Random project that may or may not get done

Many, many years ago I bought a metal tree to display photos that hangs on my wall. It is, at this point, thoroughly covered in photos. So many, actually, that no one can even tell that it's a tree, and the photos instead look like a big blob of pics hanging from a wall somehow. Some of the photos need to be removed.
Here's the problem: In know which pics would make more sense to remove, but what does that really say about this moment in my life? Like, pics of beloved friends that maybe aren't as close anymore don't really belong there, when they're taking space from a pic of Howie and Sydney, or a pic of Gramps. There isn't enough space for pics of all of my dogs because there are so many pics of, say, just me and Sydney.
I get that to add photos, I'll need to remove photos, and to have space, I'll have to remove way more than I'll replace. It actually won't be too easy. ... PROJECT!

So you know, the photo tree wall hanging is so old that I can not find a single photo of it on the internet. I won't take a picture of mine because it's COVERED in pictures that I don't want to post to the internet. And the one that's not covered in photos is downstairs and I'm lazy. So what you've got for art is a picture of a pile of pictures that aren't mine.

So this thing happened a couple weeks ago

It's been kinda weird to think about it, because knowing now what we know, it wasn't really a terrible, terrible, terrible situation, so much as a singularly terrible situation.
Mom, Sydney and I were eating lunch at The Cheesecake Factory when visiting Mom earlier this month. It was Sydney's choice for lunch, and Mom and I were all in, because Cheesecake is delicious. We were seated in the atrium section of the restaurant, which is a blocked-off area with about 25 tables in it, outside of the restaurant proper and in the mall entry area. We had already ordered, and in fact, had our food, though we were only about halfway done with it.
At some point, I distinctly remember hearing footsteps, a lot of them, and they were getting heavier and louder and faster as they got closer to us. And I remember seeing one woman, with blond hair, actually running toward the mall doors, and she was clutching her bags to her side. The man with her was holding her by the arm, and he was running, too.
Then we started hearing the calls, the shouts: "Gun" "Shooter" "Get Out" "Run" "Shooting."
... And then all the people started running. It was like a wave as people in the booths at the restaurant started jumping up, grabbing each other and hurtling toward the exit. I heard glasses and plates getting knocked over. I heard some screaming, I think, and more people shouting to get out, just leave.
Mom and Sydney were across from me, and in an instant, Mom had grabbed Sydney but the arm and was pulling her out of the booth. I slid out, too, and we crouched on the floor by the end of the table, as others around us were huddled here and there. I reached back into the seat to grab my purse and phone, and having secured them, I grabbed Sydney's other arm and we all made our way up a couple tables closer to the exit. People were still running and yelling, and for the moment, huddling where we were was the best way to assess the situation.
But then I was like, "No. Keep moving."
I gripped Syd's arm tighter and looked at Mom. I'm not sure if I said anything or not, but I knew that as I got more securely to my feet again, she would be right behind us. And we ran. We were crouched and keeping our heads down, and running to the exit.
Can there ever be air sweeter and cooler than what we breathed as we got outside? I'm not sure. In the parking lot, people were grouped into circles, and everyone was pretty obviously terrified. We stopped there, just as a car from the sheriff's department drove up. The officer jumped out of the car: "Have you seen anyone leave with a gun?" None of us had. A guy asked him what we should do now. "Just leave," he said. He cocked his own shotgun and made his way to the mall entry, taking up position just outside the door.
So we just left. We got in the car, and were stuck in traffic leaving the parking lot. And I was reading Twitter. All the reports there claimed an "active shooter" situation. We were panicked that we were there. I slid into the backseat to keep Sydney calmer as we left. I kept refreshing my Twitter feed, knowing that it was the only real source of information currently on top of it all.
What happened: A divorced guy walked into a store and shot and killed his ex-wife, who worked there, then turned the gun on himself, but lived. It was a "targeted" shooting.
This, in the grand scheme of things, makes the entire day easier to process because we, as a general populace, weren't in any real danger from this guy. But let me tell you, those few minutes, moments, seconds were among the most terrifying of my life. The powerlessness and helplessness of thinking that there's a guy with a gun roaming and shooting, and not caring who he hurt or killed, is the worst kind of horror.
Like I said, it's easier to process, but I vividly remember the fear of those moments, and the very real emotion in assuming we were fleeing for our lives, and it won't be anything I ever forget.

Three-leafed clovers in abundance

I've gotten pretty obsessed with gardening and plants over the last few years, and I'm almost considering myself something of a green thumb. I've had wild successes, and I've had failures that have crashed and burned spectacularly.
What I've learned: Berries absolutely will not survive a summer in Arizona. Lavender, surprisingly, does well in the desert. Repotting a rose bush won't always work out as well as you'd like, but at least the plant hasn't died, so there's hope still. I can grow an apple orchard.
My current little project is the shamrock plant over there. It looks terrible right now, but something that I've noticed is that it looks like this every single night. And during the day? Especially when the sunshine is coming in through that window in the afternoon? It is bright, perky, happy and full. This plant loves its sunshine. [Editor's Note: I've updated this post with a pic of the shamrock plant from this afternoon (bottom photo.) It's so happy right now!]

My plan for it this weekend is to repot it into a real plant pot so I don't have to worry about watering it every two days. The additional pot soil will keep it wet longer, and give it some room to spread out its roots. Of course, it'll stay right there on the dining room table for a while. Perhaps for the entire summer. I may or may not make room for it on the plant stand by the other window, but my main priority right now is to keep it comfortable and happy.
It's really a pretty awesome little plant. I'm happy to have taken it from my mother and brought it home.

I wonder if Jessica Jones pays taxes

It's official; I can't do our taxes alone anymore. Like, I know that there are better numbers here, but I seem to be incapable of finding them. So, as last year, I will print out all the forms, and Brian and I will work on them together this weekend.
Why we ever thought that I, with my limited abilities with math and whatnot, would be able to take care of the tax thing is pretty crazy. And last year's tax burden was entirely my fault. Kinda. I think. But now I have zero exemptions from my paycheck. I don't understand where the numbers are messing with me. I know I'm missing boatloads of deductions, but Turbo Tax isn't helping (as it didn't last year, too).
And again, as it was last year, the taxes will become a "married filing jointly" activity.

But for now, I only have one episode left of Jessica Jones, and I'm going to go watch it before it gets too much later. We were initially going to watch the show together, but then Brian started without me, and then I caught up and passed him, and now I'm almost done and he's still stuck on the fourth or fifth episode or something. And I really, really need to know what happens next, and I don't want to wait until tomorrow to see.

I'm old school; get me the CD

I'm plugged into my phone right now and listening to U2 through my ear buds. The song playing is "Dancing Barefoot," which is one of my faves.
It brings to thought a realization and irritation I've had recently, though. Usually, I buy the new U2 albums on CD and play them in my car on repeat until I know them front and back.
Last year, I asked for the new album, "Songs of Experience" specifically in CD form. Brian got me the iTunes gift card that I wanted, but not the CD. His thought process: "No one buys CDs anymore, and you can just listen to it off your phone through the auxiliary cable."
All that is absolutely true. But here's the problem: I never plug in my phone to listen to anything unless it is a specific song and instance. Beyond that, it's a bit too much of a random inconvenience for me to plug my phone into the car.
So here I am: I have the album I wanted on my phone, but I never listen to it.
And in the car, I'm listening to old U2, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars and Meghan Trainor on repeat because I like those CDs a whole lot.
I want to like the new U2 a whole lot, too, but the lack of availability is making it hard.
hashtag firstworldproblems

I mean, look at him; he's way hotter

I've got the movie Assassin's Creed playing in my bedroom right now, and I'm kinda watching it for the 1,000th time. It's not a terribly good movie. In fact, it's super disappointing for what a lover of the video game would have wanted. I am a lover of the video game. I think Brian only played one of the many Assassin's Creed games, but I dug it.
Actually, I won't lie to you, I think the main guy is pretty hot. He fulfills all my random badass dude fantasies, and is totally kickass in the game. So when Michael Fassbender was hired to play the main guy in the movie, I was pretty intrigued.
Intrigued enough to make Brian go see the flick with me the first weekend it opened. But I left the movie deflated and irritated. It's slow, and not doing much of anything. If it was meant to be an origin story, it fulfilled that, but to a boring and weird degree. The whole going back in time thing is convoluted, and in my opinion, it would have been better to just be the assassin in the older time period.
Fassbender is another matter entirely. I read an interview with him from the time and he admitted that he'd never even seen the game or played it at all before signing on. So I'm all, "Wait. You signed on for this slow, boring and convoluted movie without the excuse of already loving the game or protagonist?" Again. Weird.
I feel like I keep watching the movie hoping that maybe this time, it'll be better. Maybe this time, I'll see something in it that I hadn't seen before. Maybe this time, it'll be worth my time. But alas, I continue to be disappointed by it and its very dramatic music and close-ups.
I should start playing the games myself, just so I can spend time with the hot, adventurous assassin.

When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way

I wrote a thing yesterday, but I don't like how it came out, so I'm starting with something else today.
Also, now I'm super annoyed at my puppy, who just vacuumed up the dusties under my desk with her mouth. So gross. Oliver used to do that when his stomach was upset and he wanted to throw up. Looking forward to seeing if that's Elliot's motivation, too, and to cleaning it up if, in fact, that is the case.
Sydney and I watched some West Side Story tonight. We landed on it about 10 minutes into it, which is fine because those opening credits are ridiculously long. While watching, I had to explain the concept of street gangs, and then the concept of street gangs that danced and sang instead of actually fighting. She didn't seem too impressed that I could sing the Jets song, but when it was time to go upstairs and go to bed, she did set the DVR to record, so she could finish it later. I'm excited to add this one to the Summer Movie List, which is rapidly growing beyond what I had anticipated.
I'm thinking maybe a movie every afternoon, after my work on the weeks she's not in camp, and after camp on the days that she is busy. We have about three different Summer Movie Lists in three different places, and I need to consolidate them.
I think I was about Sydney's age when my mom made me sit and watch West Side Story for my first time with he, and she cried at the end. I've still never cried at the end, after several viewings, but I anticipate that my emotionally sensitive daughter will cry. So I guess I've got that to look forward to.

Just a few things for today

THING 1: Tonight, we establish the routine. I sit here, at the computer. With my little desk lamp on so I feel like I'm in the mood. My hot tea sits next to me, though it's still too hot to drink at this moment and all I can taste is the nasty ginger-lime Diet Coke I drank after my dinner. (I will not do that again.) It's a bit earlier than I figured I would be here, but Sydney is taking a shower, and Brian has begun watching science on the TV downstairs, so the computer was calling to me.
I saw my article for the magazine today, and the byline with it, and it's weird how motivating that is for me right now. I've not gotten any compliments on the piece, but it wasn't thrashed and trashed, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.
I have a coworker who thinks that I am the end-all, be-all of editors though, and that this is the beginning of some kind of editorial revolution at the magazine. I'm like, "Nah, I'm good. I like my little part-time gig, with minimal effort or responsibility." Still, I may not rebel against the idea of writing some of the smaller, puffier pieces that they may want in the future. If, in fact, they do want more from me in the future. ... IT'S ALL A GRAY AREA, is what I'm saying.
I hate that these kids who were in grade school when I was writing for my first job are in charge of this particular fate.
THING 2: I noticed, yet again since now it's on the commercials, that Diana, Princess of Themyscira, takes center position on the Justice League Blu-Ray case covers, and that makes me more happy than so many things. And on International Women's Day, too.
THING 3: My tea is delicious.

Thinking about a routine, because I miss this

I finally wrote something for the magazine I work for. And I think, because of that, I'm going to have my first byline in 12 years. Like, literally, 12 years. A DOZEN years.
I'm actually pretty excited about it. It'll be nice to see my name in a magazine again, in some capacity that's not just in the masthead. Who knows, maybe I'll even write more if I feel like it. Or maybe they won't want me to. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
But I've figured out that the problem lately with the writing is both a lack of motivation and a lack of, I almost want to say confidence, but it's not really that. Granted, I was totally afraid of writing for the magazine, and I'm feeling pretty good that they seem to like it. But I guess I just feel like I don't have anything to say anymore.
Which is weird, because I talk about a lot. I mean, I talk a lot. I still get mad about stuff. I still want to scream from the rooftops about stuff. I just don't have a comfortable place from which to do it anymore. It's a weird thing, when your equilibrium gets messed up. I don't have a comfortable computer to sit at in my bed anymore. The tablet is okay, but the keyboard and all that still doesn't really work for me psychologically. The computer, which I'm at right now, is in the office, and surrounded in dirty kid plates, Nintendo Switch games, slime and putty, and more than two stuffed animals that are "watching." I feel like when I sit down here, I had better know what I'm going to say. There's no luxuy of sitting and staring at a blank white page in the office.
But maybe I've got something set up that may be comfortable right now? I'm thinking that I need to set up a routine. * Make a cup of tea. * Go up to the office. * Sit down and type some shit. ... Now. Having said that, I don't have a cup of hot tea right now, but I did come upstairs to the office and go to the computer and started typing some shit.
I can't lie and tell you that some of this also may still have to do with the fact that I stopped blogging regularly after Oliver died. And that's not lost on me. The entire situation with the blog was that I sit on my bed, with my dog laying next to me, and I write about my day, thoughts, dreams, angers and whatnot, with him snoring comfortably next to me. That's simply not the case anymore, and it doesn't feel right.
And having said that, I seem to have done pretty well tonight. I'll make a concerted effort to blog tomorrow night, too, and see if I can't set up this routine. Because I do miss writing. I miss writing. I miss it.