So, last week sucked.

But that’s ok, sometimes shit sucks. I’ve written it off and I’m moving forward. Last week, I did nothing at all productive. I’m not kidding – absolutely nothing.

But this week has been a slow reclamation of productivity. I wrote twice, attended my writer’s group (for the first time since like, November!), read The New Yorker (thanks, Joel!), read part of an actual book, and we managed to keep the apartment somewhat clean at the end of every day. Work has decreased sucking by approximately 70%, and that’s better than I expected.

In the midst of all the suck last week, I forgot to point out the good things that have been happening –

1. I deleted Facebook off of my phone. This feels minor, but in actuality it’s HUGE. I was checking Facebook from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. Every day, no matter what. But something has come over Facebook in the last few months – something called “Donald Trump” and “furious anger”. My newsfeed was just a lot of loud screaming into a void of like minded people also screaming. It made my entire day suck. So one day, I just deleted it. Like that, off my phone. I can only check Facebook if I log in through the web app, or when I’m on my laptop.So now, I check Facebook 3-4 times a week, instead 3-4 times an hour. It’s felt freeing, and I’m surprised at how easy it was to delete it and not worry about it. I mean, I’m still checking Instagram 42x a day when I can, but my feed is mostly memes so it’s like reading the Sunday comics page everyday. And it’s my primary “marketing tool” (quotations because I don’t utilise it NEARLY as much as I need to) for my blog so I can’t delete it.

   But it also felt like I was doing something wrong, like I wasn’t allowed to not have Facebook on my phone. It’s fucked how engrained social media has become in my every day life. When I told my therapist how easy it was to delete/forget, she just said “see how easy it is for you to just do something and stick to it?” And I was all, shut up and stop pointing out things like that.

2. Amidst my Lucy grief, Joel took me out last Saturday and got me my first pair of real adult shoes. They’re Nikes, and it feels like my feet are cradled in tempurpeadic hands resting on trampolines. I’ve worn Chucks, shitty skater shoes, and flats all my life, and beyond the original Air Ware Doc Marten boots I had that one time, I’ve never felt so much support. I think this is what shoes are supposed to feel like.Joel and I had a hell of a time picking them out, though, since we have the exact opposite taste in sneakers. Everything Joel picked out made me look like I was trying out for the WNBA. I don’t like anything that has a big white sole or a big, I Play Basketball style, because the closest I get to being sporty is walking to the donut shop. The ones that looked the least athletic were unfortunately the least supportive, so I had to compromise and get the slightly more sporty pair. But I really dig them. Hopefully these babies will make walking around Tokyo a breeze

   
   He also got me my first Polo shirt, which I was inexplicably drawn to and suddenly couldn’t live without. Blame it on the grief.

   

    

3.  Still rocking the bullet journaling, aka obsessive tracking of my habits. More on that later.
4. Joel made Japanese Egg Rice the other night – rice sautéed with mushroom and onion and soy, mixed in with egg and baked for a few minutes (no salmonella thx) and it was next level good. I feel like we’ve been prepping for the trip subconsciously by eating as much Japanese style food we can (on Saturday we had sushi and ramen) and watching hella Japanese movies. I also started learning basic Japanese. Go ahead, ask me what the basic sounds are? A-I-E-U-O. You can’t hear it, because this is a blog, but I just recited the sounds perfectly in a clipped, proper Japanese accent. It’s so fluid and natural you can’t even tell it’s being spoken by the whitest American ever*.
5. Joel got me a subscription to The New Yorker and our first issue came on Monday. It feels good to read something other than gossip articles**.
6. My friend Leah had a new baby, and I’ve added one more honorary niece to my pack. She’s super cute and I’m more than just a little sad that I can’t squish her chubby little cheeks. It’s still weird to me that the girls I’ve known since I was 13 are adults having children. Our conversations have gone from whose parents are driving us to the mall to babies, marriage, moves, work, relationships. It’s the natural progression of things, but still. Crazy.
7. I got my hair done yesterday. I’m going back to red and I’m pretty excited. It’s not finished yet, because I’m doing it the slower, healthier way so I don’t wreck my hair.

   

8. We made our Air B&B reservation for Tokyo! We’re staying in an old apartment over a noodle bar. It looks like a ninja hut and it has a/c and I’m stoked.
9. In the ever evolving quest for the perfect blog layout: I think I found the one. I spent two weeks entrenched in WordPress CSS obsessing over it, and re-tooling my banner.  I’m still not 100% happy with it, but it’s getting there.
   

 

8. I said goodbye to my therapist on Monday, which was pretty sad. She was great to work with, and I feel like I made some fantastic strides with her. But, I won’t be alone forever – she’s set me up with a replacement that she thinks will be a good fit for me. *fingers crossed*

9. Speaking of good byes, bad luck luck struck again as we had to say good bye to Joel’s childhood pup, Jessie. She was such a sweet pooch, and Joel and his family had 16 lovely years with her. But her cancer spread from her spleen to her liver, and she was bleeding internally. It was heartbreaking to say goodbye, but I was happy that Joel got a chance to see her one last time. It was especially sad considering it was exactly one week after Lucy. Not being there to see her still makes me teary.

10. We’re a few days away from autumn, and coincidentally, it’s been rainy and cold all weekend. Rainy and chilly, chilly, chilly. I love, love, love it. It makes me wish I bought that unicorn jacket last week.

11. I am broke, broke, broke. Bills, accomodations, and hella doctors appointments = expensive. And only when it’s broke do I suddenly find everything that I want to buy. Like these Nic Cage sneakers:

12. My new mission in life: recreate The Pie Tin‘s whipped Key Lime pie. It’s literally the best Key Lime pie I’ve ever had in my life. My second new mission in life is try every single pie at The Pie Tin. Yummmm. Thanks to our friend Kat, who takes me to the best pie and cake places ever.

12. Have I mentioned that I love Joel? He’s the absolute best thing that’s ever happened to me.

So that’s about it! Happy Sunday everyone. I hope your week was better. And that you had life changing pie.

xoxo

*like, the whitest.
**this is a lie.