it's such a great offhand story, I have to write it down before I can groom it or I forget it. there's this mechanic in lewiston that we've always gone to. there's one of everything there. I always took my vehicles there since I moved in 2008 and still do, same same same. since the harsh spring of 2014, the compass has needed patting on its butt from that mechanic in particular, like its auto au pair. that jeep is getting verrry old now. and for a while, it was branded as 'gdwch' because that's what the license plate was (b4 transfer to Ears). that's when I kind of 'came out of the closet', I guess sorta. the manager, same woman, Nicole, always sits at the front desk in either a bill's hoodie or one of those ones that's issued by autotool makers. and she has/had this kind of female pattern baldness and was significantly overweight, all of which, ya know, you just look past politely. so super nice, and she recognized my voice as soon as I said hello (ALWAYS) on the phone long before caller ID - all of that for years and years and years. for the last year or so, that jeep has been going to that same mechanic by way of being towed there by me (my dime), but I haven't been there. so today, we had to pick it up yet again. I hope for the last time 🙄.  I wore my hex therapist T-shirt, which is/was always her favorite, just to kind of remind her if she had forgotten who I was. but she came running out the door at me with a huge lift me up hug. apparently she has been asking Ears about his mom every single time and she's lost 127 pounds in the last year, and she announces loudly as if she's been waiting to tell me "menopause is the best thing ever!!!"  this doesn't happen nearly as often as people go bonkers for my hair, but it's related - a whole new #metoo movement of women over 50 who just scream out loud "THIS IS / I AM FUCKING AWESOME" about being free of bleeding and the up/down/eh, and landed on, well, TULIP WEEK IS ALWAYS (weed). I don't feel that right now, but that's just ... needed downtime (#recovery). Ears never mentioned Nicole's metamorphosis, although he did admit that recently she did seem kind of, uhmm, 'better?' lol - but that only made him not look at her more hahaha. today, she was head to toe in a new black skinny outfit, with more jewelry, and her hair looks better (god bless!). winning the lotto of menopause is not the reason I look the way I do - the fertility treatments and ignoring their effect and then massive fibroid surgery finally then my giving myself cortisol poisoning adrenal calcifieds something because I shut down my liver because I was a functional alcoholic is why I look the way I do now. I had to get over allll that after working to death with my 'frontline' status letter at 2 universities who took more grant $ of mine than I was paid AND that s.o.b. about whom I still have nothing to say except maybe I slipped that one time and shot his ass 👀 except I was too bored to do so in real life. but. I track with these women who are part of a new #metoo movement, including my sister, soooo many that it's just kind of common now to make exclamations loud enough for people around you to hear and then other women are like #METOO - uhhh yea I got a lot of tattoos more cz uhhh I feel better (more) than I've ever felt physically so why not paint the walls, you know? "We should really get together!" and just like that, acquaintances become friends (maybe 🤷🏽‍♀️)

no need for leaving - kameron marlowe sang this at the top of my lungs all this salty sweaty long evening of chores until I'm croaking like a frog - karaoke shuts the dogs up 👀 (wtaf)

hi