Updates:

The gum surgery didn’t kill me. Isn’t that good news? It was, however, even more unpleasant than I expected it to be, mostly because it was hard to eat and after a bunch of days of not eating, I felt lousy on top of having a really sore mouth. Basically, it sucked.

Just when I started to finally feel better, my websites all went down. And stayed down. For close to a week, maybe a little bit more, I got daily emails from my hosting service saying, yep, we know, we’re working on it, we’ll fix it as soon as possible. If I’d been earning money from any of my websites, I would have been seriously distressed, but as it was, I just sorta shrugged and did on other things.

After that, the BBE (Best Brother Ever) came to visit and I had such an excellent time with him. He did many useful things, like trying to fix all the holes in my fence so that Miss Sophie Sunshine couldn’t wander out whenever she felt like it, but we also had fun, ate well, and did one major project that wasn’t exactly useful, but was delightful.

Specifically, we turned this:

Into this:

I’d been wanting to paint the golf cart ever since my dad and stepmom gave it to me back in the fall, but it felt like a two-person job. Mostly because the roof seemed like it was going to be challenge. I wound up buying a cover for the roof instead, and new seat covers for the front seat, and then spray painting the body, and adding stickers. I’m very pleased with how she turned out. Golf carts are great; cute, fun golf carts are awesome!

In the midst of my brother’s visit, I had a really, really nice birthday. We went to the beach with Christina, appreciated the sunshine and 80 degrees weather, almost swam in the ocean (yeah, it was cold, but we did get wet, at least), and ate oysters and more at my favorite rooftop patio restaurant.

On the way home, Christina asked if I wanted ice cream and I said, yes, I did, but I didn’t want the specific ice cream place she was referring to: I wanted to go to Kelly’s Ice Cream, in the Foxtail Coffee Shop in downtown Sanford, and have either their horchata ice cream or their Mexican chocolate ice cream. Then I had a brilliant idea and said that what I’d really like would be BOTH those ice creams, together, but that that would never happen because they never had those two flavors at the same time, and realistically, I shouldn’t be getting my hopes up for any specific flavor of ice cream anyway, because they’re always mixing up their flavors. You never know what they’re going to have.

But later that afternoon, the BBE and I went out for ice cream and they DID have both those flavors. It was, really, so incredibly nice. On your birthday, to have an unrealistic wish about ice cream, and to know that it’s not going to come true, but to want it anyway — and then to have it come true! And then, also, to have it be exactly as delicious as you imagined it would be!! I have had some very nice birthdays in my life — as well as, of course, some completely unmemorable birthdays — but I honestly think the magic of horchata plus Mexican chocolate will linger in my memory for the rest of my life.

Meanwhile, though, through the nice birthday and the fun painting, and the website hosting failures and the extended recovery from unpleasant dental work… I just kinda let everything “work-related” fall to the wayside. My email, in particular, just turned into Avoidance Central. I’d pick up my computer, open it, then… decide to go do something else. Anything else.

I went literal days where I didn’t touch my computer at all. I read books on my phone and played ball with Sophie and ate delicious foods and tried really, really, really hard to stay away from the news and not enter into any doom-scrolling experiences. I guess that was part of the computer avoidance, too. The computer is this window into a world that seems completely insane. And if I’m on the computer, I have to observe the train wreck. I get to see the news headlines, and wonder why all the people shouting “Have you no shame?” are just… meaningless noise, apparently.

I read a post-apocalyptic book recently in which a huge number of the survivors were bad guys. No other way to describe them. They were all people eager to have slaves and rape young women and murder children. I didn’t like the book, but I also felt like it was really unrealistic. A world in which 9 out of 10 people immediately descend into a savagery that goes beyond mere selfishness is not who people are. Humanity, as a species, has thrived because of community. Because of our ability to work together. That’s our strength as a species: not our sharp teeth or our physical strength or our violent impulses, but our ability to co-operate.  And somehow it feels like the internet has broken that. Maybe it’s unfair to blame the internet, but the view of the world that I get via my computer is a world that seems to be running on greed and fear right now, and I have just kind of preferred the view of my backyard instead. And also the view of downtown Sanford and the view of the park where I play ball with Sophie and the view of my Dad’s kitchen table…

And now that I’ve gotten that reflection out of the way, it’s time to move on. Since I have bravely tackled my computer, it’s time to bravely tackle my email. Ugh. Delete, delete, delete, delete…