I had a random idea to bake a blueberry pie. Random indeed. I don't bake. I hate baking. I suck at baking. Baking is reliant on perfection. Cooking relies on imagination, taste, and excitement. I like cooking. But I have to be in the headspace. One time I had a client company I had worked with over the course of a year, they kept asking me to come work for them. I eventually left the company I was with and considered going with this other company and so I kept in touch. They would ask to meet for lunches and coffee and sometimes ask me to come into the office to just observe. A new partner came on board and he was interested in meeting me. I came into the office and he was sitting in a glass conference room and when I opened the door the wind blew my hair back and I smiled, made my way into the conference room, shook his hand, and sat down. He made a comment that I look like I just flew in from LA and was at the wrong interview because models don't work there. Ew. I did my fake fuck you laugh that I have perfected throughout life and use much less now as I prefer to just stare at the deserving person. The other guys knew me well enough to know I had reached a point of not being entertained and started talking about work, you know, the shit I was there for. New dude decided he would cleverly work his way back to his interest and proceeded to ask me if I would tend to his hangovers with Advil, water and tucking him in on the office couch while bringing him goodies I baked for him. He asked if I was open to company cooking lessons at his house in the nude. This man was oblivious. In my experience, a lot of them are. I used to have trouble navigating it all. I felt so uncomfortable if I was to be direct and rude and tell them “ew”. I also felt hypocritical because there were times when I felt like it was ok to banter and others when I started relationships with people I either worked with or worked around. I also have a mouth on me, so I felt like perhaps I caused it. I told this man I don't bake, he could get his own Advil,  and that I noticed the fridge was well stocked with conveniently cold bottled water. I didn't have any further interest in working for them as this man really took away the whole feel of the company. Years later, I ran into a woman who worked there and we made small talk and she told me it was a nightmare. I was glad I avoided this particular nightmare, but there are times I wish I could go back and handle situations differently and avoid others I did not manage to, and others I played a part in creating myself. Anyway, I did not bake this blueberry pie that popped up into my head. It was just a fleeting idea and I hate having sweets in the house anyway. I mostly lost my sweet tooth during my pregnancy. I had an epic one my entire life until I got pregnant. I was the kid who would eat all of my Halloween candy in one long and fat sitting. My sister would have a few and then throw it away, and my brother would take a nibble and ration his throughout the year under his bed alongside the wall. I knew where he kept it so I too had a yearlong stash. Being the baby was great, bedtime stories and benefiting from the responsibility of my older siblings. I am still by far the fuck up in comparison, but there are no longer any benefits to reap except in our rare conversations when we all just laugh and remember we are related and equally ridiculous. Although growing up it was the running joke that I was adopted. I am the only one in the family with brown eyes. Everyone else has green and blue…I said that like there any other options! But they would all join in on the “fun” and tell me, no, convince me I was adopted. As I got older it became apparent to me they were lying, and by this point I was disappointed. I wanted to be but with visiting rights. I mostly just needed someone to bring me Advil, water, homemade baked goods, and tuck me in on the couch when I was hungover through most of high school. But no such luck. We all went our separate ways a few years before I reached high school. I guess maybe that is why I drank so much. I could never drink as much now as I did back then. Also, everyone now is well aware that I come off completely sober even when I am drinky as I can hold a conversation, but my dead give away is I talk with a slanted mouth/a bit out of the corner of my mouth when I am. Everything is drooping. 

We went to the grocery store today to get everything for Thanksgiving dinner. I wore all off-white/cream colored comfy clothes, and some taupe colored slides. They look like the shower shoes issued in jail. In combination with my outfit, I am pretty sure I looked like through good behavior I earned a trip home for Thanksgiving from the looney bin. Aw. Good Bird Britt. Pshhh. You know just about everything was picked over, everything in a new place, and the end caps all particular to classic dishes for the holidays. The pickles were no exception. And if it is not in front of my face, I don't stop looking. I don't give up hope. I feel like I can feel the jar of pickles or whatever it is I am looking for. Like it is looking at me and I play the good ole game “if I were a jar of pickles, where would I be…?” I went to check on the very top shelf, the one that most everything is still in a shipping box, the back stock. I took a couple steps backwards and tried to get my jailbird flip flops to prop me up a little. By the way, I have never been to jail. It shocks me too. Well kinda. I actually do not like to get in trouble at all. I like to keep the peace and be rational and levelheaded. But that sometimes only comes after I stir the pot, poke the bear, and take things too far. Baby of the family syndrome…Anyway, when I realized I could not see on top, I went to grab the top shelf and hoist myself up a little. Nope. Instantly a wave of pickle juice and glass engulfed my memory as if it were happening all over again. For when I was a child, I climbed the pickle and olive shelf at Handy Andy, and Andys shelves were not so handy after all, and came toppling down. I did not get hurt. Somehow. But I know for damn sure my eyebrow was up and I remember my mom picking me up, putting me in the cart and pushing us on over to another aisle as if nothing happened. Something happened and it happened again the next week in the vegetable section. I was in the cart this time. Likely strapped in tight but my arms could reach the tomatoes. I picked one up from the bottom of the tilted bin and tossed her on up to the top. Grabbed another and repeated. You get it. Eventually they all came tumbling down, fucking Andy. And the produce man ran over and in my fancy memory, yelled at me and my mother. We did not need tomatoes so we left the section. I was hell on wheels growing up, no one scared me, nothing scared me, and everything was a challenge I had signed up for at birth. I have a lot of this in me to this day, but the idea of laying in pickle juice and glass or falling from any height is not my idea of fun anymore. I am more into putting rumors to rest about other people in my neighborhood by telling them it was me instead. I get a kick out of that kind of thing. Like no, Betty, I did not see the naked lady walking the circle and ringing the doorbell because I was that lady. I got bored, sorry, it wont happen again. I like to let them think I have that kind of confidence to walk around naked, that confidence and that body. I am also into being silent when others around me are speaking another language and making them wonder if I understand. My eyebrow going up and down like a wave moving to the tide of the drama. You can tell a lot about people by the way they feel, the energy they put off, their body language of course, and the way they look at you even when you are not a part of the conversation. Sometimes it can be too much, sometimes too fake, and then there are the people I envy…the ones who are so calm and steady. I mean they bore the fuck out of me after a while, but I really admire how seemingly at peace they appear. They are not oblivious but somehow are able to just ignore their surroundings and engage in a conversation or listen to one. I cannot. Or, I cannot easily do this. I mean, if you read one of these entries, you will understand why. Almost everything reminds me of something, someone, somewhere. And I don't interrupt often to let all this shit out so I am juggling it all and eventually, I have to whip myself really hard in my brain to get myself to let it go and keep listening. Then as I do, I start to think about how I like pain again, ask myself why I am such a pervert, when was the last time I ate, and how I am ready for a nap. I have a few conversations with myself while having one with someone, but I can promise you this, I will remember what we talked about, it does mean something to me, and I will nap because I exhaust myself too. 

I already have the holiday exhaustion and it technically has not started. It is just always such a whirlwind. The boys have their birthday in October to kick it all off and it just flies by after this just in time for summer to come up and serve me another year on the old ticker. Birthdays do not make me sad, however, the holidays do without fail. I love the time of year, I like the relief we get from the heat. I like how everyone seems to slow down a little and make more time for one another, but it has always made me sad. I guess I thought blueberry pie would fix it. Or making one and laughing at the disaster would. I have some pretty epic disastrous attempts at baking/cooking Pinterest type food items. They always seem so attainable. They never are. Just like managing the seasonal changes. What is this? I mean, I could put a whole list of reasons why for certain, but it was once said that I was "raised on the other end of the spectrum"...and nothing could have been further from the truth. People always "know" so much about you from the little you tell them. I think I am so colorful it is easy for some to believe I have given them enough paint to paint the whole picture of who I am and why. They are wrong. I am also a person who changes just when you think you know me. I don't want to stay the same. There are a lot of things I aspire to be better at, to know more about, to have to offer both to others and to myself. And then of course there is the core of who I am that does not waver, like the pickle shelf climber instincts, not giving a fuck what others think about me, and napping. Yes those are at my core. You have yours, I have mine. One thing this journal has already immensely helped me with is processing, feeling myself, being aware of that, and holding myself accountable to something I enjoy, even when it seems I don't have the time or space to do it how I want. Everything I write about here is not shocking to me, I know some have found it to be, but my thought on it is that it all existed inside of me up until this very moment. My stories and experiences have been lived and left something in me, something that was there when we became friends, family or lovers, so I am no different now. I yearn to learn more about others in the midst of the madness floating in my head, why they are the way they are, why they love the way they do, what they think about, and how they think. I want stories that seem like nothing in your memory but to me all these years later helps me see you in pieces that make up this breathing mosaic. The insignificant things at your core. What do you do when you're sad, where do you go, do you like baking and cooking, have you been to jail, did you notice anything in nature today, are you a pervert, do you recognize yourself with cellulite and wrinkles, and have you learned from climbing the pickle shelf at the store, or are you still doing it…I want to know it all. As I am writing this I realize why I have so much in my brain, I am a collector of information. Perhaps super irrelevant information, but information that makes life real and tolerable for me. Connection. Honesty. Life. Most people are not living these grandiose lives, but all of our lives really are and should be considered as such. Our clothes and job title will be stripped from us in the end. Someone will stand in our closets and debate if anything is worth keeping and if so, who gets it. Our cars will be sold, our nail polish bottles trashed, our refrigerators judged and cleaned. The books we read will be dispersed amongst family and friends (if we are lucky) and all the sweet handwritten letters on the first page will still make someone smile. But we are gone, and everything we were gifted and purchased along the way will be for someone else to handle as they see fit. The one thing they cannot touch is the memory and the stories of who you were to them and it will be different for everyone. This to me is what makes up the grandiose part of our lives. We really are big and important in our worlds. Our loss is felt, our love makes a difference, and our stories do too. Somehow, the holidays always bring these thoughts out in me, perhaps as it is the closing to another year, the time when you feel like being close to others, a time to reflect on how you will spend the next one as you recognize how fast this one went by. And in a lot of ways, writing this Open Journal makes me recognize how different I may appear in person than I do in my writing. Some of you have read this and privately messaged me that it feels just like sitting with me when I am talking. These messages came from those who know me well in real life. Others have messaged and told me I put into words how they think but cannot express, some have been taken back to discover there is a lot more going on in this big ass noggin than appears or they could have been imagined, while others seem simply repulsed that I am human. What I write is how I think, how I feel, who I am in my own head and life. This is not necessarily who I am with you or who I was when we experienced a shared moment in life. And as I reflect on another year passing, I acknowledge that in the following, I would like to be able to look back at this Open Journal and see how much I have grown and changed from it. How it was the start of my flight and that I did not have to sit in some conference room with some schmuck anymore. That my flock grew and helped me grow. That I got closer to me and finally was able to see myself as the breathing mosaic I see in others.