(happened)

Well here we are.
As I say: An unexpected hiatus, but now can pick up just where I left off, just like nothing has happened. 

Nothing. Because, nothing, really, has happened.

Ok fine some things have happened…

Ten things that have happened since I last blogged. Nine-ish years ago:

1. I joined Corporate America and worked in Enterprise Software for a number of years. 6? 7? At one company. But over eight years over all. I enjoyed a lot of it, I met many wonderful people and had many experiences and will never regret a moment. 
2. I decided I do not work in that field anymore. 
3. I developed a ten-year-old son. I mean, I didn’t suddenly find myself in possession of a random 10-year-old. I had the same son when I last blogged, eight years ago, but he was not ten then. He was two. Now he is ten. It is only in the last while that that has become the case. The last year, to be exact. Before that he was a nine-year-old son. And then, in accordance with the normal passage of time, became ten.
   Probably didn’t need to explain this so thoroughly. 
4. I made some money from corporate americaing and bought a house.
5. I cultivated a deep and abiding love for kombucha, kim chi, and other fermented goods.
6. I learned I was intolerant to kombucha, kim chi, and other fermented goods. 
7. I developed an overwhelming desire to address my intestinal health, in order to regain access to kombucha, kim chi, and other fermented goods. 
8. I learned a lot about American politics, the penal system, inequity, reparations, volunteering, donations, and listening. This blog will still not be focussed on all those things, but it does not mean they’re not part of my life. 
9. I somehow ended up with a chihuahua. Her name is Baby Yoda, and she’s very wonderful and also annoying. More of her anon. 
10. I also gained a cat. She is twice the size of the dog, unusually open to belly rubs, sleeps on a pillow at the top of our bed, and wakes me up at 4am in order to have her head scratched. More of her anon also. At length. (Anonon?)
11. There was a pandemic. Still is, to be fair. It was a biggie! 
12. Social networks rose and fell. Oh wait I last wrote in 2013. Ok, they mainly fell. Some rose AND fell, some JUST rose, but I’m buggered if I’m going to do TikTok, so let’s say no more about them. 
13. I took up painting! And did it all the time so much! And then got bored and haven’t picked up a brush in a year.
14. I was diagnosed with ADHD, because I am nothing if not on trend. 
15. I had therapy. Many years of therapy. Different kinds of therapy! This means that I will still be as open and plain-spoken about my weird brain but instead of being all “Oh LOL! I don’t know why I’m like this!” I will be more “I know exactly why I’m like this, are you sitting comfortably, good, then we’ll begin.”
16. A guy came and put down some special gel to deal with the ant problem. This seems to have worked, cross fingers. 
17. I booked a haircut for Doozer. 
18. We worked out how to bring this blog back.
19. Ok now I’m just naming things that have happened in the last week.

Ten things that have not changed since last I blogged

1. I still have very little filter between my brain and fingers, and no intention of putting one in there. 
2. I still have the same name, and also face. It is a bit more wrinkly, but it is otherwise identical. 
3. I am still madly in love with my beloved. He is still the best of all men. 
4. I referred to our ten-year-old son (then two, see 3, above) as Doozer, and still will. But I will not be talking about him as much, because he now knows how to use Google. Hi hon. Love you. Have you put your washing away yet? Ok well can you do it now please, dinner is almost ready. 
5. I still like peas. A LOT. 
6. Still live in San Francisco. Have moved but four blocks since 2014. Living-wise, I mean. I have moved around, as a human, further than four blocks. Some years more than others. 
7. I still can’t speak spanish. I have got a lot closer to almost learning to speak it, but still, yo no hablo espanol. HOLD ON A SECOND!
8. I still have verbal diahhorea, and also still cannot spell daihorea. Diorhea. The shits. But ‘Verbal The-shits” does not sound as good. 
9. I still have no intention of editing these blog posts much. I’m going to write them, hit post, and think later. If then.
10. I am still scared shitless of comment boxes. They were one of the things that led to me stopping blogging (not that the ones on my own blog were problematic, mainly, but ones in a work capacity tore my confidence to shreds and stomped on my skin until it was as thin and as strong as wet tissue paper). I don’t think I will have comment boxes for a while. If I work out a way that feels safe and comfortable once I’m back into the swing of this, I might. You can email me till then if you want to say something nice and or useful. 
11. I am still generally happy, and have an annoying way of finding the good in most situations.
12. Words, playing with words, twisting words, rolling words around in my brain, thinking about words, talking about words, tapping out words, and words ABOUT words, that’s still what it is, for me. That’s still all I do. 
13. Still not great at sticking to the promised number of items in numbered lists. 

Ok now I’m done. For now. I have a lot of stories to tell, and a lot that I don’t want to or won’t be able to tell here. But I just want to write and write and write, and have somewhere to hit publish, because if I don’t get to hit publish at the end, somehow it doesn’t register in my brain as having been done at all. 

Hang out if you want, forget this and walk away if you want, I will be here regardless with my relentless tangentitis, an ironically terminal case of paragraphs that never seem to end, and a dogged dedication to sentences with an almost unbearable number of clauses — employing em dashes, semicolons used wrong, and; (when out of all other options) brackets. It’s not for everyone. It is for me. I will write. I will write here. You can read. If you still have the ability to RSS, feel free. I may even work out how I can newsletter this, if I can, indeed, be RSSed. 

I have forgotten how to end blog posts. 

Um. 

THE END. THANK YOU.