Meredith R. Lyons's Blog, page 2

What is it about a Snow Day

There’s something about an official Snow Day that feels different.

It’s not like a sick day, or a holiday, or even a random day off. It’s like nature throwing a curtain over the birdcage of the world and telling everyone to calm down.

View from my office window on Monday.

I’ve asked a few people about Snow Day Magic and several cited a nostalgic feeling of school being cancelled as a kid. However, I grew up in Louisiana. I remember it snowing twice, but oddly enough, both times were over a weekend. (Once was during my 14th birthday party. My friends and I went out in it and thought it was the best day ever.) Louisiana snow didn’t stick, either. You might get a quarter inch accumulation in a shady spot but that’s it. We had school cancelled due to hurricanes, but it’s not the same when there’s an evacuation and an element of fear mixed in.

In Chicago there were no Snow Days. I was fully adult when I moved there. Never did the city stop for snow or extreme cold. I remember having to go out in a -40 degree polar vortex to teach a yoga class. Yes, people showed up. I hated it. I understood that a city that is so frequently cold and snowy like Chicago couldn’t conceivably shut down for the weather, but the dead of a Chicago Winter will always be my own version of the 9th circle of Hell.

This is different.

Since living in Tennessee, I’ve experienced three big snow dump weeks. Usually one week in January where the world turns into a Bob Ross painting, temperatures drop, and everyone huddles. I’ve been lucky enough not to experience any power outages during that time and to have plenty of food and such at home.

I love it.

And it has nothing to do with getting off work since I work from home. I still get cold—our insulation and heating systems are built for southern climates—and wear big sweatshirts and thick socks around the house. I have a blanket in every room. On Wednesday it was - 1 degrees when we woke up and the heater couldn’t get the place above 60. I was still good.

A peek out the bedroom window.

Perhaps it’s the knowledge that it will all be gone by next week and I won’t have to deal with it for months on end. Perhaps it’s the simple fact that I don’t have to go out in it if I don’t want to. I have my work, I have my treadmill, my free weights, FaceTime, an electric blanket, and tons of books. In fact, I often find myself sending out gratitude throughout these days: Thankful that I don’t have to leave if I don’t want to, happy that I no longer work a job that would push me into a stressful trip over icy roads, and appreciation for my home set up.

As I mentioned last week, I’m trying to find a way to consciously decrease stress and slow down for my health. It’s difficult because my default is to push myself to do more and often I don’t realize I’m stressed until I’m watching myself through months of hindsight, but I’m trying. Something about the Snow Days flipped a switch.

Tuesdays are usually rest days from running for me. In the reasonable months, I go for a bike ride instead. During the colder months, I walk on the treadmill. (I used to bike in all of the weather in Chicago, but I am not about that life anymore.) On Snow Day Tuesday, when the alarm went off at 5 a.m., I decided just to sleep in. I went to work at 7 as usual, but that’s the first time I’ve skipped a morning workout when I wasn’t sick with Covid or stomach flu. And I didn’t even feel guilty about it. Which is a minor miracle.

I thank nature for this reminder to slow down and rest. And I look forward to those high 50s next week.

How to slow down for dummies

If you get my newsletter—first of all, yay—then you’ll know that 2023 was a bumpy landing for me.

If you don’t get it—let me know and I’ll sign you up—the quick summary is that I started having debilitating stomach issues and Cloud ate some thread and had to have emergency surgery.

First thing’s first, Cloud is recovering very well. He’s chafing against the no running, no jumping restrictions, which makes things a little more challenging, but it’s also a good sign that he’s feeling better. He took his last dose of pain medicine on Monday night and since then Aang has started to warm up to him again because he no longer smells like medicine. It makes me happy to see them snuggling together. I cannot wait until we go to the appointment on Monday to see if he’s okay to remove the cone and start moving around normally. But he’s alive and healing and that’s the most important part.

My stomach issues are more complicated. I’ve always felt that my GP was a little distant. If she could treat me over email and never see me and speak to me as little as possible, she would. Not that she was unfriendly, but very rote. I had stomach issues so she ordered an ultrasound and a blood test. This was days before Christmas. She gave me no instructions on how to conduct myself until I was able to get those things done. At this point I was having pain any time I ate something. I talked to a friend who is a PA and she listened more thoroughly than my GP did and gave me several instructions on what to avoid.

I got through Christmas on Nexium following her suggestions. I had the ultrasound on the 29th and, just like the blood test, everything was fine. There was no concern. So my doctor sent a message through the portal—I didn’t even get a notification that it was there—saying she had sent medicine to my pharmacy and to take it for 6 weeks. I had concerns about this medication. It’s physiologically addictive—both my dad and my brother-in-law took it and are unable to get off—and I didn’t know if it was necessary. I had no pain after a week on the Nexium and was even able to have some champagne on New Year’s Eve and a fully caffeinated coffee on New Year’s Day. I called my friend to discuss it.

To be brief, she didn’t think I had an ulcer and didn’t think the high-octane meds were necessary if I was already doing well. After talking, we think the underlying cause is stress. I’m doing my best to step down off the Nexium now (it’s also addictive) and I’m keeping with the diet for another two months, allowing for an occasional cheat item.

In the meantime, I’m collecting recommendations for a new GP. My insurance changed with the new year and this is a good excuse to find someone better suited to me.

I’m also trying to reduce my stress. This is much easier said than done.

I don’t really realize how stressed I am when I’m in the middle of things. I’ll realize that a situation is stressful—like packing, packing is super stressful to me, I don’t know why—but rationalize that once I’ve passed that situation I’ll be fine. If several small situations are varying degrees of stressful, I don’t really notice that an entire week or month has gone by under a continual level of stress.

From what I can tell, there are three ways to deal with stress: physically, mentally, and emotionally. I already run, which is a great stress reliever. I should get back into yoga, but I don’t like doing online classes and I don’t like teaching myself. I prefer to go to a lead class. I was doing this for a portion of the summer until even fitting in the classes became stressful due to all the travel I was doing. Then they raised their rates and I just never found a new place. Still, this is something I should work on.

I’ve tried to get into meditation on and off for years. Once again, I do best when I’m being guided through it. I have an app that I’ve used with decent results, until it glitches out, which somehow is even more irritating. I’m going to try to start that up again. It’s something I don’t mind doing at home, and I can start with five minutes and work my way up. I just have to make it part of my routine.

Emotionally is more difficult. I have to learn to recognize when I am striving to control things that are largely outside of my sphere of influence and let them go.

Social media has become incredibly stressful for me. I’m not sure when it went from fun to headache-inducing, but it has. There is a pressure on authors to perform and engage on social media, and to an extent, I’ve had fun doing it, but at some point over the last few months, it’s just felt more and more like taking shots in the dark and less and less productive. I took time off in the last two weeks of December. I didn’t force myself to make a post, I barely even looked at it to engage, and it was fantastic. I don’t want to get back on. I know at some point, I’ll need to, but until I less stressful way back, I’m giving myself some time off. I don’t know how much I’m actually moving the needle as far as book promotion at the point.

This blog is another thing that may change. Back in 2019, I challenged myself to write a blog once a week instead of sporadically like I had been doing. I knew that consistency was important for growth, so I tried it. And I’ve unfailingly posted once a week since January of 2019.

I’m not sure I’ll continue.

Half the time, the posts come fairly easily, the other half, I thrash around a little before I settle on a topic and the procrastinate until I’ve got it written. I’m considering knocking back the frequency.

I don’t regret making myself post every week for years. If nothing else, it has proven to me that if I sit down to write, eventually something will happen. Writing consistently—both with the blog and other writing—whether I want to or not has made me a better writer. But I’m not sure if I need to hammer at it every week anymore. I haven’t made this decision yet.

But as a friend recently told me, there’s a difference between feeling productive and actually being productive. I’m going to take a hard look at everything I’ve been working hard at and try to parse out what’s working for me. And what things I actually enjoy. As another friend once said, if you’re not having fun or getting paid, it’s not worth it.

The one where Cloud has emergency surgery.

Cloud is the most destructive kitty I’ve ever owned.

Ever since he was tiny, he’s needed something to chew on and tear apart. For a while this was the crown of our kitchen cabinets. It took us forever to curb that habit and by the time we did, we had to sand, fill in, and repaint the corners. In one spot I had to reattach the molding. Now we keep an empty box on hand specifically for him to violently tear asunder with his little fangs.

Cloud is thin, but deceptively strong. At one point we had lost the screw that keeps the draws in the base of our bed shut. Cloud wanted to get in there, so we put a weight in front of it. Ten pounds was not enough. Twenty pounds was not enough. Thirty pounds slowed him down. Unfortunately I don’t own heavier free weights.

He’s always enjoyed chewing on things and has a special fascination for hair. He used to love to climb onto my shoulders after a shower and gnaw on my hair. At first it was cute, but I had to put a stop to it. Not only because I discovered he wasn’t just mouthing it but actually chewing off chunks of hair, but also because in his desperation, he would leap onto my shoulders when I was fully naked and trying to get dressed. I don’t think he was really trying to eat my hair, I think he just enjoyed chewing on it and maybe the feeling of his teeth cutting through something.

This Christmas we went to Peoria to visit my husband’s family. The cats have been to their house a few times before and they’re very familiar with the hotel that we stop at halfway there and back. Aang hates the car, but they both love the hotel. They roll around on the bed, run circles around the room, etc. This year, Aang even managed to get inside of a pillowcase. With the pillow.

The visit as a whole was low-key. Which was fine. I am suffering from my own stomach issues, which means I can’t take NSAIDs and was experiencing extreme ovulation pain, so I basically spent the first two days on the couch with a heating pad and a book. The cats were initially skittish, but settled in.

On Christmas Day, Cloud was puking frequently. It wasn’t a lot and it was liquid, so my first thought was that he had a hairball he was trying to cough up. He hid under the bed most of the day, but since there were children over, I didn’t think that was too unusual. But he didn’t come out to cuddle that night.

The next morning, we packed up to leave and he huddled under the Christmas tree the entire time and didn’t put up even token resistance when Dean put him into the carrier. I was concerned. Dean thought that maybe he was stressed from the trip, but I didn’t think that was it. I said if he didn’t perk up when we got to the hotel, we needed to call the vet.

At the hotel, he immediately went behind the one chair in the room and curled up in the corner. Normally the first thing they do when we get to the hotel is eat and/or use the litter box. Cloud did stick his head in the toilet before we got the bowls unpacked and drank heavily, but that was it. Dean made an appointment at the vet for the following afternoon. In the meantime, my mother-in-law texted to say that the cats had gotten into the sewing room. Four spools of thread had been pulled off her surge and chewed on.

I was seriously worried then. I knew that ingesting string could screw cats up. It’s why there are lids on most of my trashcans. Especially the one in the bathroom. My previous cat, Jake, loved eating dental floss. He actually passed some once and I will spare you those details, you’re welcome. But from then on it was kitty proof trashcans all the way.

At around 11 p.m. Cloud vomited again. It was more liquid this time and it was forest green. We tried to find the emergency vet in Mount Vernon, IL. I’ll save you the suspense, there is no emergency vet in Mount Vernon or the surrounding towns. There was a vet on call who we did speak to. She said that the closest emergency vet was in St. Louis and that the best she could do was triage him, she wouldn’t be able to treat him. I asked at what point should we drive through the night. She said if he was still alert and responding to us, and it had been a few days without change, we could probably wait and get him to Nashville in the morning.

During the drive, I continually glanced back to check Cloud. He was curled up in his carrier while Aang wailed away, but he did look up every time I touched him. The vet called while we were on the road. They had read the file we’d submitted online and said they wanted to see us as soon as possible. We changed our route and drove straight to the vet.

Dean dropped Cloud and me off and turned around to take Aang and the luggage home and to put gas in the car. Cloud and I didn’t have to wait too long before we were seen. And he knocked off a few Hamiltons by being good for his X-rays so he didn’t have to be sedated. They sent the X-rays over to a technician, but the vet did point out that, 1. Cloud was constipated, and 2. that there were some indications of bunching in the intestines. They were going to wait to see what the X-ray tech said, but she laid it out for me. There were no surgeons at our vet that day and the recommendation was that we do not wait. We would have to be referred to an emergency clinic and likely they would keep Cloud over night after surgery for observation.

It may not look like it, but that’s thousands of dollars worth of thread right there.

Cloud’s surgery went well. The thread was wrapped around the base of his tongue and went all the way to the jejunum, which I believe he said was an earlier part of the intestine. They had to make an incision in the intestine and one in the stomach to remove all of the thread. They kept him overnight to make sure he was eating and responding well.

I got a call the following day that he was trying to climb his cage and had eaten so I could come get him. I was so happy to see that little boy! I opened the carrier to scratch his ears beneath his cone and he leaned in hard. He has to have medicine three times a day for pain management and he has to go back in two weeks just to check to see that he’s healing properly. Unfortunately, he’s not allowed to jump and must wear the cone for two weeks. There’s really no room in our house that doesn’t have things he could jump on, so I borrowed a large cage from a friend who had been through this before. I’ve set Cloud up in it and he HATES IT. As I write this, he is sulking by sleeping in his litter box. (Had to get him litter made out of newspaper so the dust didn’t get into his incisions and I don’t think he gets that he’s supposed to pee in there.)

Cuddle time was had.

The next two weeks are going to be rough, but at least he’s here. And it’s only for two weeks I hope he gets used to the cage and starts eating and drinking. And I hope he gets used to the newspaper litter.

I’m going to give him his next dose and see if he’d like to be held for some cuddle time.

What's the worst time of year to have a stomach ulcer?

To be fair, it might be gallstones, or even GERD, but we won’t know until the 29th because that’s the earliest I can get in for an ultrasound, so we’re treating it like an ulcer. What does that mean? I means nothing fun whatsoever goes into my stomach.

Christmas cookies I made several years ago with my mom’s recipe.

No alcohol, no COFFEE, no sugar, no spicy food, no greasy food, no chocolate, no dairy, and yes, that includes cheese, which is the only dairy I eat. It also means no Advil, which is great when I’m having monster cramps.

I’m one of those people who love the holidays. I love the lights, I love the gift giving, I love baking cookies, I love wrapping gifts, I love to help cook the meals with a glass of wine. And I kind of enjoy letting loose with the diet that one time of year. Pretty glasses of champagne by a sparkling Christmas tree. Dusting sprinkles on festive cookies in a warm kitchen. I even like the travel part. (Once the packing is done. I hate packing.)

I know that the holidays are about more than food, but have you ever noticed how they’re a lot about food?

I’m not someone who eats typical holiday fare either. I’m pescetarian, so no turkey. I really hate potatoes and cranberry sauce and stuffing. I do like green beans. But all of that didn’t matter. I could find something to eat that I liked. It’s just not having a choice. Especially when I eat pretty healthy most of the time.

I can’t even have sparking water. The carbonation is bad.

Salty things set me off, I’ve discovered.

At least I can have bread I suppose. And veggies and hummus.

Packing is going to be even worse this year—Have I packed at all? No. Do we leave this afternoon? Yes.—because I’ll have to bring a lot of bland food with me. I can’t expect to find foods I can eat on the road and I can’t expect that my in-laws will just have them there. And who wants to go to the grocery store on the eve of the eve?

Ever had sparkling Malbec? It’s awesome. And looks great next to a Christmas tree.

I’m trying to look on the bright side. There will be no hangovers this year. I won’t have to worry about gaining weight.

But I was super disappointed and definitely in a bad mood for a couple of days. A few weeks ago, I thought I’d had some bad grapes in a smoothie. (They were really old grapes, honestly.) Because immediately after drinking it, I had cramps so bad I was curling up on the floor in pain. Over the next three days it got better and went away. I was fine for about a week and a half, then they came back with a vengeance the day we hosted Dean’s birthday party. Once again I was curling up on the floor in pain.

I stopped eating and got through the party. Went to another Christmas party the next day and was just terrified to eat or drink anything other than ginger ale. “I think you have an ulcer!” said one of my friends.

Honestly, this had never occurred to me. Had she not said anything, I probably would have just tried to ride it out until after the holidays with some over the counter stuff and avoiding the most painful foods. As it was, I sent a message to my doctor for an appointment that evening and got in two days later. I had blood drawn—which was not tested and no one will tell me what happened, I had to go down there two days later and give another sample—and set up the ultrasound as quickly as I could. But I have to admit, so far it’s acting like an ulcer.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m also having monster cramps and can’t take Advil. And as every grown adult knows, Tylenol is a joke. I’m basically unhappy in my body right now. However, I do look nice.

I’ve told Dean already that I plan on bringing fitted sweaters and a slinky green velvet dress as well as my epic cloak. I don’t even care if we don’t go anywhere fancy. I’m wearing it. This and running are the only things nice about existing in this mortal form right now. That and hopefully this is temporary.

The one nice thing about these stretches of time is that you really appreciate things once you’re through. Ever since I had to stop running, I still appreciate every pain-free mile. Once I crossed that nebulous age line into hormone craziness, now that I’ve found the vitamin compilation that works for me, I soooo appreciate having a more predictable body again. And once I’m through this hurdle, I’ll appreciate being able to have my precious Starbucks again.

Have a fantastic holiday, and eat something awesome for me.

God damn it, you've got to be kind.

Recently there was a huge kerfuffle in the book world. I don’t want to get into that, but it punched up a feeling I’ve been having for a while. A blog I’ve started to write several times but stopped, unable to get a good grip on what I was trying to say.

Dean with all of his video game/anime stuff at work that makes him happy.

I think I’ve got it now.

One of my favorite things about people is the weird things that they emotionally attach to. My friend Lauren is super into artichokes right now and it’s adorable. She’s like a five-year-old that just discovered Bluey and now wants all Bluey stuff for Christmas. My husband loves 8-bit music. He makes playlists of it. He can pull it apart and discuss it thematically. Our friend Greg is in his forties and is incredibly jazzed about dinosaurs. And shark’s teeth. YES!

And!

Have I told you how much I like black licorice jelly beans? If I could buy an entire bag of black licorice jelly beans I would do it. It’s okay, you don’t have to like them. You just have to let me like them, even if you shake your head at me.

Look how happy Greg is! How could you deny anyone that joy?

I just love it when people are into something and unafraid to let that love shine. And I wish everyone could just let people be into the things that they like. I wish everyone could say, “Hey, not for me, but I’m so glad you’re into it.” Let’s gradually go a bit deeper.

In improv, the first and most basic rule is NOT the comedy rule of threes, but gold star for trying. It’s the rule of “yes and.” If you’re on stage and your improv partner says that you’re running a donut shop and you’re out of donuts, guess what? You’re running a donut shop and you’re out of donuts. Now, you get to say, “yes, I had a dream last night that donuts were over and muffins were in!” And people laugh at the absurdity and the improv goes from there.

Now what if you said, “You must be crazy, this was never a donut shop, this has always been a muffin shop.” Number one, you throw off your partner and negate anything they were trying to set up. Number two, although you may get a cheap laugh or two, it’s never as funny to call someone crazy. Number three, if your partner decides THEY aren’t going to YesAnd your muffin shop story, then you just get into an argument about who is crazy and the audience is bored to tears. Nobody wins.

When I was in college, I fell out with my passive-aggressive roommate. Short version: She moved out a week earlier than I did and decided to get in one last dig by telling the office that our apartment was empty. They rented it. My new lease didn’t start for five days. All of my friends found temporary places for all of my stuff and two of them let me stay with them in the interim. It ended up being one of the best New Years Eves of my life.

My very first play in Chicago was a political improv play—and really the less said about it, the better, however—there was one man in the play who thought he was smarter than the rest of us. He wanted above all things to “win” the improv. If this meant throwing a wrench in the narrative that the rest of us then had to work around, he would do it. The director tried to curtail this a few ways and eventually forced him to actually say the words, “yes, and” before anything else that came out of his mouth.

It didn’t work.

He just said things like, “Yes. AND you must be crazy.” This was a long time ago and many of the details surrounding our individual performances are thankfully rather fuzzy, but one thing I will never forget is the look of glee in David’s eye when he was about to say something that would ensure the rest of us “lost.” Often he would actually grin while he said it, whether it was in character or not. Unsurprisingly, the play wasn’t popular. The only good thing that came out of it was that a few members of the cast bonded around their hatred of David. He didn’t make any friends at all.

I have run into this many times, and I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that there are some people who get their kicks out of creating discord and hurt. The presence of internet trolls is hard evidence that these people are not small in number. The amount of harm they cause varies. It can be as small as tagging you in a one star review of a book you wrote just because they need you to see that THEY didn’t like YOUR thing. Maybe they know it will sting a little, maybe they don’t even consider your feelings at all and actually have the deluded belief that they’re helping you by imparting their wisdom. It can go as far as yelling slurs from windows. Grabbing a stranger’s ass. Committing actual hate crimes against people who are different from you. Et cetera, et cetera.

None of these things benefit anyone. The only benefit goes to the perpetrator, getting that rush they crave from harming someone else.

I went to a book festival this year. I ended up having a great time. But there were a lot of curveballs along the way. One of the reasons it went as well as it did was because of the other authors. Some of whom I had never even met. The author I was doing a presentation with in addition to the author I was traveling with both bent over backwards to boost our presentation when some unexpected obstacles came our way. Some authors we met there saw me frantically trying to clean up our table space while my table partner went for the car and just started helping without even asking. I tried to write a blog that week about how much I loved the support of this community but it wasn’t coming out right.

You can see every item of clothing I owned in my car. But I was having the best NYE ever, surrounded by friends who had lifted me up.

In then end, all I can say is that I think those of us who support each other and try to boost each other up are having a much better time dancing around together in our little lives than those who get temporary bursts of pleasure from knifing someone else.

I don’t do a lot of quoting other people to get my point across, but in this case, I don’t think I can say it any better than Kurt Vonnegut:

“There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Whaddaya mean I can't control everything?

I’m a list-maker. I’m a practice-run person. I like to do “just one more take.” In short, I like to get things right.

Normally I use my own pictures, but no one let me have a camera when I was a toddler, so I found this online. Someone was selling it on Etsy.

My dad likes to tell this story—I do not like this story—about when I was very small and had a Quiz-A-Tron. (Yes, I had to look this up and it took me a while to find the thing. Oh, the memories.) I vaguely remember this. It had little cards you would put into the big plastic thing that supposedly taught you things about spelling, language, or something. I can’t remember what was in them, I was probably five. But there was a row of lights next to each question and if you got the question right, one light would illuminate, if you got it wrong, no light. If you got all of the answers correct, it would play a little song.

The instant I got an answer wrong, I would open the lid and slam it shut to reset the game. I wasn’t playing against anyone else, mind you. This was merely me against me. It didn’t matter how many answers I had right before that, they all had to be right or else. When my dad tells the story, he also mentions that I used to dance to the little “A+ 100%” song. I do not remember this, but it doesn’t sound out of character.

What my dad does NOT bring up when he tells this anecdote is that his personal slogan is, “A job worth doing is worth doing right.” I got this from somewhere.

So obviously, I’m trying to do this writing thing “the right way.” I’m trying to market myself, I’m trying to support other writers, trying to continue to make friends in the community, etc. I’m well aware that I’m still figuring it all out, but I’m doing my best.

This week was a lesson in how well prepared one can be and still have things crash down around their ears.

My husband took a few screenshots.

Yesterday I had a live interview on a news channel. Another writer friend had “highly recommended” me, so, by God, I was going to slay. The recording was at 7:45 a.m. and I wanted to make sure my hair was dry, make-up on, etc. So I got up at 5 as usual, but skipped my physical therapy and moved weight training to the end of the day so I could get my run done and get in the shower. (Curly hair takes a while to dry.)

I had everything set up perfectly. I had my books placed within the frame, I had my desk looking like it wasn’t a disaster area. I even paid attention to my shirt against the backdrop. I logged on ten minutes early as requested, mic on, everything was good to go.

Technologically, everything went great. I was checked in, my camera slightly adjusted, audio was good, I was given warning as to when I would be going on and I went on. Now, bear in mind, this was three minutes. And although I’d done live interviews before, never one so short and never one on an actual news channel. We’d done a pre-interview the night before and they’d asked me for some quotes and materials which I put together and sent over. Receipt was confirmed, I was told it was all great. I was ready.

It was a few questions and done. As expected. But I was crushed once we finished. One or two of the questions weren’t what I had anticipated based on the pre-interview and I had to pivot, which is fine, I’ve pivoted before. But I had what I thought was an awkward pause, and as soon as I was done I thought of something better I could have said in response to one of the questions. I couldn’t help thinking I had messed up my three-minute chance to find new readers. And what would my friend who recommended me think? He’d never recommend me again, I was certain.

I probably took this harder than usual because the night before had also been a disaster.

I decided I wanted to do a giveaway for an author friend’s newly released book. He had been a big supporter of my debut and I thought this would be a great opportunity to support in return. I set up a giveaway and an Instagram Live time. I’d done this before a few times and it was always a ton of fun. Sometimes Instagram was challenging, but I thought I had the kinks worked out.

I took this screenshot at the start of the third try just to prove we’d been there. Originally I was going to post a reply, but, alas, all previous segments were eaten by the angry IG gods.

We did a practice run a few days before. We hit the glitch! We overcame the glitch! Success. I had questions prepared, he looked them over, we discussed timing, I did the Canva, we promoted it, we were ready to go.

The day came, I go live. For some reason it was IMPOSSIBLE to bring him into the live. We had people ready and waiting to engage. But I had to log off and log back in to try again. Thankfully that time it worked. We celebrated that we were finally in the interview. We got it going. People were engaging, commenting on the book, it’s cover, invested in Jim’s synopsis, it was going great.

Then Instagram just dropped us.

As fast as I could, I logged back in. I was able to bring Jim back—not without difficulty, but we were back—and we resumed. Most of the audience had returned and a few new people logged in to watch. That was a rough start, but we thought surely now we’d be fine. No.

Instagram dropped us again. And then a third time.

By the time we’d reconnected after that third drop, we only had two people still hanging on. We finished the question we were on and said goodnight. I was so bummed.

The following day I vented to a few writer friends about it. Two of them had seen the Live we attempted. They said everyone understands technology doesn’t always work out and no one would be blaming me for it. They also said the parts of the interview that did get through were really interesting and that we looked like we were having fun together. (The giveaway was completed as planned and the book is on it’s way to a very excited reader.)

After telling them how terrible I was, a few friends said I should send them the news segment because they were sure it couldn’t be that bad. A few quotes:

“I wish I could fail like this.” “I’m not just blowing sunshine. I was ready to see you bomb. But it was the opposite.” “Okay, that was good, I just watched it! You’re high.”

So I may have been trying to slam my Quiz-A-Tron shut too quickly.

My final point is that this is something I’ve been learning and re-learning all my life: the only thing you can truly control is yourself. At least now I’m getting to where I let my friends talk me off ledges and move on more quickly to the “laugh at myself” stage.

Leaving the Quiz-A-Tron open.

It's okay to enjoy solitude.

Alone with cats still counts as alone!

Several months ago, I was talking to another writer about being alone.

“I don’t understand it,” I said. “I could sit on the porch and write when my husband is home inside and it’s the exact same. Why is it so much more delicious when the house is empty.”

He’d just nodded. “There’s nothing like being alone.”

I love being around my friends. I love making new friends. I enjoy writer’s conferences and book festivals. I enjoy road tripping with friends and taking trips with my husband. But I love being alone. Before I got married I lived alone for years. With my cat, Jake. I loved it. I also was thrilled when my husband moved in, but I never regretting that time alone. Before he moved in, while we were still dating, I encouraged him to try out his own apartment. He had never lived alone before.

He hated it. He ended up subletting the last few months of his lease to move in with friends. He just prefers being with people.

My last year of college I got a one bedroom apartment and lived alone for the first time. I remember how vicariously excited my mom was. Helping me pick out thrift store end tables, nailing up pictures where ever I wanted. She had never lived alone. I loved that apartment.

So what is it? What is so magical about existing in an empty home for hours, days, or weeks at a time? I have a few theories.

Introverts are able to recharge. I’m an introvert that turns on the extrovert mask well. I’ve always gravitated toward things that seem to burn my energy: teaching group fitness, acting, writing conferences. There’s nothing like coming back to your own place and collapsing into the warm embrace of solitude to fill the tank back up.

One can be truly free of expectations. Even if you’re married for a long time, you’ll each have wants and needs directed at the other person, even if they’re slight. Time alone allows you to release those considerations from the back of your mind. Even if you didn’t even realize they were nesting there.

Time to hear yourself think. There’s so much stimulation bombarding us all the time it can be difficult to shut it all off and dig down into what you really need. Personally, I’m more motivated toward productivity when someone else is around me. Perhaps even pressured, self imposed or no. I’m never lazy when alone, I just tend to gravitate toward the activities I want to take care of, rather than those I feel I need to take care of.

All the mess is your mess. If you’re an organized person, it can be mildly irritating to trip over someone else’s shoes, or scrub a burner free of their mess before you’re able to cook. When you’re alone, the one that created the mess is you! I’m unable to relax if there is clutter around me, all I see is what needs to be done, so it can be incredibly relaxing to be clutter free for a day or two.

You’re forced to self-solve, self-sooth, and self-entertain. When you live with someone, it can be easy to just walk into the next room and start asking questions when bored. One of the great things about living with someone is having a partner to conquer problems with or to go to when you’re frustrated. But I believe it’s equally important to occasionally rely on yourself for those things. Not only does it allow you to appreciate your partner a bit more, but you don’t lose your sense of self-reliance.

I’ll have to drag the fire pit out by myself, but I think I can handle it!

My husband is leaving this weekend for a last-minute trip. I couldn’t go if I wanted to—I’ve taken a trip every weekend for the past three weeks—but after the crush of activity within the last few months, I admit to being downright excited for some extended time alone. I don’t yet know what I’ll do with the time, but the time will be mine, and that’s delightful.

What's your favorite holiday?

Signing books at WriterFest in Nashville.

This fall has been exhausting in the best possible way. My book released in mid-September, which made August through October a non-stop whirlwind.

Then there was Halloween. And now Thanksgiving. And then there will be Christmas. And I am very tired.

Correct me if I’m wrong—I did some googling, but that’s about all the effort I had the bandwidth for—but no other country in the world has so many major holidays crammed together at the end of the year like this. Canada does Thanksgiving and Halloween before Christmas, but their Thanksgiving is in October also, so they get a nice long break before Christmas and New Years.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the holidays. I love the pageantry and the decorations and the getting together with family and friends. I even enjoy wrapping gifts. It’s just a lot of planning and preparation and I have done none of it this year. I haven’t purchased even one Christmas gift. I haven’t thought about Christmas cards. I feel like I barely made it to Thanksgiving.

Working from my parents’ house with Aang.

I had a book festival in Louisville two weeks ago and one in Nashville just last weekend. I literally packed up for Thanksgiving the day after the Nashville fest and left that afternoon. With two giant cats in tow. I worked from my parents’ house Monday through Wednesday and Dean drove down after work that night.

As I write this, it’s Thanksgiving and I think I might finally be able to start unwinding. At least a little bit.

I was talking to my dad as we waited for Dean to get in and mentioned that I hadn’t done any Christmas shopping and felt really behind this year. He said that was one reason Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday. Although he enjoyed giving and receiving gifts, he liked that there was no pressure to do that on Thanksgiving. You just gathered together, had a meal and enjoyed the company of your family. No one ended up disappointed that they didn’t get what they wanted and no one was anxious that someone didn’t like what they’d given. It was just hanging out, cooking, and eating.

I like that. I’d never looked at it that way before. To me, Thanksgiving had always been the ‘warm up’ holiday to Christmas. It was convenient to have when you swap family visits to keep things fair—Dean and I do Christmas with my family, Thanksgiving with his one year, then switch the next—but it never seemed like as big a deal to me. Especially this year, when it all seemed to be coming much too fast on thing right on top of the other.

But I like that. A time to gather, drink wine, and eat warm bread together. And with everything moving so quickly and time seeming so short, it is nice to have one more excuse to get together with the people you care about.

Do you have a favorite holiday? If so, why would you say it’s the best?

Running around the world.

Sunrise while running from Kentucky to Indiana last weekend.

“Impressive that you’re getting it done while conferencing.”

My running coach is in Chicago—shoutout to Cuss Running—and so I get training calendars and comments on my runs online. I initially hired a coach because I was sick of getting injured and felt I needed someone to tell me when to chill out, so although I dutifully report how my ankle and hip are feeling during my runs, I also really enjoy the little pats on the back.

It’s nice to have someone other than myself invested in my running.

I’ve traveled more this year than ever before, which has been great, and throughout it all, I’ve kept up with my running schedule. This is something I’ve done for as long as I can remember. Even when I was teaching fitness full time. I remember another instructor once remarking, “I try not to exercise on vacation.” Although I can see why that might be beneficial, it doesn’t work for me.

For me, it’s not a vacation if I can’t run.

It’s been challenging sometimes, fitting runs in around conferences, but I’ve made it work. Even getting up at 4 a.m. in San Diego to run through the terrifying bay-side fog. After that first run, though, the rest are usually cake. There’s always a little bit of nerves during the first run in a new place. “Will I get lost? Will it be safe? Will I make it back in time? Am I dressed for the weather?”

From my run in Bucky Park in London in February of 2012.

But it’s worth it.

I’ve found some of my favorite places while on runs and I get to experience the city in a different way. Whether I’m on vacation or going to a writing event, I always see something different from a run. My recent trip to Louisville included a ten mile long run. I was nervous about finding the distance to get it done, but I had run a half marathon in Louisville years ago, and so I knew that there was at least one long pedestrian bridge.

It was fantastic. During a race, you see things, but you don’t have the option of slowing down and really taking them in. I got to watch the sunrise from that bridge. I got to enjoy the fall colors of the trees both on the Indiana side of the river and the Kentucky side.

Two different states on one run!

From a run in St. Lucia. March 2015

While in London for a friends wedding I got to run in Bucky Park. There were enormous deer! At a yoga retreat in St. Lucia—thanks to a settlement from when a truck hit me—I was given vague directions and wound up finding a magical hillside with a path through the woods that opened up suddenly upon an ocean cliffside view that was so spectacular my camera couldn’t adequately capture it. I offered to take the other people on the retreat up to see it but no one ever found the time. So it was just mine. I’ve run Central Park in New York, on the beach in St. Maartin, Philidelphia’s Schuylkill Trail, along the ocean in San Diego and probably several that I’m forgetting.

People often express amazement that I get up early before whatever events are happening to squeeze in a run, but for me the run is part of the trip. It’s also a where I’ll decompress and pull apart anything that I’m stressed about or overthinking. On the (rare) occasion that I’m not stressed or over thinking, even better, I can fully absorb the scenery! There was a year when I couldn’t run at all while my Achilles tried to heal, but I still picked out trails and tried to go for walks. It was nice, I like walking too, but it wasn’t the same.

Sunrise in San Diego this past August.

So for as long as my body can handle it, I’m not missing another run.

Loving all this travel! Hate packing with the fiery passion of ten thousand suns.

I have cleaned entire kitchens, washed entire loads of laundry, reorganized desk drawers, all in the name of procrastinating packing for a trip. I know that this stresses me out and I’ve done everything I can to make it easier for myself.

I have a pre-made packing checklist that I use before each trip that helps me remember things that might slip my mind.

I have a box in my closet of travel things that I’ve accumulated.

Packing cubes.

Laundry bag.

Toiletries bag. WITH many travel toiletries forever pre-packed!

Travel corkscrew

Travel Library of Congress plastic wine tumbler. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

Cube of book swag items ready to go.

Certain outfits that I always wear to book events that are easy, no-brainer packs.

A jewelry box that is mainly prepacked.

You would think that I would be fine. I am not fine. I have nightmares before every trip. (Shut up, Jim. And everyone like Jim who claims to sleep dreamlessly through the nights.) This most recent trip I dreamed about the car falling off a cliff, the AirBnB being a double murder scene, and teenagers making fun of me.

I always plan to start packing days before I do. I know that I feel better once it’s done. The problem is that it cannot be done until the day before. HEAR ME OUT.

If you use any moisturizer, or shower in the morning, there are things that you cannot pack until the morning you leave.

If you run in the morning, you cannot pack your running shoes or certain accoutrement until the morning of your trip.

Foodstuffs.

Still, I’ve done this many times. I should be used to it by now. Why do I hate it so much?

I believe it’s because my mentality is always forward thinking. I had to do a lot of work to enable myself to appreciate the moment and I still have to sometimes consciously make myself stop and think. Thus I believe I hate packing because I have to mentally leap forward many days, and it is impossible to know what I will need for all of the days or how those days will go. Here’s a list of things that make packing even worse:

Seasonal shifts. Am I going from Tennessee to Illinois? I now have to adjust not only to a potential twenty degree drop, but fifty degrees in Illinois feels quite different from fifty degrees in Nashville. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to bike to work in both places in February.

This affects not just the clothes you’re going to wear every day, but it DOES affect the clothes you’re going to wear every day. Are you going to any nice event while you’re there? How nice? And will it be cold or hot inside? Layers? Do you have something that nice with layers? I COULD GO ON.

Exercise. Is there a gym where you’re going? If running is your sanity, will you be able to get on the gym’s treadmill when you need it or will there be only one and a dozen people fighting for it? Are there safe places to run if you get up before sunlight? Should you run with a knife in your hand? (I HAVE DEFINITELY RUN EIGHT MILES CLUTCHING A KNIFE.) Do you know how to get to the running places? Also, weather, what kind of running stuff will you need? Hats? Gloves? Jacket? Headlight?

Jackets. Just one? Cute or goes with everything? Shoes. Will there be snow? Rain?

Do you have the bra for that?

Trips more than two days.

What is the weather going to do if you’re there for five days or longer? (See previous bullet.)

Do you have access to a gym with weights? If not, can you pack a TRX?

Will you have laundry? If so, how much will it be? Where are you GOING TO EAT? (I’m pescatarian so this is sometimes an issue. I usually just back two dozen larabars and drop three pounds.)

Is it possible you will be starting your period during this time? If so, bring several different bra and underwear options because at this age, bra size can fluctuate two cups or more. Also bring lots of Advil and fingers crossed it’s not a really bad one.

Is this a book event?

Do you have all of the business cards, bookmarks, pens, lightup sign, charging cord for light up sign, newsletter signup, etc. that you need?

Will they have your books there or do you need to somehow bring them? If they are going to have your books there, will they really or should you bring some just in case? Will they have enough of your books there or should you bring some in case they run out?

Are you doing a presentation there? Do you need handouts and do you have them? Are they providing a projector? Do you have your slides downloaded in case there’s no Wi-Fi? Do you know your slides well enough in case nothing works at all and everything goes to hell and you just have to improv all by yourself in front of an audience of two to twenty people?

General considerations.

Are you flying or driving? If you’re flying you’re going to have to condense everything down and all of this will get ten times worse.

Do you need to bring a measuring spoon for your apple cider vinegar shot in the morning?

Can you pack all of your vitamins and magnesium without attracting a bag check?

Should you/can you bring booze?

Should you/can you bring weapons?

Will the coffee be bad? Will there be a nearby Starbuck that is not prohibitively expensive? (I’m looking at you, $8 drip coffee in San Diego.) Should you bring some Starbucks Instant coffee?

I could probably go on, but now you know exactly how neurotic I am. But If you hate packing too, and you have even more bullet points, I would love for you to add yours in the comments!