Anything again

[Hopalong]

Me too!
I just found Gold Bond Healing Hand Cream and really like it.

I've made such a catastrophic mess in my kitchen I am having to wash hands more than once an hour. Ugh. Add in Pup going backward with housetraining when there's chilly rain outside. Errrgghhh.

Hippy, I just realized that although I don't really understand the term well, I think your posts when you write about blankness or "write something here" might be META? So that means you're a philosopher. Sophisticated thinker.

hugs
Hops

[Dirty Hippy]

Hops, I tend to make things from scratch and frugally so I end up with messes because more bits.

IF you are having a kitchen disaster what if you gave yourself two weeks to clean the kitchen -- and ate only microwave burritos on paper plates for those two weeks lol. And yogurt and banana. I'm not sure what is going on there but you need some kind of strategy. Put a book on take or music. Pick one quarter of the kitchen or one counter top to clear and if there is just too much stuff for some reason... throw it away. Minimalism makes it cleaner and easier too. 

But also. I am in no position to give advice to anybody about anything.

[Dirty Hippy]

- I did meet my friend to go to a street market -- a museum -- a couple well known city parks I've never been to and some other stuff and then directed her to a honky tonk bar for live music. She seems to think I hang out in bars all the time. I'm like NO ... I am finding us affordable music because going to a real concert is something you would never agree to bwahahaha and I don't have the money now anyways.

We were both exhausted by the end of the day. We ate the picnic on the tailgate in a very pretty part of the city because parking. We found parking and that is better than finding a picnic table I suppose.

[Dirty Hippy]

AND

When I had my car I did a lot less planning for picnics and it was sublime peaceful solitude and commute almost nothing.

It's way more effort now.

So since it happens that I now have an abundance of picnic type stuff... I made pasta salad again today and cut up pickles and stuck them in a bag.. And cut up veggies... and saw I have a can of tuna in the closet... and fruit getting ripe. So I am doing it all over again to meet a different friend tomorrow. Nobody does this anymore. You would think I was prepping for a family reunion. But my friend just told me it's her birthday and she worked on her birthday so this will be sort of nice I hope. The weather is promising to be gray like Twilight movie of course. Gloomy. Shrug. There's always coffee. And then coffee = toilet stops. Sigh.

long time ago I did international travel and the amount of prep that goes into that feels almost on par with me packing a picnic. Oh well.

no art, no garden, so now just picnic packing as a hands on make something outlet I suppose

at least we are doing something that is the goal

the intense panic to have a summer in the pacific northwest

[lighter]

I hope that pasta salad is enjoyed to it's fullest.  I remember a pasta salad making phase....it was yummy!!!

Let us know how things go.

Lighter

[Dirty Hippy]

Was writing a response then the power cord moved a fraction on my laptop and it shut down. The battery is bloated and dead and won't unscrew out.

So. What was I saying.

To sum it up. It was a very nice day.

[Dirty Hippy]

Thanks for the well wishes.

Had been in a funk the day before the hike. There were multi-striations of gloom blankets in the sky.

First half of the day we hiked in the rain and then later part of the day sun came out. Was glad we went. We went to one of the more beautiful locations I've ever been had gone there last year. I would like to do a camping trip there to have more time to inspect every leaf on the mountainside. I looked for two types of orchids and I did not find them...must try harder.

She asked what trail I wanted to do ... I said "all of them." She is younger than me but I can outhike her. She can outrun me though. I don't run.

(Hops why is mountainside one word --- and apparently there is no real rule for compound nouns?)

She wanted to bring up politics and I let her but I felt guarded and I said "I just don't want to offend anybody." I try to tell people that I am really not progressive and I am really not conservative because it's the truth of it. I explained to her that I had become somewhat radicalized a while back and I have since disengaged from politics now.

She touched on the big taboos. We are in a blue state and she lives in a very progressive area and she is definitely "a type" when it comes to political stuff. I only bring up mild non-offensive stuff that are factual about the business model of these things that people are making money too from the culture of the issue.

She talks a little too much maybe which is good for hikes in theory to ward off bears and cougars. I'm a content person in nature my mind really just goes into the glad-to-be-here thing and doesn't think constantly. I've got more poverty of thought at times.

We ate nobody got food poisoning. I found a picnic table half in the shade half in the sun. We sat with our feet drying out and watched a rabbit.

I feel I am avoiding adulting. My life feels like crisis stuff but when does it not. Sometimes it doesn't. But if a person can't have friends and hang out with them in nature what is the point of any of it.

It's really nice to be around someone who has functional communication.

Saw another friend as well --- she told me the day after we hung out that she was having some leg pain so she is maybe coming to terms with being overweight but maybe not. She tried weight-loss pills. I suggested she might try weight watchers (the group not the products) as some people have told me they liked it and the support of other people help them.

It's really strange how much in common I have with the hiking friend in spite of the politics stuff. Also I'd like to not be standing next to a giant cliff while talking politics with a progressive. I'm there for the view. It's great having company.
I'm not going to let anybody program my brain with political garbage and I have no interest in deprogramming other people. The politics of nature is the apex predator. Enough rambling.

Now if only I could brainwash her into liking concerts.

[Hopalong]

More LIVING, Hippy! (Won't call you Hips, promise. Though if I'm Hops....lol.)
I loved reading this tale of your joyful day in nature. Some people need nitroglycerin, some NEED nature, including you. Bravo bravo bravo.

So so glad you got out in it. And gray days are my favorites. But both, gray then sunny...heaven.

No idea what the grammatical rule is about those compound nouns, but they're good ones:
backside but flip side
offsides
outsides
upside and downside

Maybe the first word is a modifier like an adjective...I only write by instinct and am a pathetic grammarian. I edit correctly (usually) but couldn't recite a rule to save my backside.

hugs
Hops

[lighter]

Adulting .....
adulting.

I wonder how many ideas, around that, are yours or anyone's....and how many were programmed before one's grown.

Food for thought.

On another note ....your posts about nature, hikes and food are gratifying to read. 

Choosing joy is an important type of adulting, imo. 

Choosing not to engage in conflict is also adulting.....and finding a way to assertively draw boundaries around discussions, and hold them, sans big energy.....is HUGE adulting, ime.

Anyone can learn to do it.

Not everyone does, IME.

Not everyone overwrites their programming, and feels worthy to draw boundaries, and hold them, IME.

I can picture you doing that, Meh.....and camping, and making more social plans, and breathing through life's awkward parts....bc they pass.  Like the weather.

I see you choosing yourself.....when "shoulds" pop up. 

Dismiss, and go back to seeking joy.....expressing it, receiving....expanding it.

Write your own rules.....
maybe....
a little.
Maybe a bunch?

You're grown now.

You can do that.

Lighter

[Dirty Hippy]

Thanks Ladies.

[Dirty Hippy]

Did you know there is a non-tropical cultivar orchid that can grow in the ground at least here in the PNW called Bletilla. I did not know this until right now. I saw some in a yard today and swore it looked like an orchid but I didn't know we had garden varieties.

[Dirty Hippy]

Friends have been flaky past 2-3 weekends. So I've been doing some stuff on my own but it's rather limited hyper-local.

1) Went to a couple very small music events and sat by myself totally different experience than A) going with a friend and B) having more money to spend. It's not that I feel like I want things. I feel obligated to be a paying customer even if some of the music events are free.

2) A) I have given up on one of the friends completely and removed her phone number out of my phone and if she wants to make the effort she can but I feel I have planned too much and I have known her for years and I think she wants to rot away at home laying in bed eating cookies getting fatter every weekend. It's okay some weekends but every weekend all summer meh. B) The other friend has a high responsibility job and I am giving her freedom to be under the weather and tired. If she wants to make future plans that is on her now.

3) I have sort of drawn a boundary with some of the older church ladies. I've been pleasant with them but I can't do the "senior" -- "subordinate" thing in my life anymore. I am just trying to find peers and friends not these weird dynamics where a person takes on an authority vibe or whatever. So one of the ladies who was nice but also invited me over to her home but also was doing the authority vibe thing for multiple reasons it's not convenient for me to visit her in her home but also I don't want to relate to someone on that level. It's a real dynamic. I'm needing chill carpe diem make the most of summer peers. -- I perhaps should make some kind of plan for myself this weekend to have some kind of experience by myself maybe.

4) The narcissistic bullshit continues ad nauseum per typical. Rot in hell stagnant carcass. No I am not a church lady persona and don't want to be.

[Dirty Hippy]

5) I quit therapy for the time being. Therapy feels stagnant now. Some of the things I told the therapist I had challenges with the only thing she said was that people are greatly motivated by the subconscious or unconscious to protect themselves I guess. This makes sense but also I am not sure what I am supposed to do with that B) I don't have energy or intent to find a different therapist right now and I also say that because logistically I will probably run out of insurance before I can make use of it. Who knows maybe I should do therapy more maybe next week or whatever. Bleh.

6) I have kind of sort of been trying to socialize but what ends up happening is I sort of just chat with random people I run into and at it's best it's friendly information exchange. At it's worst I just realize I am on a different wavelength compared to some other people. I guess everybody is in their own lane doing their own thing.

---- I don't always have to adapt myself to other people. I can just be me and have my preferences and if I don't particularly like someone I don't have to become pleasant putty.

7) I miss my solo hobbies because they really gave me a sense of satisfaction of doing something thoughtfully and well.

Back to 6) --- lots and lots of events are transactional consumer things. Maybe I wrote this earlier but I was talking to someone about community and she had said "the local businesses open up for wine tasting" --- and I silently just think to myself this is just posh retail event is all not really the same thing as what I mean so oh well.