won't get into. Regardless, it has taught me a very valuable lesson on friendship and the definition of that.

Because of things that happened in 2013, I have changed the way I look at most everything in my life. I know and accept that there is only one person who will always be behind me, that I can count on 100%. Husband always has my back. Everyone else is a bonus.

I have reduced and deleted and blocked people on Facebook who can't seem to handle seeing my personal information. I have made time in my life only for people who I am comfortable showing the real me and I have reduced my circle to people I know can handle me. People who “get” me.

I still use the term friend to refer to someone that I'm friendly with on a personal level, but I will admit I've totally reevaluated how I refer to my “inner circle” because, by definition, they are more than friends.

They are my girls. My people. My tribe. I know that even when I move on, or they move on, I will still have a tribe. A crazy, liberal, smoking and drinking, sarcastic and completely inappropriate-for-being-out-in-real-society kind of tribe.

I love these women. And my husband. And that's all a girl could ask for....honestly.

Gratitudes

I think everyone knows that I believe 2013 is the Year of Suck. It's pretty much universal with everyone I know. 

However, just because this is my truth doesn't mean I am not grateful each and every day. Though I haven't daily posted my gratitude, I've tried to list more than 30 things right here and right now that I feel grateful for each and every day.

I am grateful for having basic necessities. A warm comfy bed, a roof over our heads, jobs that keep the bills paid and food in the pantry. Because we haven't always had that.

I am grateful for small, simple things. Coffee that gets me through the day. Tissues that don't make my nose hurt. A cell phone that works better than most of the computers I work on.

I am grateful for those who give without asking and who take without expectations.

I am grateful for the seasons, sunsets, sunrise and the promise of each new day.

I am grateful for the people in my life. A husband who makes me laugh, not cry. Parents who love me and still think of me as their child. Friends who know just what I need to hear and aren't afraid to say it.

I am grateful for everyone who moves through my life. Because even when people hurt me, disappoint me, anger me or betray me, they are helping me grow and learn and get through this journey toward being a wiser, more understanding human. And those who bring me joy make me a person worth knowing.

I am grateful for science and medicine and doctors and research. Competent professionals have saved my mother's life this year, kept me from getting strep another 7 times this year and eased the pain of other family members this year.

I am grateful for new friends who know the real me and get me. I am grateful for how comfortable I feel with them because of that, and how I can act, say and do everything that is just me.

I am grateful for my sense of humor. Because many times this year, being able to laugh at everything I was going through was the only thing that kept me going.

I am grateful for my ability to read. Being able to create a world inside your head from words on a page is, to me, the most amazing thing. Reading has gotten me through some rough times, helped me pass long, boring weekends, helped me be a better person, helped me become a more informed person and allowed me to do my job.

So, yes, for this and for so much more, I am so grateful. 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.I know I personally will NOT be leaving the house on Black Friday. Rather, I'm going to be as lazy as humanly possible. Because, y'all. I have the day off work.

Today

Today's post is for Stream of Consciousness Sunday over at Jana's Thinking Place. Join us if you will!



Today is the day. A new week. Begin anew. Reset my brain.

The events of this week have kept me in a state of anger, and I hate being that way. Life isn't just so I have to sit back and watch someone do to me exactly what they accused me of doing.

But from today on it's like it never happened. I am going to forget it and realize there just isn't fairness or justice, particularly when you are dealing with irrational people. The only satisfaction I have is to know that this person will still be angry and stewing over it and I will have moved on. Starting now.

I'm feeling the effects of the weight gain I've had over the past 6 months. 25 pounds. I need to lose about 80, but at least if I could get where I was last summer I know the foot pain, hip pain and back pain will go away, as will the body issues I've been suffering of late because every item of clothing is too small.

I don't need to be skinny, skinny is overrated and I like my full figure. But I do have a very generous number in mind where I'd like to be and I know I can make it. But it's not going to happen with diet and exercise, that's been proven to me. There's more than that going on in this body and the first step is to figure that out, then move on from there.

Half a year

Five Minutes on a Sunday morning. With Jana's Thinking Place and Stream of Consciousness Sunday.



My thoughts are spinning this Sunday morning. So much has been going on this week. I find it harder and harder to keep up with it all.

This has been one hell of a month, actually hell of a year. I remember white knuckling it to finish out 2012 with hopes that this would be better. But no such luck.

Mom surgery, twice. Me surgery. Sis in law and mom in law surgery. Friend died. Friend diagnosed bi-polar. Friends divorced. Editor fired. I now have 2 jobs to do until further notice.

However, this year, for some reason, I feel that I've come into my own. Finally. Embraced who I am and what I stand for and embraced the fact that if people don't like that, they don't deserve to be my friend. I've met new people and forged friendships with them based on who and what I really, truly am.

2013 may go down in my history as a very complex year, or a very terrible year depending on how I choose to see it. Only time will tell.

Here's to you!

Lately I've had a ridiculous and overwhelming urge to get out my sewing machine, blow off the dust and start sewing things.

Now, while I'm not a novice behind the sewing machine, I'm no expert either. I've made curtains, hemmed skirts, tailored in t-shirts-easy things that aren't a big deal. But pleats, zig zags, anything with curves or any kind of detail, forget it.

I can sew a straight line. On a good day. But for some reason right now I feel like I can totally slipcover my sofa cushions, make that tank dress into something cuter by adding material from a skirt that doesn't fit anymore. Or take a skirt that is too big and attach a shirt that is too short to make a cuter one piece dress from it.(Damn you Whitney!)

I know. Anyone who knows me knows. I am delusional. It's like when I watch Olympic ice skating and actually believe in my mind that I could pull off a triple axel or a salchow. What? Like it's hard?

In reality, I'm sure my sewing machine will stay safely tucked away in the closet where it allegedly is, but I have no idea because I've never unpacked it since we moved here 4 years ago. I am not even sure it made the trip here from Pennsylvania.

But the reason I'm so delusionally inspired?

I'm surrounded right now by a lot of artistic people. People with talents who actually earn a living, no matter how modest, through their arts. This, I love. This, inspires me. This, is necessary for me.

Friends who paint, dance, take pictures, write, design and create clothing, paint pottery, make soaps and candles, run galleries, and just “imaginate” their way through life.

As someone who spent the first 15 years of my adult life in a profession that was very, very wrong for me, it's hard to explain what this means to me. I now make my living in an artistic profession and have done so for almost 3 years now.

I returned to my writing almost three years ago, first through my blog and then through freelancing for the newspaper where I now work. I have written a novel that needs some serious attention and editing, and have begun a memoir that needs a lot more of everything before it is complete.

My point is this. If I weren't surrounded by so much creativity I wouldn't be nearly as inspired to be creative, artistic and offbeat. I feed off their energy. And I hope they do mine as well, in some small way.

I know now something that I never realized before. It is...stifling for me not to have other people around me who understand what it is like to have this....thing. And equally as energizing to have them around.

But artists, we're a different breed, all of us our own kind of crazy. Some reign it in and try to maintain a normal façade while others revel in their eccentricities. But we all have it, whether we like to admit it or not.

We're neurotic, hyper, depressed, schizophrenic, bi-polar, split personality sons of bitches who'd run off all our friends if only they weren't as batshit crazy as we are. And the people who love us, well they'd better really love us. 1,000%, especially if they are a non-artistic ilk. We can only hope they love us not only in spite of our crazy but because of it (at least a little bit of the time).

It's been just over 3 years since I kicked off Tinfoil Magnolia in April, 2010. Although I've neglected her somwhat over the past year or so, she is not forgotten. I feel every other day that I will reign my life in just enough to at least commit 3 days per week to posting here. Sometimes (well most of the time) it just doesn't happen. But this blog means a lot to me.

Yesterday a friend of mine told me that he'd received a pretty serious diagnosis. Not one, I don't think, that he was entirely surprised to hear, not one he hadn't suspected. But hearing it in black and white, sometimes that's another thing, isn't it?

Although we've never met in person, I consider him a friend. He was the first non-relative or friend to comment or follow Tinfoil Magnolia when I began the blog. I had no idea who he was or how he found me, but I am so glad he did.

So I'm thinking of my friend and his wife and family today. His new diagnosis? Well, it's always been part of who he is. Part of the artist crazy. It doesn't change how I think or feel about him. I don't have to deal with it daily as his family does, but to change that part of him, I would think, would change who he is on a basic level. As it would for any of us.

The fact of the matter is, and this goes for all of us, it makes us who and what we are. Our narcicissms, our addictions, our faults, our neuroses-they are all part of us. Our insecurities, our grandiose thoughts, our voices and all of our personalitites. It makes life wonderful and difficult and passionate and thoughtful. And I embrace that about all of my friends.

No matter how crazy they might make me. :)

Home is where.....

So periodically I participate from here and there across the interwebs. I'm the worst sort of lurker lately. I used to have time to participate 100% in everything and now it's just hit or miss.

But, I love the Stream of Consciousness Sunday over at Jana's blog and I really try to participate when I can because she always has goodness over there. Here's her post idea for this week, so here goes. Set a timer and riff on it for 5 minutes.

Today’s post needs no real introduction. There are places we all feel are “home” even if they’re not physically our homes. They invoke emotion in us that can’t usually be put into words, but today we’re going to try. Today’s (totally optional) prompt: Going Home

 When I was younger, we moved around a lot. So home always meant something different. Mostly it meant family though. Because we were always in a different city, had a different house. I never had the house with the pencil marks on the doorway, marking my brother and my growth.

But as an adult, living with my husband in Nashville, I always sort of thought "home" was where our stuff was. Like when you're on vacation and say I want to go home. Well, you mean your house, to sleep in your bed and smell the familiar smells and cuddle up on you own sofa to watch tv.

Until we moved to Pennsylvania, I believed this. However, once we were there, I never stopped saying "I want to go home" and he'd say, "oh, you're ready to go?" meaning leave whereever we are and go back to our house. but I meant Nashville. Home.

It's where I was at 18. It's where I was in my 20's. It's where I grew up, had bad and good things happen, learned to drive in traffic,  had my first apartment. When we would come to visit I felt like I was seeing a lover I'd missed for years and not realized it. I love that city. It's home. And I'm not back there yet, but home isn't so far away now....

Enough about me...

Today's post is my entry into this week's 100 Word Challenge, hosted by Velvet Verbosity. The 100 Word Challenge is an exercise in which we write exactly 100 words in response to the weekly prompt word.

Click the link to read the other entries-good stuff over there! This week's prompt word is: tremble.

Each week I talk, I write, I photograph. I capture moments in time that will be forgotten as soon as the papers, tossed in a corner and bound for recycling.

Capturing that one moment of small town life, it's amazing. For me, getting to tell someone's story is an honor.

A cancer survivor, wounded veterans cycling across the state, an artist with disabilities showing his work in a local exhibit. This was my week.

I am always humbled by the task of putting what I feel into words. I tremble in anticipation of the Wednesday delivery. It's my judgment day.

Release

Today's post is my entry into this week's 100 Word Challenge, hosted by Velvet Verbosity. The 100 Word Challenge is an exercise in which we write exactly 100 words in response to the weekly prompt word. Click the link to read the other entries–good stuff over there!

This week's prompt was inspired by last week's advice from Kurt Vonnegut and continues the thought of finding your voice.

“Every character should want something. Even if it is just a glass of water."
 

This week's post takes the same scene as before and shows it from another character's perspective. I hope I've captured that in this post.

Pacing, he wondered how long it would last. She was terrified of being restrained in any way. He couldn't stop thinking of the torture he knew she felt.

But she had to learn.

He stood watch outside the door all night, heard her struggle as she drifted in and out of awareness. If only she would relax and calm down. Sunlight flooded the kitchen. He checked his watch.

It was finally quiet, wind chimes playing in the breeze. His hand was hovering over the doorknob when he heard her whimper. He walked away, shaking his head.

She had to learn.

Batter Up!

The girl was cute, though dirty and bedraggled. She was watching me, fascinated, as I took pictures of the pee wee ball players running around the diamond, dust clouding up in the hot afternoon sun.

"May I take a picture of you?" I asked her. She glanced over at the older woman, her grandmother I assumed.

"Let her take your picture for the newspaper!" said the lady.

So I did. She smiled shyly and I snapped one picture. Her dress was so colorful and her wire-framed glasses had slid down the bridge of her nose. She looked up at me, smacking loudly on a mouthful of gum. I joked with her for a moment and moved on to finish up my work.

Moments later I was verbally accosted by the girl's mother for taking her picture. My good mood was immediately flattened like a bug on the windshield of a passing car. A trashy, dirty, dented-in, used-up, car. With part of the grill missing. And well over 200,000 miles on it.

"Kids enjoy having their pictures made. They love it. It doesn't mean I will put it in the paper. It's good for their self-esteem and obviously your daughter needs that," I said. I shouldn't have said it, but I did.

There's no telling what was going on with her. I don't know the whole story, and I always wonder when someone is so adamant about staying out of the paper. Explain why or don't, but there's no need for the anger.

It's always better to be nice with your request, assuming you know how to be civilized.

A New Year, A New Chapter

Yes, that's Charlie-the-editor behind me.
His excitement at having me around is palpable, isn't it?

Well, here it is. My official first-day-of-work photo. I am now a desk-sitting, daily-showering, non-pajama-wearing, travel mug-carrying, time clock-punching worker drone. With a bi-weekly paycheck. And benefits.

Today was my first day as a cub reporter at my hometown newspaper, the Franklin Favorite. Yep, I am getting paid to write, take pictures, and ctrl-c ctrl-v all day long, 5 days per week, 8 hours a day. Or 40 hours per week, which ever comes first. Overtime is forboden. I was told that before I ever had the job.

But who cares?! I have a deadline driven, nights and weekend working, every event in town attending job in which I get to do something I love.

I've been writing freelance for the paper for over a year now. When this job came open, I was asked to fill in on a temporary basis. I couldn't resist applying although honestly I sort of thought my lack of a journalism degree and I dunno, any experience whatsoever in the newspaper business would keep me from getting it. What can I say, the editor likes me, the people like me, and I pretty much told them that the longer they kept me around the harder it would be to get rid of me. Plus, I was already pretty much trained after 6 weeks of filling in....so.....I had that going for me.

Anyway, that was my day today. That's my life. Honestly.

The Swing

Today's post is my entry into this week's 100 Word Challenge, hosted by Velvet Verbosity. The 100 Word Challenge is an exercise in which we write exactly 100 words in response to the weekly prompt word. Click the link to read the other entries–good stuff over there! 

This week's prompt was "resistance". 

She wrapped her legs around the rope and settled herself on the round seat. Her feet barely touched the ground as she pushed back and launched herself. The light breeze offered no resistance and she flew, high and long, over the green summer lawn.

Suddenly life was still for a moment. Caught in that millisecond of hangtime between flying up and falling down. The feeling made her giddy and lightheaded, then made her stomach lurch as she began the inevitable descent. 

Years later she would remember that feeling, and wonder how to capture that perfect balance between flying and falling.