I never really got into podcasts (it was only recently that I accepted electricity as a trend that’s here to stay, and I’m still clutching my wide-brimmed hat about it.) I vaguely recall listening to This American Life back when I hung around a lot of people who were a little older than me and very into being aware of things so that one could be indignant about the things over craft beers. Most of those people, to the best of my knowledge, are now doing important work to better the things they helped teach me to be indignant about – which reminds me, I should remember to try more. And do better. Anyway, so, podcasts. Someone recently suggested I listen to “My Favorite Murder” because they know I am a person who loves murdering. Actually why they suggested it is a little unclear – the suggestion was based on the fact that I share a space 45+ hours/week with a human who is extremely challenging to share space with and others, including the podcast-suggest-er, are sympathetic. But the part that’s unclear is exactly in which way stories about murders are supposed to be helpful. Is it in like a, “life could be worse” kind of way? Or in a “I think you are a person who probably identifies with murderers” kind of way? Either way, it’s GREAT. The setup is casual, so it just feels like you’re hanging out with friends (especially if your friends don’t respond to you or acknowledge your presence in any way, and if you can’t SEE your friends you just hear their voices and also if your friends like to talk about dead people a lot.) I’ve been playing it while I get ready in the morning, and I can’t tell you what a treat it is to hear about women running into oncoming traffic while I smile into the mirror and dot blush onto the apples of my rosy, rosy cheeks. Such a pleasant way to greet the day.

I’m also listening to one called Sword & Scale, which is way more fascinating/upsetting. I tried to play one today at work but it had to do with kids and the dark web and it just got way too gruesome. Like even thinking about it now is making me want to throw up the sugar-free Jell-O pudding cup I just ate without a spoon.

The books that I’m reading are more cheerful – for example, I got a Kindle one for .99 (you know I can’t not) and in it the little boy escapes! from the secret, walled-off basement that his family is living in because his older brother raped and murdered a girl from their town who fell off a cliff. And the baby that the older sister has with the older brother is healthy! Another recent one (worth about 1/10th of the .99 it cost) about a girl who kills her roommate, assumes her identity, and then stalks the child she gave away for adoption. And not ALL of the post-apocalyptic ones have also been dystopian, exactly, so. I just bought/started reading Station 11 upon the recommendation of one of the girls on the murder podcast, so I’ve got pretty high hopes for a happy ending.

Also have not made the slightest of dents in the wall of books I already own and have yet to read. And if I divide how much I’ve PAID for the gym this year by how many times I’ve GONE, well, you know, math is hard.

That was an update on what I've been listening to/reading. Brought to you by 5PM EST.

I’m having a nice morning, besides being in an argument with Diego. He made me mad the other day and I annoyed him about it this morning and he (quite rudely) told me that I was being annoying and he went back to bed and I finished my oatmeal and left for work. The other thing that’s happening with us is that he gave me a pretty diamond ring so that people know we’re going to get married. I feel like the argument story sort of tempers the engagement story, which makes it a more comfortable thing for me to share. Listen – I like pretty dresses and sparkly rings and drinking, okay? So have your weddings. Really. I like them. I like you. But I want to die, a little you know?, when I think about having my own. We’ll be at city hall sometime over the next year, with a photographer (because I’m going to look amazing) and a bottle of champagne and then we’ll probably eat a fancy dinner and do something fun with two of our closest (only) friends.

Listen to this too, if you’re Diego (if you’re not you can listen, too, I mean I’m speaking pretty loudly how could you not):
I want to argue with you until one of us is dead.
/vows

While we’re on the topic of significant others, Arwen won’t eat the all-natural, all-organic, made-by-fairies-in-the-forest-especially-for-geriatric-cats-with-bad-attitudes food that I sacrificed six pedicures and twelve bottles of wine to pay for (two bottles of wine per pedicure, for those of you struggling with the math), she just looks at it and then at me like I’m her grandmother and she’s Cathy Dollanganger. She was marginally happier with me when I caved and started giving her ashes and the bones of other cats (that’s what Friskies is made out of, yeah?) because it’s what I know she’ll eat, but the guilt/worry is MADDENING. Also, when I googled “what is the best cat food” I was told by Google that I shouldn’t be giving her dry food at all. WHAT. I thought that cleaned their little cat teeth? Another wrong thing I am doing, apparently, is mixing her thyroid medication into Fancy Feast. Apparently that’s terrible, too. Everything is terrible. Anyway, other cat humans, please tell me what to do.

Winter here has been a season of getting away with something. For months we've been running our laundry down the street in long-sleeve tees and drinking our cocktails on the sidewalk. I don't know about everyone else - maybe it's the Irish Catholic asleep at the base of my spine, but guilt is a motivator much more universal than that so probably I know more about everyone else than I think I do - but it's been difficult to enjoy skipping down the street in Keds and my denim jacket (I'm trying more for Babysitter's Club than I am for Taylor Swift, but the look I'm actually achieving is probably my mom circa 1992. Which is fine, my mom was and remains a stone fox) without also looking over my shoulder in a worried sort of way.

Today is a snow day. I've fired up the latest round of B&BWs candles that I purchased and then forgot about until they showed up at my office in a box that weighs approximately as much as I do, and I've settled into my couch with a cup of coffee and the work I brought home with me. Arwen and Enya are keeping me company - Enya softly in the background and Arwen either in my way or knocking things over out of sight. In between, she's making use of the Amazon Fresh bags that have accumulated in my living room because I keep forgetting to set them out for pickup. Arwen, not Enya.

This storm is a relief. It's something we can all agree on, something we all know what to do with. Last night I went to the grocery store on my way home, not because I needed anything (thank you, Amazon Fresh) but because, like - that's what you do, before a storm. I bought ketchup and frozen tater tots and talked to my favorite cashier for longer than the person in line behind me appreciated. I told her to get home safe and stay warm and then I came home, because that's what you do in a storm. It's a comfort, in otherwise uncertain times, for people to know what to do.

The snow coming down feels correct - ah, here we go. Here is New York in winter. That's more like it.

Of course, now that I don't need to feel guilty about leaving my coat behind when I go out to get a coffee, what I feel guilty about is writing dumb-ass blogs about what a relief this blizzard is when there are people who don't have shelter or the resources to stay safe and warm at home with tater tots and ketchup and a boyfriend who will do most of the shoveling. Please Lindsay, tell us more about how you feel weird. It is endlessly fascinating and important.

There's a lot about living in this city that is wildly unreasonable. A lot. The absurdity is magnified when someone who doesn't live here comes to visit - mostly (not always, not every time - but mostly) people very much can't wait to get away from the complete ridiculousness that I and eight million others have settled into. Trying to make the people I love love this place is like trying to make them love me. It is an alien language that isn't taught, but uncovered. Winter is - what is winter, here? Winter is what it means to carve a life into this place. That's not specific to NYC, no. Winter is a multi-purpose metaphor. I guess what I'm saying is, I am not myself outside of this place and this place is not this place without winter. So I'm glad that it's decided to join us, today.

It was snowing so I took the train. There was an empty seat next to a young man in a big puffy coat, so I sat down in it. I did this even though he was drinking coffee out of a jam jar - a behavior I am equal parts admirable of and irritated by. I find that my morning commute is not ideal for feelings so divergent in nature, and yet. I sat. As we moved along toward the city and the jobs/appointments/whatever stupid things that required us to be out in the snow instead of inside our apartments drinking coffee and wearing soft pants, the young man replaced the lid on the jar and put it into his backpack after every sip. Lid off, sip. Lid on. Into the backpack. Beat. Beat. Out of the backpack. Lid off, sip. Lid on. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until finally he reached into his backpack and pulled out a small book instead of the jam jar. “Here we go,” I thought. “Something interesting is about to happen.” Isn’t there always, with people who drink hot things out of jam jars on trains?

There was a carpenter’s pencil inside the small book, which was actually a journal. I learned both of these things because I watched him open the book-that-was-a-journal, because I was looking for the interesting thing and in looking I could not help but watch.

The use of carpenter’s pencils by people who are not carpenters or in some related field is another thing I feel conflicted about. I imagine that the notes my dear doctor friend takes of our time together read much like a shopping list. Jam jars. Carpenter’s pencils. Diet coke.

“elpeets,” he wrote. That’s all, enough lines down that he was writing in the center of the page. “elpeets.”

I’m thinking about moving this show on over to Wordpress. I figured out the difference between the two (immediately after learning that there ARE two) and then almost spent real money on a domain name, until I realized that part of what I was paying for was for the server (right? That’s a name of a thing, right?) to NOT share my name and address? I have to pay for that!? I don’t even enable comments, never mind enabling you people to show up at my house WHICH YOU OBVIOUSLY WOULD. But whatever, I’ll probably maybe do that because there’s no Blogger app for iOS (that’s another name right? Am I right!?) and I just don’t have the time or the inclination these days to sit at a computer and write. (Not counting the last ten minutes of work, when I don’t have anything I feel like starting on before I blow this pop stand, but I want to look busy so I don’t have to talk to my office buddy, which is now.) I’m on my phone much more than I’m near a computer for fun reasons and not work reasons, and I think I’d like to blog more. I don’t know why I like it, I just do. So. We’ll see.

Two weeks ago my skin was like, “Hey Lindsay.”
And I was very busy so I just said, “That’s weird, that you’re talking to me. Because you’re skin.”
And then it was quiet for a while.

AND THEN. The angriest hives I’ve seen in real life OR in a kindergarten classroom OR on the internet erupted over three quarters of my body. Touché, skin.

AND THEN the steroids I was finally prescribed (only after an urgent care nurse and two doctors took turns being grossed out by me, plus a child in the waiting area) made me nauseated and lethargic and weepy. I ONLY missed four days of work, because luckily (LUCKILY) there was a weekend in there for me to lay and cry through. Unfortunately it was the weekend of the Women’s March, so instead of boarding a bus with my comrades I sat on my couch with tubes of cortisone and fist-pumped in solidarity to live-streamed speeches. I also made another donation to Planned Parenthood, partly out of commitment to the revolution and partly because I’m going to ask them to take the amount of my donations off the cost of my next abortion. Gotta look out for number one, you know?

The rash went away for about a week but over the last few days it’s been slooooowly coming back, like it thinks that if it’s veeery sneaky I won’t notice it’s there. Imagine a tiny red-haired child tiptoeing out of its bedroom (where it’s supposed to be napping because you put a million grams of steroids into its milk) as quietly as it can, and also the child is giggling because it’s evil, and also the child has a knife and it’s going to stab you in the skin with it. 

So that’s my life lately, plus also very sore leg muscles which I’m hoping aren’t related to the rash because I don’t have time to pay attention to my body’s shenanigans right now. Also I started therapy. He’s a sex therapist, which was a very entertaining thing to tell my mom. Also he’s helping me not want to punch strangers in the throat and/or burst into tears at the sight of them because their shirt triggered intense feelings of guilt, which is a very good thing for everyone. Also I haven’t finished reading any books like I said I was going to but I did buy a bunch of new ones like I said I wasn’t going to, so, you know, win-win. Also Arwen moved in with me and is happily stomping around on her tiny cat feet sprinkling her hair and  granules of the disgustingly expensive blue cat litter crystals I bought for her on every surface of my apartment. Also today I ate peanut butter straight out of the jar for lunch. 

Sometimes I want to live in a teeny tiny house on a very boulder-y beach (and waves have to be crashing onto the boulders, like, a lot) (and there have to be storms sometimes) (but the storms never knock over my little baby house) (but sometimes they blow interesting objects onto my doorstep though). My hair will be long enough so that I can tie it around my ankles when it gets very windy, and all the sea creatures will tell me how nice it looks and I will tell them that it’s because of all the salt that gets in it and they will say we know, we are sea creatures. We live in the sea. And I will pick up sea glass and look at it and say thank you to the water for making such a lovely thing, and then I will put it back because someone else might like to look at it too. And if it’s in my house, then they’d have to come inside to look at it (and I’d rather they didn’t) (but sometimes I might watch them from my eensy weensy window) (which will be round and have a seat underneath) (and sharing the things I think are lovely makes me happy, even though the sharing makes me tired). 

currently eating currants but not really

Currently not cleaning my mirror. Not now, not ever. 

Feeling itchy. So okay, the backs of my legs are almost always itchy and have been for a lot of years and I don’t know why. Especially the little secret parts behind my knees. Sometimes in the shower I put the water on as hot as it will go and lean forward so that only the bottom part of my body is under the faucet and let it throw hot water on my stupid itchy legs while I balance my weight on the very not-sturdy shelf I put together at the end of the tub and listen to Amberlynn Reid on Youtube via the brand-new phone Diego got me for Christmas that I’m not only using to watch trolls on the internet in my very wet bathroom but have also already dropped into a bowl of eggs and cinnamon that I was using to make French toast and I think, “This is why everybody hates you.” But it feels good for a minute. The hot water. Anyway I’d been at work for about an hour this morning when I noticed one of my elbows was very itchy, so I kept scratching it and finally I looked at it and it’s all red and puffy. My legs usually aren’t. When they’re itchy. Usually they’re not red either but they are often quite puffy. Then it was my other elbow, and up my arm a little, and now the FRONT PARTS of my legs are getting itchy but I can’t check and see if they’re red because you’re supposed to keep your pants on at work mostly. I guess I could go in the bathroom but also I don’t want to take my pants off, like that’s why I quit ballet when I was a kid because I didn’t like that I couldn’t wear underwear with the leotard and something about taking my underwear all the way off and putting the tights and the leotard on and taking the tights and the leotard back off and putting my underwear back on just seemed like a lot of effort for one night of sequin-y glory a year. Also my mom yelled at me because I kept moving around while she was trying to put makeup on my face and I cried because my bun was too tight and both of my armpits are rashy and itchy too, now. And my scalp a little too.

Anticipating the Women’s March on Saturday. Look, guys:

Things I Like To Do in Parks 

Read. 

Sneakily imbibe. 

Lay quietly. 

Maybe swing. 

Things I Do Not Like To Do in Parks 

Exercise. 

Most group activities. 

Be physically uncomfortable (see also: most group activities). 

Things I Like To Do on Sidewalks

Walk. ALONE. 

I don’t have the right temperament for a lot of demonstration-like activities, and also I not-so-secretly think that most of the “protests” that’ve blipped on my personal radar are way too vague and not nearly well-thought-out enough to have any meaningful impact. (I’m not saying protesting is stupid, just that I’ve seen a whole hell of a lot of stupid protests. Be wise with your resources, sweet summer children.) I also don't want to involve myself in anything hateful, even if the hate is directed toward something I don't like.

However I do believe that protesting can be VERY powerful and impactful, if executed correctly, so in that spirit I will be participating on Saturday. I’m very lucky because the company I work for is paying for a bus for anyone who wants to go. Also there will be sandwiches on the bus. (“So basically you need there to be a free bus full of sandwiches in order for you to stand up for anything,” you said. “YES OBVIOUSLY THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I AM SAYING,” I replied. “YOU REALLY NAILED IT. ALSO I NEED TEGAN AND SARA AND GLORIA STEINEM TO BE THERE AND THEY’RE ALL IN SO I AM ALSO IN.”)

Truthfully the anticipation is erring a bit on the edge of nervousness – I fully expect to walk directly into a shit show, but I also fully expect that everyone get to go about their lives without being dehumanized. Or, you know, be forced to LIVE in a shit show. So. Here we are.

Eating steamed broccoli. I only need twenty-nine bags of it per day to feel almost satiated!

Bleeding moderately, as of this afternoon. Which I at first thought might make this weekend rather inconvenient, but then I realized that when life gives you a uterus you could potentially use its product to make a political statement, say, on the lawn of the White House. (I don’t know why our organizer feels the need to continually remind me that “this is a peaceful gathering” and “nothing should happen that you could get arrested for” and on and on and on. Like, I get it lady, geez.)

Wishing I still had my purple Lion King sweat suit (also The Little Mermaid one) to wear to The Lion King on Sunday. Or to wear to anywhere, really.

Feeling also tired now because I took some Benadryl because of being so itchy. I guess it’s harder to feel itches when you’re sleeping.

Today! is my birthday.

But this is about yesterday, because the fun part of today hasn't happened yet, so I haven't taken any pictures. And everyone knows that Successful Blogs have pictures.

Yesterday was the last day I was twenty-seven years old.

It was probably the last day I could keep my Christmas decorations up at my desk (I say probably because I'm going to leave them there until someone actually SAYS something and doesn't just silently side eye the glitter):

I've officially gone on my last coffee date as a twenty-seven-year-old human:

I got caught taking #basic photos of my free birthday Starbucks for the last time as a twenty-seven-year-old:

And I ate shitty Mexican food at my favorite shitty Mexican place with my favorite not-shitty Mexican for the last time as someone who had not yet been alive for twenty-eight years:

I also went to the gym yesterday, for the last time as a you-know-what, but I didn't take any pictures of that because I prefer to black out and/or suppress such times of pain and hardship rather than document them. I've spent the last two weeks starving off eight pounds so that I can eat lobster macaroni and cheese and pats of fancy butter tonight without wanting to throw myself in front of a train. I'm also working on finding a therapist, to discuss my strained relationship with lobster and macaroni and cheese. (I hate health insurance, which is something I'd like to discuss with you, my gentle reader, but I'd like that to be on a day where I haven't just spent the last four hours canceling hair appointments because it started snowing and I will be GOSH DAMNED if I pay someone to brush my hair for me just to have it wrecked by nature on the way home and drinking three-dollar beers and trying to iron my new dress without fucking it up with those weird white marks that appear on everything else I iron ever. Here is my to-do list: 1. Find a therapist. 2. Learn how to iron. 3. This isn't a real to-do list.) 

WHY DOES EVERYTHING TAKE SUCH DARK TURNS. I'm in a very good mood about this birthday. I woke up this morning and stretched my toes and thought, "This is going to be such a good year, I can tell." And I know I really meant it because Morning Lindsay is generally a bit of a nihilist. 

Last night I had a dream about that girl I made up, who I keep meaning to tell you about - I just haven't picked the right words out yet. I may need to invent some. She usually motivates me to curl my hair and write things, though, so I think that's what I'll be doing. I miss her a lot, for someone I never met.