Embracing the New Year

Earlier this week, my aunt married her love. She and her new husband have both experienced love and loss with their first spouses. Now they are embracing each other and their future together. Not only am I extremely happy for them, I am inspired by them.

I'm in search of inspiration right now. Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary and my divorce is still not final. My job search is in "crash and burn" mode. I keep getting soooo close and then something happens. The roller coaster of hopes up/hopes dashed is exhausting.
But the new year is almost here and I'm finding a lot to look forward to. Or more accurately, new things to be inspired by and about.

Happy New Year

Elvis in Common

Yesterday I had a job interview. I think it went well although I did not take the advice of the friend who told me to "ugly up" and tone my personality down. I figure Mother Nature is taking care of the "ugly up" part and people who apply for marketing jobs are not expected to have demure personalities. If they are, I will never work again.

The woman CEO that I interviewed with explained why she had a Thomas Kincade picture of Graceland on her office wall. It's a long story, and really not mine to tell, but the bottom line is her mother loves Elvis. Not misses him terribly and wishes she had met him -- no, this is the type of over-the-top adoration that makes this CEO daughter take her mother to Memphis every year for Elvis Week. I was happy to be able to say, "My mother was in love with Elvis too." (I did not point out that my mother is normal and does not feel the need to trek to Graceland once a year.)

If I get the job, I will have to thank Elvis.

Don't Look Ethel!

Appropriate is a lovely word. It rolls off the tongue easily. It sits nicely in the gut or the soul until someone or something nudges: "Made you look!"

Like the truth, appropriate is self defined. For all our sakes, I'll err with brevity.

I am truly bone tired of the following:

Doing a visual inspection of anyone's tattoos.

Diverting my eyes and struggling to understand a conversation because a tongue implement has now become a speech impediment.

Guessing the circumference of any upper thigh area that I should not have to see.

Wondering why anyone would be so disrespectful to wear that (fill in the blank) to church, a funeral, a job interview, a dinner party, or anywhere in public.

I am a great fan of, "To each his own." Do it, live it, celebrate it.


Everything has its place. You can have it. Please don't make me look at it.