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Frog from Diddy Kong Racing

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8/7/2021 - This Whole Life Is So Weird

8/7/2021 – This Whole Life Is So Weird

I don’t know why I’m even bothering to write here after so long, but…life got weird, didn’t it? Since about 2015, it just really, really ramped up. And the last year and a half completely doubled down. And apart from life in general being so damned weird (living through probably SEVERAL chapters in our future grandkids’ History books), it’s just been weird as hell for me personally, too. Not…

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09-13-2020 Dream Journal

I dreamed that me, my friend Karla, and my online friend Angela went shopping for Halloween decor. That’s all. Nothing special about that under normal circumstances. But with this pandemic, I want nothing more than to go shopping with friends, and Angela and I had been talking about Halloween stuff the evening before, so it made its way into my dream. I miss normal life.

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We All Have A Crazy Ex

Leaving this blank for now cuz someone apparently still can’t move on even after nearly 2 decades.

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3-7-2020 Dream Journal

I dreamed my online friend Jim came down from Toronto with his drums, and my old high school friend Justin came over from a couple of towns over with his guitar, and I had my bass, and we played a bunch of old grunge songs in my garage. Then Billy got home from work and he sang for us. It was quite a lovely dream! It’s been a long, long time since I got to play music with friends. Kinda made me…

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38 With Daddy Issues

38 With Daddy Issues

I don’t know where to start this story, but I’ve been sitting on it for a long, long time, trying to piece together my thoughts before I put them down in black and white.

I’m a 38 year old woman with daddy issues.

It was when I was a tween that I first felt myself losing respect for my father. It was then that I first started grasping what kind of selfish and awful person he was. When I…

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The Grandmaster Has Anosmia

The Grandmaster Has Anosmia

I have put entirely too much thought into this scene and have come to the conclusion that The Grandmaster has anosmia.

Exhibit A – The Grandmaster seems to react to the gruesomeness of the scene, but not to the stench. He doesn’t cover or even wrinkle his nose, or otherwise appear to react to a smell at all.

Exhibit B – When Thor yells “Oh, the smell!” Grandmaster turns and asks Topaz…

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Oh My Gaaawd. Just Roll Already!

Oh My Gaaawd. Just Roll Already!

I love playing board games with my family, but I fucking HATE the kind of board game where you’re playing a brand-new, unique scenario every time. It’s literally the worst parts of board games, used as a game mechanic. Ooh, “fun”! We get to listen to someone read the instructions aloud multiple times, but with a different inflection on each read, while we all argue over our understanding of…

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I'm So Sick of Winter

I’m So Sick of Winter

I freakin’ hate winter. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Snow is wet and horrible, being cold makes me feel anger, there’s not enough hours of daylight, I have to wear long sleeves and pants and socks all the time, and I’m not motivated to do anything but sit on my couch and mope. Winters aren’t normally too bad in Oklahoma cuz it does actually stay reasonably mild most of the time with short cold…

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Really?...Really? Pumpkin spice garbage bags? 😐 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp5-UKJH76k/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1jfq1fu3irrzr

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Ohhhh, this has been the funnest (it’s a word now) extended weekend in a long while.

Saturday morning, Billy and I went to the park and played Pokemon for a while, then we had lunch together and bought groceries. That evening was Billy’s birthday dinner. He likes to go to this teppanyaki place in the city every year, but I’m allergic to onion and there’s onion in fucking EVERYTHING and they cook it right there at the table and I always wind up sick, so we had talked about it a couple of days before and I told him that I didn’t want him to cancel his dinner, but that I was choosing not to go this year. So he and Faye went and met up with his gaming buddies and it sounds like they had a fun time.

Meanwhile, I had the house to myself all evening (something I haven’t had for any significant length of time in a year or more) so I spent my evening playing Final Fantasy with MY gamer buddies Hayley, Jim, and Josh. We had fun; talking and being stupid on voice chat, requesting songs on Jim’s Alexa doohickey, cracking up over Macho Man Randy Savage’s rap album, killing ugly monsters together, etc. Billy and his gamer buds (and of course the kiddo) all came back to the house around 10:00 to play Nintendo Switch and some board game one of them brought, so I took my laptop to my nail salon room and wound up playing with my group until way, way, way past my bedtime, haha.

Sunday evening, Faye and I went to see an old school friend of mine perform with his choral group, Chanticleer, in OKC. Adam and I grew up in school and had choir together for many years throughout middle and high school, so it was absolutely wonderful to be able to see him perform, and makes me super proud for him that he’s able to travel the world and make a living doing what he has always loved! And we got there super early, so we got to sit front row center and get a wonderful view. Of course I had to find him for a hug afterward.

Monday, we all loaded up in the car around 1:00 and drove up to Tulsa. We bought VIP tickets to see Julien K, The Birthday Massacre, and Jonathan Davis of Korn. We stopped first at the children’s museum. We expected more than they offered (it was really just one big room with a few interesting hands-on gadgets), but we all still had fun for about half an hour. After that, we went to the Greenwood Cultural Center since we did a unit on the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot at the end of last school year. It wasn’t terribly engaging for someone her age, but it was quite informative anyway. After that, we got some dinner and then went to wait in line for the concert. We were only the second car in the parking lot, haha.

We always get VIP tickets to The Birthday Massacre cuz they’re our favorite band, and awesome people, and we wanna support ’em any way we can. Jim — (back up a minute…Jim-my-gamer-buddy is their drummer, but they have a Phil-in drummer [Get it? Cuz his name is Phil. That was Owen’s joke] this tour cuz Jim couldn’t go for personal/family reasons this time. Sometimes it feels pretty surreal that the drummer for my favorite band of the last 13 or so years has become an online friend in recent months…but then I remember that he insisted a whale was a fish because it has fins and that he also made me listen to Conway Twitty Christmas songs in October, and I get over it, haha) — anyway, Jim had told me to tell the crew hi, so I did, and Chibi was like ��Is that a friend that couldn’t come?” so I had to tell her I meant her Jim, so that was fun to report back. “I told Chibi hi for you. She says hi back.” I also brought a few small, silly gifts for Rainbow’s lovely wife cuz I’ve been talking to her on Instagram recently and she’s a lover of all things creepy like I am. Chibi remembers me as “Toni-with-an-I,” and always gives Willow a shout-out from the stage, which just makes her whole year every time. I just love them to pieces, and feel privileged that I’ve gotten to see them play so many times.

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Their show was AMAZING, as always. Julien K killed it, too, and of course Jonathan Davis kicked all of the ass.

Yesterday was Billy’s birthday. We didn’t do anything extra — he requested his favorite meal and then we went to bed early to catch up on all the sleep we’ve lost over the past few days. And of course today is Halloween, so we’ve got plans with my sister to take our kids trick-or-treating, and then I might be playing some more Final Fantasy with my friends this evening when we get home. But this was a super fun weekend, and not one I wanna forget!

Funnest Week! Ohhhh, this has been the funnest (it's a word now) extended weekend in a long while.

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His favorite spot to sit and watch the birds. https://www.instagram.com/p/BpK2Hm8B_tPD2zUBaagXm6NRNiXfo4tbpgJSyc0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1n2rdh0t6xzq7

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"Excuse me, bunny? You're drinking out of MY water bowl." https://www.instagram.com/p/BpIVsiNBlcpmSAqRz-8XnKUYyXyxHD36hCqYMo0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1lizyfoia1935

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One of my absolute favorite video games is called Harvest Moon (A Wonderful Life/Another Wonderful Life, depending on whether you play the boy or girl version). It's this adorable farming simulator -- the inspiration for Stardew Valley -- where you raise crops and fruit trees and farm animals, but also fish and dig at the archaeology site and buy and sell goods and make friends and strike up a romance and get married and raise a kid. The friends you make, the items you give your child, and the paths you yourself take all factor into the ultimate goal of the game -- raising your child and seeing how they turn out; whether they take over the farm or move to the city; become a rancher or a scholar or an archaeologist or a doctor, etc. I think I'm living this game right now, and that's alright with me. Willow may not wanna be a planet-saving scientist or an Egyptologist or a senator or any of the dozen other things she's expressed interest in throughout her childhood. Maybe she just wants to raise chickens and bees when she grows up. No matter what, I want her to be happy in her life.

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Sweet Halloween babies! https://www.instagram.com/p/BosMec2BCxtwi3PcjoU-vkonQmVwBFHmNdxGxY0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1kqn58fbo4uh1

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"Whatcha eatin'?" https://www.instagram.com/p/BorgcN7hFSqrz7gianMjKs6chXJDFLxhKcy4dg0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=vw9f6o46s7y9