I. I had my vaccine yesterday morning and I’m happy to report that it hasn’t been any worse than any other jab I’ve ever gotten. My arm is super sore, and I am pretty tired, but that is better than OH I DUNNO DEAD so I’ll take it.

My second jab is scheduled for August 26th, but there was a suggestion that I might get it sooner depending on how many doses come in and what the uptake is.

I get the hesitancy people are experiencing because the rollouts were handled so horribly and it wasn’t made clear that the rare occurrence of blood clots are *really really rare*. Like, we get more adverse experiences with *aspirin* than we do with Astrazeneca. But, yo. I am GenX. I am fearless. As far as I’m concerned, the best shot is THE ONE I CAN GET IN MY ARM.

Anyway. I’m happy for the light at the end of the tunnel that shot one represents and I will happily roll up my sleeve for shot two.

#GenXZeneca FOR THE WIN. 

II. I’m getting more and more curious about painting landscapes. This feels exciting. I’ll keep you posted.

III. I’m also getting more and more inspired to just simply draw. I’ve got my iPad all charged up. It feels somehow less precious to sketch in Procreate with my Apple pencil – makes practice something I can do anywhere, any time. No “wasted” paper. I just want to populate my paintings with more symbols than I can currently represent. It’s time to get over the whole “I can’t draw” story I keep telling myself. I can draw. Anyone can. I just *don’t* because my fear of failure has been holding me back. That’s enough of that, right?

Right.

IV. I got ghosted by The Viking, but I’m actually okay with it. The whole thing was a good experience for me because here’s the thing – every time he touched me, my whole body tightened up. I felt like I was bracing for something. The wrongness of the connection wasn’t registering with my brainmeats, but it was registering in my body, and that’s excellent data. Still. He can go die in a fire, because I offered him a second chance to approach me differently, and his response was to assert over and over again that I was super hot and he was so, so willing and available for whatever kind of sex I wanted as soon as I wanted it and then to ghost me after three dates with no action.

Ugh. 

In the words of my witch adjacent, “Why men?”

V. More good data, though, is how contented I am to be on my own. I used to love sharing space with other people, but not so much anymore. Not unless I’m 100% comfortable in their presence. If I have to adapt to the presence of another being, I don’t want that being in my presence.

This might be the best gift this pandemic has given me. I’ve gone from experiencing aloneness and solitude as some kind of burden to fully and completely loving it and the sense of safety I experience within it.

Everything from here on out needs to happen on my terms or it isn’t happening.

Hermity girl is hermity.

VI. I still want a commune with all my people, though. It would be so lovely to have a wheel-like habitat where there’s a shared space in the center – like a lodge with a huge courtyard – where we share meals and fires and have parties and then have separate little tiny houses all arranged around it. I’d need two, though. One for living in and one for work, because I love the idea of having those spaces be separate from one another for once in my life.

VII. “I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.” – Mary Oliver

I’m going to work with that quote for the next “A Year Of Mary” painting, which will be offered as a full-length or speed painted tutorial on Patreon on May 15th.

VIII. My grandbean, Amelia, turns 1 today.

LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE LITTLE INUK BABY!!

She puts her parents through their paces, I can tell you. We’ve had to figure out how to lock the phone when we’re doing video chats because she will NOT let anyone else hold it for her when she’s chatting with me.

Here she is with her dad, my eldest son. LOOK AT MY BEAUTIFUL INUK BABY WITH HIS BABY! :)

Gah. I can’t wait to hold that little one in my arms.

IX. My youngest daughter is in iso because her roommate AND her boyfriend tested positive for COVID. Blessedly, no one in the household is seriously ill, but it has been stressful knowing that my baby girl is within sneezing distance of this awful virus. We’re checking in every day, playing Words with Friends, staying as calm as we can.

She lives in Alberta, which is as much of a dumpster fire as Ontario is, and her peoples are all considered “essential workers” so this felt a bit inevitable. I can’t wait until they all have shots in arms so we can all breathe a little easier.

She’s been baking a lot of bread and torturing me with pictures.

X. I’m okay, all things considered. There’s a lot that’s “wrong” but there’s also a lot that’s “right” and I’m leaning hard in that direction because that is what gets me through.