You're Doing It Wrong

It recently came to my attention that I don’t have a certified copy of my birth certificate. I have an unofficial copy. It hasn’t come up for me recently that I need one but I thought I should probably get one. It’s been on my list forever.

The fee was $28 — which I thought was kinda high. I almost didn’t do it but figured, it would be good to have.

So I filled out the online form and at the end it said: print and take to a window.

I’m about 1000 miles from the window right now. I’m not going to be able to take it to a window so I clicked around until I found the way to get it online but if I did it that way, with all the fees it would be $45.

That seemed like a lot of money to get a document that many jurisdictions in this country now require for an identity card.

I clicked around some more and found a way to get it through the mail for $28 if I wasn’t in a hurry. Which I’m not.

I still wanted to blow it off but I felt like I cursed it. If I decided not to do it, inevitably there will be something coming up where I need it and then I won’t have it.

I got it.

End of the season garden. It’s supposed to freeze any day now. I need to clear out the last of it.

I’m perpetually in a state of being overwhelmed. A podcast showed up in my feeds that said, “Here’s some stuff to think about if you’re overwhelmed.”

One of the big tips had to do with being more organized.

World, I’m here to tell you: If organization could help, I would know it. But being organized takes time, too. Sometimes that’s the overwhelmed. “Where do I find the time to get organized?”

There was also a bunch of stuff about social media is garbage. I know that one, too.

The title is a lyric from a song by an 80s band Missing Persons. But when I typed it made sense for the world right now. I feel like social media is shouting into a void where people listen only long enough to solidify their rage and then shout something else in response.

These are words that seem like they should mean something else:

penultimate — means second to last in a series. Should mean: biggest, baddest ever.
defenestrate — means throw someone out a window. Should mean: disembowel someone.
peripatetic — traveling from place to place. Should mean: digestive problems.
inimitable — incomparable, impossible to copy. Should mean: shouldn’t even be a word – it’s so awkward to say. I don’t like this word.

I very carefully cropped and uploaded these pictures and then went about my business, completely forgetting that I was going to write something and post them. And then I had to run out the door to the soccer match.

Now I’m home and I’m beat and I need to bathe and get organized for the work week.

We had our annual hedge whacking this past weekend.

I had this weird bush from the front torn out. I’m going to plant something pretty TBD.

This is the landscaper, Vu, digging out the stump. You know who has the best gossip about the neighborhood? Vu. He works for people all up and down our street.

Plus they had to get on a ladder for the hedges so he could see what was going on in the yard next door.

I went to my folks last weekend and enjoyed some fresh mountain air. On Indigenous Peoples’ Day we went to Ashland and saw, Off the Rails which is a play about Indian residential schools in the Old West with a mostly Native cast and written by a Native playwright. It was very good and intense to see in a room full of Natives.

That’s the scoop for now.