Okay

2020

I went to a grocery store for the first time since everything started. King Soopers, which is the name of a Kroger branded grocery in Colorado and the west. When we first moved to Colorado, I told my mom that it was the dumbest name for any store I’ve ever heard, and I stand by it.

I made it 20 minutes before their new much earlier closing time. I felt bad. The manager was at the door reminding everyone of the closing time. He looked exhausted. Beat. Drained.

The inside was, madness, in that, everyone was running around and the shelves were, mostly bare in some isles and completely full in others. I know I’m not saying anything new but.. it was surreal to see in person.

The customers were wither frantic or oblivious. There didn’t seem to be an in-between. The man with two full karts using the self-checkout. The woman racing to buy one bottle of shampoo.

I can only imagine the exhaustion of medical workers. I only know of their exhaustion during normal everyday trauma. I grew up in that environment, and it was part of my regular life until six years ago.

Near the end of my mom’s life I got to know most of the staff of the hospital. It didn’t hurt that one of my best friends worked at that hospital, but I’d also like to think that I would’ve had a good relationship anyway.

I’ve only been in a hospital once since my dad died, and that was only to wait with Sorcha in a waiting room and I didn’t interact with anyone. What does this have to do with anything. What does anything have to do with anything right now?

Community, Gravity Falls, and now Animal Crossing, have been my escapism outlets of choice. Even with distractions, I’m finding myself restless, and wanting to do more. Do anything. ANYTHING.

This is only the first week without the Denver Writes Writers groups, and the first time I’ve had to cancel a workshop with GOOD numbers. Previously I’ve had to cancel twice because of low numbers and I missed one event when my dad was in the hospital. And back when I was a volunteer I missed one because my second cat died.

In the I’m working with my friends at BookBar to start sharing our writing prompts and maybe some of our collaborative stories. I’m also diving into the world of Zoom or Google Hangout or.. whichever one will work with us for the freeiest.

I try to do a weekly comic. TRY (you can see it HERE!), I’m mostly successful at it, except for January and some of February. And last week (it’s coming) I’m much better at doing a regular daily drawing, most of which exist in the same world as my comic series. I try to do something, anything, that’s light and cute and fun. I don’t know how successful I am. Maybe I’ll do a post here where I do the entire month of daily drawings. I don’t know. I know these are successful (ie I finish them) because I gave myself no restrictions, it’s just draw something.

Personal writing isn’t as easy. I obviously haven’t done much here in … who knows (I’m sure I could easily look.. I won’t). I have started journaling, and by started I mean, I wrote something last night, mostly stuff I mined for this. One of my friends and Denver Writes Volunteers is looking for ten minute play submissions from local playwrights, about feeling hopeless (all of these are right in my wheelhouse), but there’s a Monday deadline, which is yes, daunting, but also a bit exciting, I haven’t had a deadline crunch, since, well, the last play I wrote.

When I update this with another written blog in June 2023, we’ll know if I was successful. Or like most of these, I won’t ever read the previous entry and will probably just rewrite the same nonsense. Something to look forward to?