Tag: sometimes I’m dumb

The Family Word

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

An open dictionary with white pages and black text. The entry shown is for dictionary. A yellow tasseled bookmark marks the page. Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay.The holidays are a family time, so this is a great time for me to talk about my family’s favorite word, possibly the most versatile word in the family lexicon.

Booger.

I know what you’re thinking. What the absolute fuck? And that’s fair. Nobody is going to think of booger being versatile, yet alone a great word. Stay with me, though. I might change your mind.

First thing’s first: Yes, booger has the traditional meaning of the mucus clumps that hang out in your nose. Booger is also a character in Revenge of the Nerds. Both sides of my family acknowledge these truths. We’re not rewriting the entire dictionary here.

However, on my dad’s side of the family, booger also means an imaginary creature -usually not seen by anyone- that’s scary. For example, when one of the cats gets spooked by something -a noise no one else heard, something only they saw- we’ll say that the cat saw or heard a booger.

This use of the word is also frequently used to describe drug-induced paranoia. “The coke boogers were after him.” “He’s been seeing meth boogers.”

On the flip side, you can also be a booger. Someone who’s a booger is someone who’s easily scared. For example, one of ours cat was scared of everything when she was younger. She was a booger. Boogers have a tendency to see or hear a lot of boogers.

I realize that can be kind of confusing. “She saw a booger because she’s a booger.” Context is very helpful. Also, practice. It’s just something you know.

On my mom’s side of the family, however, booger’s alternate meaning has to do with an injury. You booger yourself up. If you fall and skin your knee, you’ve boogered up your knee. It’s almost always used (at least that I’ve heard) in relation to the skin being bruised or broken. You didn’t booger yourself up if you hurt your back or broke a bone. But if that bone is poking through the skin, then you boogered up your shin when you broke your leg.

Booger can also relate to messing things up. If I’m doing some tiny terrible art and mess up the branches on a tree, then I’ve boogered up that tree. Get into a fender bender? Boogered up the bumper. Mess up your crocheted blanket? You boogered up the stitches.

The interesting thing about this amazingly versatile word is that though my sister and I have been known to use it in every definition, our parents don’t. The years they spent together pre-divorce did nothing to influence each other’s use of the word. I’ve never heard my dad say that he boogered something up and I’ve never heard my mom call someone a booger or be scared by a booger. I find it fascinating that never happened given how folks will pick up on slang and word usage from each other. You’d think after twenty years together, they’d be using booger to its full potential, too.

Maybe their booger resistance was just another reason their relationship didn’t work out.

Untitled Tree

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Two trees in autumn. The bigger one has golden-orange leaves. The smaller one has red leaves and is more sparse. They stand out against a blue sky and the houses behind them.I realize the title of this post sounds arty, but it’s nothing of the sort. I just couldn’t come up with a clever title.

I try to blog here about once a week (though, let’s be honest, no one notices if I don’t), but there are times when topics are hard to come by. This is one of those times.

So, let’s talk about leaves.

This autumn has been a strange one because the leaves changed late this year. Really late. Like, if it were a woman, it would have taken ten pregnancy tests. We were less than two weeks out from Halloween and most of the trees were still green.

For context, let’s look at my neighbors’ trees.

My neighbor next door has a tree in her backyard that’s one of my favorites because it changes color from the top down, usually starting in late September or early October. In years past, it’s done almost an ombre kind of thing, where it sort of ripples down from orange to yellow. It’s so pretty. I’m in love with that tree in the autumn. It typically holds onto its leaves for the most part -it’s usually still pretty vibrant through Halloween- but in the first part of November, it drops its leaves in a hurry. It feels like it goes from full to naked in a day. I’m sure my neighbor feels that way, too. After all, she’s the one raking it.

This year, it was only a couple of weeks out from Halloween before it started to change. It went through that ombre ripple in record time and dropped its leaves on schedule, around the end of the second full week of November.

My neighbor across the street has a huge tree that I’ve loved since I was a kid. It’s even shown up in a few of my short stories. It’s been marked by the city for removal because it’s technically theirs and it’s unfortunately sick beyond saving. Until then, it continues to go through the motions of the seasons.

In autumn, it’s usually one of the first trees to turn in about mid-September, going a golden-orange, and typically sheds its leaves before Halloween, which has always been kind of a bummer. It’s made to celebrate Halloween in colorful splendor (it did get toilet papered a lot when I was younger, so in a way, it kind of did celebrate).

This year, it didn’t start changing until the middle of October. It was in full, gorgeous color for Halloween this year. I honestly can’t remember the last time that happened, or if it’s ever happened. Even better, the leaves held on after Halloween, too. It finally shed the majority of them in a couple of big winds earlier this week.

I am blessed to live in a place that has some gorgeous autumn colors painting my little town. And this year, I was able to enjoy them much later than I normally do.

Too bad it was probably because of climate change.

The Importance of Being Mindful (If You Don’t Want to Fuck Up Your Haircut)

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

I started cutting my own hair a couple of years ago. It took a few cuts for me to get into a comfortable groove. I use clippers on the back and the sides every other week and I take scissors to the top every month. I’ve got three different guards that I use when I’m shaving my head. I use a 1 inch guard for most of it, a 7/8 inch for the nape (otherwise it grows too fast and I got a mullet situation on my hands, and I am not currently of the mullet vibe), and a 1/16 inch to clean up my neck. I start with the 7/8 inch, go to the 1 inch, go back to the 7/8 inch to clean up the transition, and finish with the 1/16 inch. A little scissor action around the ears and I’m done.

I know. You’re asking yourself, “What the hell does all this have to do with mindfulness?” We’re getting there. Be patient.

My point is that I’ve pretty much got it down to a science now. I’ve done it enough times that I know the rhythm by heart.

So, the last time I cut my hair, I clipped on the 7/8 inch guard first thing…and promptly shaved up the side of my head. Oops.

The reason I did this? I wasn’t being mindful. (See? I tied it all together.)

For me, mindfulness is being present in the moment. I have a terrible habit of putting myself on autopilot because my brain decides to concern itself with the future. My body is running on routine while I’m thinking about all of the things I need to do that day, that week, that month. This leads to unfortunate incidents.

Lack of mindfulness is what leads me to take the usual route to work rather than swinging by the post office first like I wanted to.

Lack of mindfulness is why I forget to wash the conditioner out of my hair.

Lack of mindfulness is why I screw up my yoga routine.

Lack of mindfulness is why I forget to put my earrings in (and I am naked without my earrings, thank you).

Lack of mindfulness is why I shave my head with the wrong length guard on the clippers.

When I catch myself slipping like this, my mind focused more on the future than the present, I ask myself where I am. The answer, of course, is that I’m here. In this moment. And that’s where I need my focus to be. I will go so far as to narrate what I’m doing to put myself in the present. Is that weird? Well, I’m weird. Some days, I need that extra step because my brain is stuck on time travel.

I’m not saying that I can’t think about my to do list for the day or the week or the month. I will think about it multiple times a day just to keep myself on track. But I can’t multitask being present and thinking about the future at the same time. It’s one or the other and I need to spend more time on the former than the latter.

For the record, I didn’t ruin my hair. There’s only an 1/8 of an inch difference between what I accidentally did and what I normally do, so it’s just a little bit shorter. I was lucky this time.

It could have been down to the skin.

I’m Not Expressing Myself Well

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

“That sounded better in my head.”

I’d wager that just about everyone has thought this or said it out loud. We all have those moments when we’re trying to get an idea across and the words are just not wording well. You know exactly what you’re trying to say, but you just ain’t saying it.

Man, I really hate that.

I think it’s because as someone with anxiety and as a person who tends to ruminate, I have a lot of imaginary conversations and arguments in my head, and sometimes out loud. I don’t necessarily want to have all of these conversations. Most likely, I will never have most of them. I’m either preparing for a war that I won’t have to fight or I’m reliving a battle that I already lost, saying all of the things that I didn’t in the moment because I wasn’t prepared. Or I was, but the words weren’t there when I needed them.

I don’t express myself well. Not often when I need to. Not often in the heat of the moment.

As someone who is fascinated by languages, who writes, who podcasts, who does a whole lot of communicating in her job, you would think that I would be better at this, that it would come naturally to me. You’d think I’d gotten the hang of it by now.

Alas alack, live moments don’t have edit buttons and my mouth has no backspace key.

In the unending rehearsals of rumination, I can workshop my words until I’ve got the right ones selected. I’ve got the right motivation, the right tone, the right expression. I’ve nailed the part. In the live improv that is life, I’m building sentences on the fly, influenced by my reactions and emotions and the fullness of the moon. Sometimes, the words come flying out of my mouth and leave the idea and intention behind in my brain.

These leftover intentions and ideas don’t simply disappear. They don’t fade now that the moment and the conversation has passed. No! They’re left in my grey matter to ferment and fester until I expel them in an imaginary conversation of what I should have said, a too late performance in the play I should have staged. A useless exercise because I learn nothing from it. My inner critic makes sure to point that out.

It frustrates me unnecessarily. Sure, people don’t want misunderstandings, and I’m not often misunderstood. I just don’t get my point across as effectively or efficiently as I think I should. Especially when emotion is involved. I don’t like that I lose my ability to word well when I’m irritated or agitated or caught off guard. Is this normal? Do other people experience this? Am I being unnecessarily hard on myself and getting frustrated over something that’s not really worth it? Yes, of course, to all of the above. That’s the glorious way I brain.

When I write, I have the opportunity to go back and fix my words, fix the way they’re presented, to express myself as best as I can.

I wish my mouth was afforded the same opportunity.

It’s Not Easy Socializing with a Brain Like Mine

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Lately, I’ve been flirting with the idea of being more social. It’s a challenge for my introverted self. It takes energy that I don’t always have or want to expend. I’ve neglected that part of my life for too long and I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to leave my house more. It doesn’t have to be anything much. Once a month, go out with a friend, maybe for lunch or dinner or something. Socialize with someone outside of my house and the library. I need to make more of an effort to connect with the friends I have in my meatspace and this would be an easy, low pressure way to do that.

Right?

Well, my brain hasn’t met a good idea that it couldn’t turn bad. Or at least make seem impossible. Anxiety is fun like that.

The friends that currently occupy my immediate physical reality took a different path in life than I did. They got married, had kids, have full-time jobs in which they’ve been employed for years. You know. They all became functioning adults. Meanwhile, I’m over here avoiding adulthood like I’m dodging bullets in the Matrix. My point is that their lives are already very full. They’ve got a lot going on. Better things to do, as it were. My brain gleefully informs me that I do not need to be bothering these friends. They put effort into their lives. They’ve got their social circles. There’s no room for you anymore.

I do have some friends that didn’t entirely go the full-tilt adult route, didn’t get married and/or have kids. They would theoretically have more available time in their life to spend an hour eating food, drinking drinks, and talking about things and stuff with me. However, I still can’t find a way to justify that I’m not bothering them by asking them to hang out with me for a short while. I can’t imagine it being anything other than an inconvenience to them for me to ask, especially if they have to make an excuse because they don’t want to go.

My brain enjoys telling me that everybody hates me and I should go eat worms.

My brain also enjoys projection. My first reaction to someone asking me to socialize is usually a reflexive “no”. It’s too much work to get in the right brain space, I’ll be too anxious. Even if my immediate reaction is a “yes” or a “maybe”, I more than likely won’t feel the same way when the time comes to leave the house. Most often, if I commit to an outing, I will follow through because I know I’ll be fine (or close enough to fine) when I get there. It takes an incredible amount of mental gymnastics sometimes just to convince myself to go out. Why wouldn’t other people go through the same thing when I ask them?

Well, maybe because they have normal, more reasonable brains.

I’m not giving up on this idea that I can have a small social life. After all, I used to have one. It’s just a matter of ignoring the worst of my brain and sending that first text message.

It’ll be fine when I get there.

I Got a Bright Idea

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been pondering the notion of self-publishing chapbooks or collections of my poetry. It would be easy to do since I already have plenty of experience self-publishing novels and novellas and short story collections. I know how to put a book together and I’ve made plenty of my own covers. I could do a print and an ebook version. No problem. Yeah, I’d have to do some research on the the difference between a poetry chapbook and a poetry collection and which would be the one to do. And, yeah, my poetry isn’t great and not really worthy of either of those incarnations. But that doesn’t matter. It’s a bright idea.

That’s the thing about me. I get a lot of bright ideas. Ideas that would probably be brilliant if they were executed by others. Ideas that fall significantly short of expectations because they are executed by me. It turns out that I am the lethal injection of bright ideas.

The problem with me and my bright ideas is two-fold: Once I get an idea I want it done yesterday; and I do not have what it takes to make my bright idea successful.

See, I have a very Field of Dreams attitude towards my bright ideas. If I build it, they will come. Only they don’t. Because I didn’t build it so great. And I don’t really have that kind of draw anyway.

I’ll give you an example. Patreon.

I got the bright idea to make a Patreon. I thought I knew what I was doing, thought I knew how I was going to do it, and went ahead and did it. I was just sure that I was going to attract patrons in no time at all. With what? I don’t know. My charm, I guess. Must have forgot that I have less of that than I have talent. I digress. The first incarnation of my Patreon was a disaster because I really didn’t develop my idea much past the initial sparkle. The second version –The Murderville novellas- was better because I actually had a plan in place and was able to execute it. It took a lot more work than the first version. Imagine that.

The current version of my Patreon, with the four tiers and multiple projects, is probably the best version of my bright idea. And it only took me more years than I wish to count. However, it’s still not the Iowa cornfield ballpark I was hoping for because a) I don’t put out nearly enough free content to attract potential patrons and b) it’s MY content. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years of writing is that I do not write what people want to read. Sure, my self-promotion game also isn’t the greatest (I feel like I’m annoying people), but if what I was promoting was even slightly appealing, I think it would make up for it.

This isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate the people who have become patrons. Yes, I question their decision-making skills, but I’m also grateful that they choose to continue to invest in my work. Knowing I have this little, core audience keeps my ego inflated. I’m just saying that I have a way of dimming my bright ideas so they don’t quite shine like they should.

I’ve done it with self-publishing, traditional publishing, podcasting, self-employment, .you name it. My creative endeavor bright ideas suffer in my hands. I don’t plan and construct them correctly because I’m in a hurry to get to that gain -money, attention, applause, advancement, whatever. I want the result. And the result is too often disappointing.

So for now, my bright idea of self-publishing my poetry will remain just that. A bright idea.

An Apology to Everyone Who Has Ever Encountered Me in the Wild

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

If you have ever come across me in public and thought I acted a little (or a lot) weird, I apologize. It’s not you. It’s me. It’s definitely me.

I wasn’t prepared to see you.

Yes, despite living in a small town, I expect to move through public spaces without seeing anyone I know out of the context I’m used to interacting with them in. Sure we went to school together and we’ve been Facebook friends for years, but I don’t expect you to know me, recognize me, or talk to me. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t. It’s just that I don’t expect you to.

And because I was caught off guard by this clearly unusual occurrence of people who know me actually knowing and acknowledging me, I am fully unprepared for the ensuing social interaction. What follows is several agonizing minutes of small talk that I didn’t study for while my brain screams at me to just be cool, man! The end result is me being painfully awkward and ruining the entire interaction, at least in my mind.

I have had smoother conversations with cops who have pulled me over at one in the morning for speeding. Very unattractive considering as a rule I shouldn’t be talking to cops.

My brain truly short circuits during these interactions. It’s particularly bad if it’s someone I primarily interact with online. We’ve already covered how I struggle with my own object permanence. If I don’t expect people to think about me, I definitely don’t think they remember me or would recognize me out of my own context in their existence. It never fails to shock me when someone knows who I am. And then they try to interact with me and it all goes to hell.

It’s funny how this happens. You would think that someone who works in customer service would be able to function in these situations. After all, I’m making small talk with strangers about their gut flora and peripheral vision on a regular basis (people really will talk to you about anything), so you would think I’d be able to do it relatively easily with people I actually know in some fashion. But no! Not my brain configuration.

I don’t know if the people I’m conversing with are feeling as awkward as I am, not because their brains are plagued with bad wiring, but because my awkwardness is so palpable they can’t help but catch it. It’s none of my business if they think I’m weird and incapable of simple conversation, but I’m pretty sure they think I’m weird and incapable of simple conversation.

And for that, I apologize. It is never my intention to inflict my awkwardness on others. I want to assure you that if we have ever met unexpectedly in the meatsphere (or if we ever happen to cross paths in the future), my behavior has nothing to do with you. You are fine, I’m sure. You’ve done nothing to warrant my terrible small talk.

I just come by weird more naturally than anything else.

“Nothing Worth Mentioning”

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

When people ask me what’s going on or what I’ve been up to, my go to response is always, “Nothing worth mentioning.” Sort of like when people ask you how you are and you automatically respond with “fine”. It’s all part of the social greeting norms. Nobody really cares how you are. And nobody really cares what I’ve been doing.

I discovered years ago that I’m a dull person. People would ask me what I’d been up to and I’d honestly answer that question and watch their eyes glaze over. Or if I was part of a group conversation, someone else would interrupt and the conversation would shift and that would be the end of my participation. What have I been doing? Nothing interesting to anyone else, apparently.

Part of this is because I’m kind of a failure and didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I didn’t get married, I didn’t have kids, I didn’t get a “real” job. I think people who did all of that kind of find it hard to relate. What do we talk about if we can’t talk about the things we’re supposed to have in common? They tell me stories about their spouses and offspring and full-time work drama. What can I contribute with? I can’t. Let’s just skip it then, shall we?

The other part of this is that I’m introverted. I don’t have the spouse, 2.5 kids, picket fence, and office job to talk about, but I’m also not partying every weekend or traveling the world or other leaving-the-house activities on a regular basis. I go to work at the library day job and I come home and that’s pretty much it most weeks. It’s already been established that we’re not going to talk about what I’m working on. So, what do we talk about? Which patron acted the ass this week? Well, several, but I can’t name names because this is a small town. Gotta tread lightly so I don’t get into trouble.

In the end, “nothing worth mentioning” is the best answer because it’s the truest one. I’ve been doing things and living life, but if I wrote it in a novel, it’d be the stuff most readers would skip because they found it boring. Sure, I took a trip to South Carolina, but it was pretty much to see a pineapple fountain and relax. Don’t need more than a couple of sentences to explain that.

And that’s the thing. In the unlikely event that I actually do something worth mentioning, I’ve gotten so good at not mentioning it that I no longer really know how to mention it.

“How was your trip?”

“Oh, it was great. I had a really fun time!”

End conversation.

Unless you ask me for more details, I will not offer them up. I don’t want to bore you. And if you do ask, I will bore you with those details. What’s exciting and interesting to me is beige paint to everyone else. For someone who calls themselves a writer, I really can’t tell a story well enough to hold an audience.

(Ah. Some additional insight into my unsuccessful writing career, methinks.)

It’s something I”m working on. Both getting better at talking about the things worth mentioning and realizing that there are sometimes things worth mentioning going on in my life.

In the meantime, I’m still available to hear all about what’s going on in yours.

The Priority Shift

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I have no doubt that if I were to look back on the blog posts I’ve done in the past few years, I’d probably find one on the topic of priorities because I’m sure I’ve written about this before. However, I’m not that motivated. Or should I say…it’s not a priority.

Perhaps it’s not obvious, but it probably should be. I struggle with my priorities. More specifically, I struggle with correctly prioritizing things in my life. I’m not good at it. I fuck up the order consistently. What I should prioritize, I don’t, and what gets prioritized usually shouldn’t be so high on the list. Or even on the list. As a result, I spend a lot of time feeling like I’m not living my life the way I truly want to. Granted, it would take a substantial inflow of income to truly allow me to live my life the way I want to, but given the limitations I’m currently operating under, I could be doing a whole lot better.

My recent two week vacation from the library allowed me to really take a look at how I prioritize my life and what I need to change. To be honest, it’s something I’ve been half-ass working on all year. I got The Remarkable Life Deck: A Ten-Year Plan for Achieving Your Dreams by Debbie Millan for my birthday (I asked for this; it wasn’t some anvil suggestion that I needed to get my shit together). I’ve worked my way through the deck twice and now I really need to start working on what I’ve written down. So, I spent some time while I was in Charleston looking at what I wrote down and identifying some baby steps I could take in the direction of achieving my dreams the deck had produced.

To the shock of absolutely no one, the babiest of those baby steps is a shift in my priorities. And the most obvious shift was to make myself a priority.

Yea, I know what you’re thinking. As a selfish woman, I already make myself a priority. While I won’t argue with the fact that I am selfish, I have receipts to show that I don’t make myself a priority. I’ve got the high blood pressure, patellar tendonitis, GERD, parathyroid issues, insomnia, stress, weight gain, fatigue, and anxiety to prove it. Quiet self-destruction is one of my default settings and it takes a conscious effort to not succumb to the default. I tend to put everything over taking care of myself and though I’ve made improvements in that defect in the past several years, I need to be doing a whole lot better.

I need to put myself at the top of the priority list.

This means putting my health first. Putting my rest first. Putting my mental health first.

Theoretically, if and when I do that, most everything else will fall into place. Why? Well, because I’m the center of my Universe, aren’t I? The cause and solution to all of my problems. If I take care of me, then I have a better ability to take care of business, so to speak. I’ll have the time and energy and health that will make dealing with other priorities easier.

For example, it’s not a plot twist to find out that one of my better life goals is to make a living by writing. It should also not be a shocker to know that it’s very difficult and uncommon to make a living by writing. But if I want to even have a shot at achieving that dream, then I need to make my writing a priority.

This isn’t to say that writing isn’t and hasn’t been important to me. But since my terrible bout of writer’s struggle I’ve found that I got into the habit of prioritizing other things over writing because when I was struggling everything else was easier. “Let me just get this done first…” “This needs to be done now because…” Those sort of excuses can’t fly anymore. I need to subscribe to the idea that any writing is better than no writing at all and that sneaking in those words every day is the only way I’m going to get anything done.

I’ve also gotten so used to not submitting anything I write, keeping it either for Patreon purposes or for other undefined reasons outside of the occasional contest entry. I’m out of touch with the writing world (not that I was really that in-touch with it before). If I’m going to make a living, even a small one, off of writing, then I need to reconnect with that world.

So, I shift writing to the second spot on my priority list, right after myself.

Now what happens?

Everything else shifts itself around, hopefully landing in better positions, maybe some things falling off the priority list entirely.

And hopefully with this priority shift, my best life will emerge.

You Underestimate My Ability To Be a Disaster

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I was what you might call a gifted child when I was younger. I was smart by school standards. Got good grades. Learning and understanding lessons and studying came pretty easy for me (except for math; that came with more frustration, but I still ended up being pretty good at it). I ended up getting to do a couple of summers of gifted summer school when I was in grade school and in junior high, I was invited to a gifted science camp for a week (where I spent most of it sick thanks to one of the girls I bunked with). I took Honors English in high school and my algebra teacher wanted me in his advanced class, but my parents, who’d tapped out of helping me with my math homework when I was in sixth grade, wisely decided against this. I probably would have thrown my book through the closet door in one of my fits of frustration due to not being able to instantly understand how a math problem worked.

That was another thing. I felt like (and still do feel like) I should know how to do everything. I should automatically know how to do something. When I was three, my mother founding me crying in the closet with this big ol’ adult book on my lap, mad because I couldn’t read it. In my tiny little head, I thought that I should have just known how to do that. I learned to read and write shortly after that, which started a trend of me learning things quickly and sometimes, learning things on my own. It seemed like you didn’t have to teach me anything because I already knew or I would just figure it out.

As it turns out, this is not a great life plan.

Because I was “gifted” in the academic sense, it was just sort of assumed that I knew what I was doing or that I would figure it out in the rest of my life. Nobody needed to guide me into adulthood. After all, I’d been an “old soul” my whole life.

So, here’s the thing.

As it turns out, in my case, doing well academically doesn’t necessarily translate to being smart in life.

Believe me when I say that you underestimate my ability to be a disaster.

I realize the confusion about this because I’m very good at presenting the illusion that I know what I’m doing. I’ve always been very good in my day jobs because I’m very good at learning things and completing tasks and meeting deadlines and knowing my shit. And when it comes to my creative work, again, it’s a matter of learning new things, completing tasks, and meeting deadlines.

But.

Left to my own devices when it comes to being a functioning adult, I have a tendency to wander into traffic and narrowly avoid being flattened by semis. I have a gift for making questionable life choices that typically do not turn out well, but not so badly that it totally fucks shit up. They’re just bad enough that the people in my immediate vicinity might question why someone thought to be so smart is doing something so less-than-smart.

Which is another funny thing. Either people are so convinced of my intelligence that they just figure I have a plan and those questionable decisions are just part of that and/or it’s not my bad decision-making that created this disaster, it’s just that this choice didn’t work out/was something else’s fault/bad luck.

Or, it’s just so awkward that someone once perceived as gifted is making such bad life choices and they don’t want to say anything.

Probably the latter.