Fucks sake.  The struggle was real yesterday.  I didn't feel right till like after 8 pm, and even then I took it easy and called it a night around 11.  No more drinking, Lisa, ok?  Drink because you like the taste.  Don't drink to get drunk.

  I kinda hate days like today, where everything's staggered.  Had a reading a half hour ago, then I have therapy at noon, so there's a 2.5 hour window.  Then after that, I have something coming up at 2, which could take an hour...it could take four hours.  Then I have another reading at 6:30 tonight....which could take an hour, could take three.  I wish could somehow condense the whole thing for efficiency, or just do my Red Bank stuff today, and then the Keyport stuff tomorrow.

In between all that, I need to go grocery shopping, hit the box office at Count Basie, Costco, and I need to get my nails done for Wednesday.  Also eat.  I have to remember to eat.  Plus, this fucking house.  Saturday I didn't clean.  Yesterday I could barely blink and breathe.  The house is falling the fuck apart right now.  The bathroom is becoming uncomfortably dirty, even though I wipe down all the surfaces every day.  There's just crap building up, and the to-do list spools ever longer.

And because Wednesday is such a thing I feel like I'll need a peaceful day tomorrow, to get my shit together literally and figuratively. I'm reading for a book signing.  I don't feel anxiety for myself, but I do feel a little bit of anxiety for my client, who's book is getting launched.

 I need a spa day.  I need to sit in a sauna with a shitty fantasy novel and just sweat for a half hour.  I need a hot tub.  I need a cold plunge in a pool.  Last night I was looking at Groupon for good spa deals.  I miss the spa at Revel.  I'd probably go there Thursday morning as a day-cation.  Reality:  Spritzing myself with the hose, while watering the garden, then sitting out in the backyard for a few hours.

I have been itching to write all weekend.  It's been fun, and there's lots to talk about, but it's Sunday and I think I am hungover.  Not entirely sure.  Either way, I am powering through this.  But let it be known that I feel like I am going to puke, my stomach won't stop lurching.  I have a very pervasive headache that's making it hard to focus on words, typing, writing.  Not sure if I drank too much, or just had a rough night sleeping.

I had an appointment with a customer, that she postponed till Monday.  That's the only work I had lined up for Saturday, so when she messaged me, I was just pulling into town.  I drove right past the shop and parked down at the beach for a while.  If I were prepared, I would have gone right into the water.

That's literally off a parking lot, in the Atlantic Highlands.  So pretty.  

So, I went driving around some, yesterday, and felt domestic.  I went home, and started preparing drumsticks and stuff for dinner.  I figured if Saturday was a wash, I would at least treat us to a nice meal.  Irv got home a few minutes later, and we went out to Samahas for veggies.  So dinner was corn, chicken, and baked beans at like 10 pm, out in the yard.  

We stayed up late and watched Paris Is Burning on my laptop.  Luiz had never seen it, and was moved to tears.  I cry every time I watch it.  We drank too, I was drinking Jim Beam over ice with lemon, and I don't know if I drank too much?  I haven't really had hard booze in awhile, and it didn't feel like too much. I didn't feel wasted, but I certainly woke up in a sorry ass state.  I don't know, but it's turned me off to drinking further.  I do like a beer or a cocktail, now and then, I like drinking culture, but I cannot do hard drinking like I used to.  

I have more stuff to talk about, but I'm already struggling at this.  Friday night we went to the County Fair, spontaneously.  Today is Sunday, and sort of a wash.  I have more pictures to share.    

So today is a shop day.  As in, I am normally obligated to go into the shop and sit there from one to at least six, but usually on a Friday it winds up close to 8-9 pm.  In June, somehow it was decided that I can't use the back air conditioner anymore, because it draws too much electric.  So, to make a long story short, it's hot, stuffy, and it fucking stinks.  The cat shits all over the floor downstairs below my shop-space, and without AC...ugh.  And no, I don't clean up after the cat anymore.

Lately, I just go in 20 minutes before an appointment, to set up.  Today is no different.  Lauri is coming in at 4:30, I'm going to leave here around 3:30.  

I woke up feeling good, rested, and ready for the weekend.  Most people greet weekends with glee, as a restful couple of days, I have the opposite. Tomorrow and Sunday are typically shop days too. Most of my procrastination issues center around going into work, and not the actual work part, but the dread of just being in the shop, and dealing with the most toxic person I know, Meredith.  I'm going to bring this up with Nancy on Monday.  If I didn't have an 'appointment' with a friend, I wouldn't even go.  I even have to frame it as an appointment, when really this woman is a neighbor, and will mosey on down some Friday nights, just to hang out.  She brings a bottle of wine, we smoke weed, I do some funtime readings, and I don't charge her.  Her husband tips me in Sour Diesel, and generally they'll bring me treats, food, but their company is enough.  If I'm not driving, then they'll bring me booze, too.  My favorite kind of customers.  If it didn't attract the wrong element, I'd put on my sign "will work for weed, food, and booze.".  But the point is, I have to write it in the planner or else I'll find myself canceling, which is stupid, because they're good friends, not customers, and I look forward to seeing them whenever I can.


Today it's about 80 in here, but with all the fans going it's super comfortable.  Still a little moist for a full face, so it's a lipstick and mascara day...only red lipstick today.  I take a selfie or two every day, because I'm trying to get used to seeing myself in pictures.  I have no problem wiggling into a bathing suit and taking it on the road, but I do struggle with photos, and my image online.  So, here's to conquering that.   This is what I have to work with today.  I'm changing into one of my bazillion black sundresses when I go out.   On a scale of 1-10. I give about 3 fucks today.  

I have long wanted to keep a personal, online photo journal, to go along with my mundane daily musings.  I love looking back through my pictures on Instagram or just through my phone.  Not momentous occasions, but like daily stuff.  I hate this living situation, I hate this house, but there's good here too.  We have moments of beauty.   He was so cute, sleeping with Jinx this morning, for example, that I couldn't resist.   I love the colors, and the way the sheets looked.  I love the peace here.  

Yesterday, I had tons of energy, and put it to good use. Last night as I was going over my to-do lists, I scratched many things off, and felt a BEAMING sense of accomplishment, one that will stay with me for a long time.  I made a fresh to-do list last night, for today.  Pretty much b-grade stuff that is neither pressing nor time sensitive.  Stuff like "get the dog hair out of all the fans in the house".  I was all energetic to go to the grocery store...but really we just need milk.  I stayed in bed till Luiz got home from IFF, and usually when he gets home and finds me laying down or half dressed, he will meet me on that level, and get naked...and then of course, the to-do list is wholly fucked, and we just spend the morning/early afternoon in bed.  We needed this today, and I could frame it as abject laziness, but the truth is, we haven't had a day to just be together in about two weeks.  The reality is, we needed intimacy, we needed naked time, we needed time to talk and process the past few weeks, and just have no other distractions but each other.  The sex is always...always amazing.

I have complained at length about Luiz in these pages, but days like today remind me that he's 150% worth every tear.  There is literally no one in this whole universe that makes me feel more loved, no one makes me feel sexier.  And not just with words.  Sure, he tells me how beautiful I am, how hot, how much he wants me.  But...the way he looks at me...that's where it is.  I feel it.  I can hear things a thousand times, but it's all platitudes.  It's nice.  But ultimately, anyone can say anything, and not mean it.  But he looks at me in such a way, like he's in awe of me.  He will drink every bit of me in.  He will look at every part of me from my fucked up hair, to my big fat belly, to my long muscular legs...and visually appreciate every single part of me, even when I, myself, feel hideous.   He will look at me like he's starving, and I am the last morsel of food in the world, and he's just gonna swallow me whole.  It's a little predatory, when he's turned on, when the energy is right.  I've never had anyone look at me quite like that, not Irv, no one.  It's a little scary, for me, because I have never been ok with being looked at.  But when he looks at me with such love, adoration, tenderness... then with such hunger... And then he ACTS on it.  He gets to work worshiping every single part of me, in his own way.  He doesn't shy away from any part of me. And I respond in kind, giving up every square inch of me.  Nothing is sacred, because everything is.  He manages to elevate a quick Thursday morning bang...into CHURCH.

Well.  I'll say this.  Everyone should be looked at like that at least once in their life.  It's fucking hot.

I used to feel guilty about spending the morning in bed with him.   Like in doing that, I was shirking other nebulous duties.  Responsible people don't loaf around in bed till noon! Good girls don't do that. Shut the fuck up, Mom. I am 100% fine with my schedule.

I talk a lot about my self image issues, and those I have a lot of.  I didn't start this blog out with this in mind, but a lot of the stuff we talked about after marathon amazing sex, was just that.  I told him how he makes me feel, like I AM gorgeous, I am amazing.  He's didn't get it.  Because to him I just am those things.  He said,  "I'm not making you feel anything. You are those things, and I just respond to it."  Honestly, just typing it out makes me teary-eyed.  

It's hard not to juxtapose his genuine feelings towards me, to another situation that's recently folded in my life.  Years of being told "I love you, I care about you" and nothing but skittish averted eyes, or dead forward facing gaze. It's easy to internalize, as though I am so unappealing to even look at or touch.   Lucky for me, those feelings were also easy super easy to get over.  Hot greasy buttsex helps.

The Desk

Would you LOOK AT THAT.  I figured this shit out.  Anyway, that's the "after" shot of the desk.  The lighting is terrible, because it's late here.  I mainly did it to see if I can share pictures here directly from my phone.  Oh happy day. 

So, that happened.  And kept happening.

I started writing this morning about the Quentin Tarantino thing, and Luiz wanted to vacuum.  I jumped up to help him and somehow I started cleaning my bedroom.  I started picking up a snarl of wires, and here nine hours later...

I cleaned. Everything.  My desk, my files, my life.  I now have a working system in place for productivity, both on paper, and in life.  Shit is coded.  Shit is organized.  I've got the planner working and full of information.  I had no idea how badly I needed it again.  Irv points out... "please, from when I met you, you had one of those things right up till a few years ago."  He's right.  I am planner dependent.

I am exhausted.  Panda and I started a blog today, Honk if you're GLORIOUS.  It's going to be amazing.  She's amazing.  I'm pretty fucking great too.

It's quittin time.  Translate:  It's Surfer Buffy Minecraft time.

I need to come up with a name for the Surfer.