The Deliberate Mermaid

In this blog format my writing style can come off as cryptic. To date I’ve only had one visitor: me. So I don’t really need to concern myself with any literary performance to speak of.

What’s developed?

So much that it’s hard to list it all so I’ll try to distill it as best I can.

Mardi Gras (Mardi Sans-Gras) just passed this week. The country has been in some form of a shut down from coast to coast since Covid-19 made it’s fashionably late arrival last year. I say “fashionably late” because, it seems, it was here, but remained “unannounced” due to official malpractice in U.S. American politics. So Mardi Gras last year was a super spreader event, it seems- but how were we to know? Now we, the people, have largely been holed up for a year, and it’s starting to weigh on us. Our imperfections are glaring through, TikTok and Netflix(Bridgerton) are major distractions and in the deep South, public school students resumed their academic year back in August. So, as a teacher, we’re still doing the day-in, day-out M-F regime except that we have the lovely added hurdle of “no. mask goes above your nose” 80+ times a day. Lucky us, though! Teachers are NOW OFFICIALLY allowed to be vaccinated come Monday. Today is Friday. In February during 2021. Teachers have been without vaccines and teaching IN PERSON since the beginning of August.

It’s still teaching. It’s still the worst. My feelings about my current career have become abundantly clear this year. So it’s time to make some moves!

So understandbly, come the SHUT DOWN, my husband and I reveled in it. It suited both of our work styles, our home style, our diet style, our exercise style- ALL OF IT. It was amazing and we miss that.

Once April and May rolled through and I was deep into virtual teaching, it became apparent that we wouldn’t be returning to school (to teach) for the 2019-2020 school year. Once I had shed my sham-tears, all I had to do at some point was “pack up for summer” after my virtual classes ended. And so, we left for our previously planned Alaska summer two weeks early, as long as I promised not to tell my coworkers, per my employer.

That summer in Homer, Alaska was definitive for us. We would make a decision that would contour the rest of our lives. And it is, admittedly, a privileged place to be, isn’t it? To perch safely and be able to plan the next phase(s) of your life in the spirit of optimism and options? Shut downs did not affect us like it did so many of my friends and colleagues. It elevated us. It provided enough clearing in the day-to-day doldrums for us to clearly see our option. So here we are.

We purchased a home, a BEAUTIFUL home, with a spectacular view of the Kachemak Bay. Not a mountain cabin. Not a cottage. But an artist’s home. We’ve owned it for about 8-9 months now and we’re still thrilled. We were able to “live” in it for about 2 weeks before locking it up for the rest of the year while we returned to our Southern home. It needs quite a bit of furniture and a few updates but I’m SO READY to dive in that I can hardly stand it. So maybe this will become a B&B blog?

Shit’s Wild! Roll with it!

Today is the 2nd Tuesday of self-isolation. Kind of.  I’ve only really been out to go to the store.  I made one poor decision to visit a local farm supply place to get gardening gloves- but i didn’t need to actively “socially distance” myself because nobody was there except for a couple who spoke Spanish and were looking at the chicks and ducklings, and the lanky guy at the check out.  He scanned the gloves and I made eye contact with him.  Then I just shook my head and said “shit’s wild, man.”

”That, it IS.”

Kthanksbye.  And that was it for my outing.  That was what? Last Wednesday? 

If every day could be like today except for one major hang up (the obvious one that keeps us in our homes and isolated, presently) I think I would be happy and be a better person.
While my husband works from home, I’m free to self-care. I’m required to check my email three times a day. Is this the case for everyone? No. Am I bored? Yes. Am I finding my way through it by finally pulling weeds because the weather is amazing? Likely.

It’s early Spring, though, and in Louisiana, it is short-lived.

I miss my peers at work. I wish I could invite them over for a beer or some of whatever I’m cooking (which is another fun journey I’m getting to indulge).

I’ve become increasingly aware of carpenter bees as they’re, again, making their presence(s) known. They fight eachother. I enjoy witnessing that.  And the lizards who have become more and more comfortable with my presence in the front yard each day.

Ive gotten the answer to my question about the dogs, “What do they do all day?” The answer is this. They lay in the shade and bark at the neighbors. They’re good at just being. Madge, the Great Dane, looks like a sleeping lion in the grass.  

I had a few days where the anxiety was doing a number on me. The news had me in such a state that I just clung to my husband on the couch and I shut my eyes because I felt like I was one of the people who got buried alive in Pompeii. But that feeling passed, and I’m thankful for that.

Sitting in the shade on my front steps.  Watching too many people pass-by on the highway in front of my house.  There is a family moving into the apartments just across from us.  Someone at the mechanic shop across the street is yelling at their (what I hope is  a) dog.

Too many cars are passing by.  What are these people NOT getting about STAY THE EFF HOME?

Honestly, I forgot I started this blog. Sorry.
I’ll try to do better?  Likely not. But. We shall see.
I still don’t have a purpose for it. Maybe I’ll finally take my mom’s advice and make it an anecdotal record of my more-absurd interactions with students.

Eh, despite my previously strongly held belief that I am amazing, I’ve come to realize I am not that interesting and that nobody wants to make a movie like Julie&Julia or Eat Pray Love about my life. I don’t see this blog getting turned into a book.  But doing things besides turning my brain to mush with whatever video streaming service piques my interest at the time is ideal.  TV isn’t really a pleasure anymore.  It’s the chore now.  Taking in the news has become a chore.


And with that, I’ll end this for today.
Thanks for reading.

Where I get ultra-inspired and then suddenly my interest falls off the planet.  I can’t even remember my other silly solitarily attempted blogs.

They don’t matter now.  I’ve made peace with that.  Those loose ends don’t stress me out anymore-I hope.

I’m approaching the end of my third-year-of-teaching’s Spring Break.  I’m also approaching my first wedding anniversary.  Wedding Anniversary? The significance of caps here is lost on me now.  Is it a holiday?  Are we special-enough for caps?

Whatever.  Spring Break means I’m at home and he’s buried a mile deep in tax season duties at his office.  Would that only neither of us ever had to work or pay for things or clean things or be apart.

I happen to be that person who feens for other people.  Not my husband, though.  He’s good news.  The people I’m talking about in this instance are the “friends” I imagine I have.  I feen for a sitcom situation where people make quippy remarks at each other and other people wish they were us as the studio-audience laughs because we’re SO FUN and SO SMART and BEYOND FUNNY.  So much so, in fact that I’ll unconsciously pull people into my life who don’t necessarily need to be there in as much of a capacity as I’ll award them.  As my mom puts it , “Holly. You’ve GOT to stop crossing oceans for people who won’t hop over a puddle for you.”  She’s right, I know. I KNOW.  She’s also right about how I need to get healthy if we’re thinkingabouthavingababyorjustevenforyourselfbecauseyourbodyneedstocarryyouthroughyourlifeandIknowyouresickofmesayingthisbutIjustworrysweetheartandareyoukeepingupwithyourmedicationokokIllstop.  And she’s right.  She speaks from experience as a body worker but I’m a Millennial (or, so I’m told) and I just can’t even sometimes, ya know?

Today, Friday, the last official day of NOT TEACHING during this Spring Break.  Normally I’d call a friend and cheat on my husband with food that doesn’t support what “we’re trying to accomplish at home.”  Waffle House for Breakfast or St. Roch Market  if we’ve just gotten paid.  Normally I’d be broadcasting my life via texts to those who don’t hop the puddles.

Today, Friday: I’m not doing that.

Today, Friday:  I find myself restraining myself from that.  The puddle thing has made itself very clear and apparent and a girl’s got to preserve her pride somehow.

Instead, I seek out a different friend of a different facet who’s in a phase of her life that I’m slowly approaching.  She’s been there the whole time and it’s not new for me to talk to her- but i think the fact that she’s got juggling her own children “down” along with her sense of power and humor intact is something I can learn from.  She’s not a “hands off” kind of person when feelings get messy.  She’ll tell me if I spilled something on myself.  We both don’t suffer fools and I’m good with that.

Today, Friday: I’m making a social media decision.  I’m doing what my husband did and am taking Facebook off of my phone.  I’m keeping my Instagram, which is connected to Facebook so my aunts and uncles and whoever doesn’t miss out on the glamour that is my life taking my adorable fur baby to the dog park.  I’d be remiss if I deprived them of that.  However I shan’t be checking the “likes” with the craze of a drug addict.  You know what they say about social media and how our brains are dying because of chemicals being released in our brains based on Maslow’s hierarchy and memes and thumbs ups and feeling connected and wanted and how it makes you feel about yourself and how what they say, and they say, and they say.

So, if people want to read what I have to say, they can-here.  And if they don’t, I’m not bugging anyone, GREAT! Win-win!

Today, Friday:  I went for a run.  I’m not a runner.  I’m too self-conscious, generally.  Today it occurred to me to turn the music up when you hate how you you sound breathing like a farm animal because then you can’t hear it and use it as an excuse.  I exercised outside, in the SUN for 38 minutes.  I didn’t actually run for 38 minutes.  But next time I do I’ll run for a longer portion of it.  The total distance I went was 1.something mile(s).   I listened to a spotify playlist called “Fun Run” and this song played and I cried.  A weird cry.  One of those cries you have when you get emotional during sex.  It was a cathartic cry.  I think it was a good thing.  So now, I’m inspired to write about it.

So yea-cool.