It's been touch or go, tryin' to get gone

When I did my blog post where I ranked EFC songs off of his new triple album, I did not put Russian Roulette on the top of the list.

I regret that now.

This song is incredible and it's been on repeat this week in Monicaland.

Also, I appreciate the tires reference in it, because my car has officially eaten two tires in two days. 

It hasn't been a good week to be a vehicle in my family.

--

Russian Roulette

Eric Church

Yeah, I’m blowin’ the doors off this hang around town
Holdin’ this old gun metal grey Chevrolet pedal down
Lead foot in a steel toe
Out runnin’ the memories, rackin’ up miles
Gettin’ gone as I can takin’ my chances spinnin’ that dial
And so far, I’m on a roll, yeah, I’m on a roll

Ain’t nothing gonna kill these horses tonight
But a song like a bullet from a dashboard light
Gettin’ shot through the speakers both left and right in stereo
Messin’ up my head, playin’ Russian Roulette with the radio

It’s been touch or go tryin' to get gone, couple close calls
But I just call up a station on down the line
Keep that needle in that red linе zone
Yeah maybe wеst is best, pick up I-85
Chase that settin’ sun, till it parks in the sky
But hell, I don’t know, only thing I know

Ain’t nothing gonna kill these horses tonight
But a song like a bullet from a dashboard light
Gettin’ shot through the speakers both left and right in stereo
Messin’ up my head, playin’ Russian Roulette with the radio

I need a melody without a memory
Take me where I’ve never been
I hear ‘em gunnin’ for me
I feel ‘em huntin’ for me
But I ain’t tunin’ them in

I still ain’t over you
But I can feel it comin'
Kind of like the rhythm to these tires hummin'
That signal comes and goes
I hold my breath and hope nothing

Nothing gonna kill these horses tonight
But a song like a bullet from a dashboard light
Gettin’ shot through the speakers both left and right in stereo
Messin’ up my head, playin’ Russian Roulette with the radio
Messin’ up my head, playin’ Russian Roulette with the radio

 

The rest is fate.

There are certain things I try to do in life on a regular basis, and giving blood is one of them.

I got an email about a week ago, asking me to consider donating platelets. I belong to a Facebook group dedicated to people who do so, so I thought it'd be a good idea to try it.

After all, what could go wrong?

I knew the process would take a few hours, so I carved out some time on a Sunday afternoon and drove to the next town over. (Oh, how that expression has changed since I moved. Ha, ha. The next town over is no longer Garden City, and for that I'm very, very thankful.)

The process started out smoothly. I passed the blood pressure test and the finger prick test. All was good and well. They sat me in the chair, and I watched a movie with Ryan Gosling in it, which is not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Everyone kept asking me if I was okay, which I thought was odd. I finally asked the nurse if I looked weird, and she said that I was considerably more pale than when I came in. 

The thing about me is that I don't get pale easily. Or often at all, or ever, really. I usually turn so bright red that my face becomes a magnificent (and totally attractive) shade of neon orange. So the fact that I was pale was concerning to me.

I was tingly, hot and cold, and a little queasy. I fought through it though, and with the help of a shirtless Ryan Gosling, I made it through.

The nurse made a sound after I was finished when she opened the machine. I noted that it happened in my head, but everything seemed okay, so I ignored it.

I went to eat and drink juice afterward, and felt about 100 times better. I grabbed my keys and asked if I was free to leave. I was the last donor, and I was sure the nurses were eager to get out of there early and go on with their lives. 

Ha, ha. 

The nurses told me to slow down, sit down and take some time. I had been sitting for hours at that point, so I stood up and stood there awkwardly for a few minutes.

One of the nurses told me what was going on. After I finished my donation, the nurse realized that the machine malfunctioned, and my blood was in the machine, where it wasn't supposed to be.

For those unfamiliar with the platelet donation process, here's how it goes.

A needle in one arm takes the blood from you, it's run through a machine to get your platelets, then the blood is returned to you in the other arm. 

So, blood isn't supposed to be in the machine. 

One nurse wanted to call 911. They ended up calling a doctor, and I laughed when the doctor asked if I had a pulse.

That's how life goes sometimes.

I didn't ask specifically, mostly because I didn't want to know, but I'm assuming my donation was not usable because of the machine malfunction.

In the words of one nurse: "The only thing that matters right now is your life."

Oh, man.

I posted the photo below to a Facebook group and got some uplifting responses (and nearly 150 likes). My favorite responses: "Once they stick the needles in and the movie starts, it's out of my hands."

"We go and set them free to the universe, sent with love and intention, it is all we can do. The rest is fate."

So my intentions were good, but the stars did not align for me that day. 

I still got a cool pin and a magnet out of it. Plus a blog post.

It was worth it. 

(The nurses called me the next day to check up on me, which was very nice of them. The only weird side effect I felt was a nasty case of heartburn. Maybe I just had heartburn from something I ate that day, or maybe it was related to this. Who knows.)

Nothing in my life ever goes as planned. So much so, I just gave up making life plans.

Watching and dodging the curveballs life throws at me, over and over and over again, has become one of my favorite past times at this point.

:) 

That one hits close to home for me.

 Life is slowly getting back to normal in Monicaland. 

I know I haven't posted much since I moved. Okay, technically, I haven't posted about my move at all, but the truth is that I'm still waiting for the move to be final. 

Selling a house and buying another house is a pretty major life decision to make. It involves at least a dozen or so professionals, plus family and friends and parents and brothers who help out, too. 

There's a meme out there in internetland that says that adulthood is like looking both ways to cross the street and then getting hit by a plane.

I agree with this.

Sometimes, when I think I get life figured out, and when I think I'm on the right path, something comes along and wacks me in the face. Suddenly, I get that feeling in my chest like there's a thousand pounds of bricks sitting on it.

More often than not, though, that feeling goes away pretty quickly. 

Have I mentioned what the last year of my life has looked like?!?

Anyway, now I'm just whining. Part of life returning to normal in Monicaland is attending leadership trainings.

Leadership means a lot to me. I recognize now, more than ever, how critically important it is in an organization. 

Without proper leadership and structure in place, the whole place collapses on top of itself.

The Zoom session I went to today was amazing and soothing for my heart. The fact that I'm back at the place where I'm doing professional development on what I'm passionate about means a lot to me.

I shared this in a group chat, and the speaker asked me to expand on it a little.

I wrote down this quote: If you don't have a purpose that you believe in, why would you take the risk of failing? Of experimenting and failing?

For me, it's kind of groundbreaking to realize that you have to believe in something in order to fail at it. That one hits close to home for me. 

Can we talk about this for a second? 

In order to fail, you have to believe in something. As in, the whole reason you're trying something to begin with is because you have faith.

Faith that it will work out. 

Faith that it won't all fall apart.

Faith that you don't get hurt.

Faith that you won't fail. 

I contemplated that for much of the session, and thought about how it applied to my professional and personal life. 

Then, the speaker asked us another question. 

What's at risk here?

As it turns out, the person that I was paired with in a breakout room was also brand new at her job. We had a pretty easy answer for this question.

Every single thing we have is at risk, from the roof over our heads to our bank accounts to our mental health.

When you start something new, you put everything, and I literally mean every single thing, at risk. 

I'm just going to pause for a moment and let that sink in. 

There are people out there, myself included, that are willing to risk everything just to make a change. 

And sometimes, you fail. 

(Not now, though. Life is pretty bitchin' at the moment.)

---

That's what I've come up with at the moment. It might not be groundbreaking to you, but it was to me today. 

When our breakout room was closing, I had 30 seconds to explain the last few years of my life to my breakout room buddy. While we both waited patiently to re-join the large group, she said something to me that stood out. 

"I'm really proud of you." 

Thank you, internet stranger, for your kindness today. 

It turns out that I'm pretty proud of myself, too.

 

New music!

I've had a month to listen to new music from Eric Church.

It's all pretty damn amazing. Having three albums released in April, the month of my birthday and the month I started a wonderful new job, was pretty damn cool.

My initial thoughts: The Heart album is definitely better than the Soul Album. The middle album, &, which is only available for his fan club, has some good songs on it. 

Three new albums from my favorite singer was the perfect way to spend my birthday month.

Here are all of EFC’s new songs, in order of the best to the least best (because he doesn’t have a worst song):  

1. Love Shine Down 

2. Lone Wolf 

3. Bunch of Nothing 

4. Heart of the Night 

5. People Break 

6. Kiss Her Goodbye 

7. You Look Good and You Know It 

8. Never Break Heart 

9. Heart on Fire 

10. Where I Want To Be 

11. Hell of a View 

12. Crazyland 

13. Stick That In Your County Song 

14. Through My Ray Bans 

15. Do Side 

16. Doing Life With me 

17. Break It Kind of Guy 

18. Russian Roulette 

19. Lynyrd Skynyrd Jones 

20. Mad Man 

21. Bad Mother Trucker 

22. Rock & Roll Found Me 

23. Bright Side Girl 

24. Jenny

After a hurricane comes a rainbow

I haven’t written in thishereblog in a while. The truth is, I’ve been in a waiting mode to see what the next chapter of my life is going to look like.

My days in western Kansas are getting numbered. I accepted a job in the eastern part of the state and start on April 1. I’ve been deep in the throes of house selling for a while now. 

I have faith that it will all work out in the end. In the meantime, I want to talk about some of the moments that I’ve lived through over the past 10 years in my hometown. 

For those of you who might not know, the past year of my life can most accurately be described as a hurricane. (And it’s not lost on me that after a hurricane comes a rainbow.)

Last year when the pandemic started, I was told to work from home from the company that I had worked for for 8.5 years. I didn’t think much of it. I went to the office, grabbed what I needed, said my goodbyes, and went home, where I worked for a month.

It was fine, until it wasn’t. My job was there one minute and then gone the next. Suddenly, I found myself jobless in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, which is not something I took lightly.

I didn’t take it very well at all. I’m better now, but let’s just say that there were some very, very dark days in the past year of my life.

It takes a lot to move. It takes a lot to job search in a new town. It takes a lot to pack up everything you own, say goodbye to the house that you love, and say goodbye to the town that you grew up in.

It takes a lot to say goodbye, period. 

But for now, I’m going to focus on what my hometown gave me over the past 10 years. 

The thing that I love most is that it gave me some pretty cool travels. 

I got to attend South by Southwest in Austin. I spent a week on the beach in Cancun. I spent a long weekend with a love interest in Oklahoma City. I went to concerts in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and Tennessee, and so, so much more. 

I was front row at a concert in Durant, Oklahoma, which is closer to Dallas than Oklahoma City, when I got my favorite singer’s autograph. I went to that concert a week after a relationship ended. I was so thankful that happened, because that guy would not have gone to that concert with me. 

I was front row-ish at a concert in Nashville, alongside 56,000 other people in an NFL stadium. I toured the Jack Daniel’s distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. I fell in love, I fell out of love. A few times. 

And I don’t regret that. 

The past month of my life has been filled with realtors, insurance agents, roofing companies, adjusters, foundation companies, bankers, and other random people and companies that it takes to move to a new city. 

Have I mentioned how much it takes to move to a new city?!? Selling your old 121-year-old house and moving across the state takes a lot. 

Like, a lot lot. 

Tomorrow is the first day of my new life. The past month, I’ve been stuck in what I call the ‘in-between.’ Also known as purgatory. One foot out of one door while a foot in another door. There’s still some ‘in-between’ going on, and likely will be until both of my houses close. 

If you would have told me a year ago that I would have a new phone number, a new town, a new job, and a new vaccination, I would have called you a liar. 

It takes a lot to completely change your life. 

I think me (finally!) moving is a lesson in how to let go of things not meant for you. That goes for jobs, relationships, and even...teeth. Sometimes you just have to walk away for things not meant for you. 

I was thinking on my drive to my new town today. There are two types of people in the world. There are people who want better for themselves, and there are people who are perfectly happy with what they have who don’t want any aspect of their life to change.

I definitely fall into the first category. I might add that there’s nothing inheritely wrong with the second category, other than those people aren’t very fun (for me) to date. 

I’m always going to want to better my life. And this move is definitely a step in the right direction. 

(Here's a picture of Nashville, just because.)

2021

 I never gave much thought about the odds of living through rolling blackouts when it's -6 degrees outside while in the middle of a world-wide pandemic...until now. 

For now, I'm doing my part in trying to conserve energy. My thermostat is set three degrees cooler than it usually is. I have heavy clothes on. And, I'm thinking and praying for the poor people in Texas who have icicles on their ceiling fans. 

So far, 2021 is not impressing me much. But as for right now, I'm thankful my family, dogs and I are all warm and safe. And 20 degrees today felt like a heat wave!

He's Old Insane's new best friend

 "Crazyland"

Let me take your hat friend
Tell me what's the matter
'Round here folks call me the mad hatter
That's Sad in the corner with his heart on his sleeve
Talking to Regret who's never gonna leave
Over there playing pool is Fool and Lost
And tending bar tonight that's All My Fault
We all just hang out and listen to Blues
Sing his songs there's nothing else to do in

Crazyland
Since you said goodbye
It's been crazy man
Lunatics, liars and also-rans
Waiting on her leaving to come back again
Here in Crazyland
Talking to yourself is the only plan
Giving up on your last give a damn
Here in Crazyland

Pick you out a stool son
I'll buy the first round
I'll tell you how her leaving
Brought the whole house down
No not that one that's Sorrows
He's over shaking hands with I Told You So
That's Out Of His Mind that just walked in
He's Ole Insane's new best friend
It's a whole damn room full of lost whose who's
And you never know who you're gonna run into in

Crazyland
Since she said goodbye
It's been crazy man
Lunatics, liars and also-rans
Waiting on her leaving to come back again
Here in Crazyland
Talking to yourself is the only plan
Giving up on your last give a damn
Here in Crazyland

I didn't catch your name, friend, sorry 'bout that
Sure nice to meet you, baby, please come back

-Eric Church