Leslea Tash's Blog, page 3

First snow

Finally, finally! Snow! 

The kids were mostly in bed last night at 9:42 pm when I noticed, big, fat flakes falling outside the kitchen door. “Alexa, announce: it’s snowing!”

Sean and GiGi ran outside to dance in the snow as it fell gently all around. Samson, ever the Pyrenees, stood happily in the yard, soaking it in. This morning, it’s beautiful. It’s not a heavy blanket, at all, but looking out the windows and catching each branch highlighted by an inch of the white powder is simply breathtaking.

The old tree fort, as you can see, continues to stand, all jabberwocky in the holler. We might have to finally take it down before we put the Treehouse on the market.

Yes, I said, “Put the Treehouse on the market.” Times have changed, as we knew they would, and we’re looking forward to the future. The kids are growing up. Sam is fast outgrowing his bedroom. Seamus is rapidly approaching 18. Sean has 2.5 years of high school left, then he will certainly be excited to start college, out in the world as his own man. Tim and I will be left with one bird in the nest, and she will be firmly in middle school at that time. What will we need this huge house for?

So, the next chapter awaits. We will need to spiff up the place for market. Fix all the little things we have let slide–things like the tree fort in the backyard, mismatched curtain rods, and the like. We never got around to painting, so probably a fresh coat of paint for the whole place is in order. New carpet for upstairs. A wax job for all the hardwood. That’s a thing, right? So many things to do, to get ready.

It’s exciting to think about the changes of the future, and somehow comforting, and energizing. It’s hope, that little voice that says, “Aw, now for something better–a new adventure.”

We’ll always treasure our years here in the Treehouse. It remains the best house ever, full of love, surrounded by wildlife, protected by towering poplars and other hardwoods. The birds outside are flitting in the snow, dancing on and off the bird feeder, and I hope that wherever we end up moving, we’ll still have a good spot for birdwatching. I know no place will ever be the same as this magical spot in the woods.

Wahmomgeddon

There’s a game people play at Christmas time called Whamageddon! It starts on December 1 and goes through Christmas. You listen to holiday music, and once you hear “Last Christmas,” by Wham!, you’re out. You’ve been Whammed! Or maybe it’s Whammied? Either way. You know what I mean.

So far this year I’m winning, mostly because we haven’t listened to a ton of Christmas music on the radio when we’ve been out. The kids are too cool for that, you know. They need their 99.7 DJX or their classic rock. I get it.

Every year, I try to make Christmas fantastic for the kids. Even last year with pneumonia, I did my best. This year, I’m healthy, so I have planned the fun stuff: baking cookies, going out to see Christmas lights, a nice roast for dinner tonight. All the presents have been bought, and good stuff, too. I should be winning, but a couple of days ago, I was Wah-mom’d.

It didn’t happen when I heard a song. 

No one actually said, “Wah,” but the “Wah” was strong, anyway. There was whining, and there was crying.

I didn’t get Wah-mom’d by some kind of cyclical depression, or an injury. Not the physical kind, anyway.

No, I got Wah-mom’d by someone who has been having a tough time this fall. Someone who has not been keeping up his end of the chores and of school. Someone who I feel like I have bent over backward to please, because Covid is hard, lockdown is hard, life has been depressing…Mom understands. Mom will help you through this. St. Mom of the never-ending font of patience and understanding can and will help you rise above, youngling. The force is strong in you! Or something like that.

Parenting is a thankless job–this is a truth universally acknowledged. I’m positive that even precious glowing newborn baby Jesus went through a shithead phase by the time he was 15. Maybe younger, because lifespans were so much shorter back in his day. The “lost years” and all that, right? No one wants to achieve salvation from someone who looked the Virgin Mary in the eye and called her a bitch, or told St. Joseph, “YOU’RE NOT EVEN MY REAL DAD!!!”

So maybe there were some Chanukah Feasts of the Maccabees without teenage Jesus around. Maybe, just maybe, Jospeh gave him extra work, or found broken tools, or watched Jesus utter unkind words to Mary before the Immaculate one, herself, threw down the gauntlet and sent Him to the temple to serve for a few days instead of staying home with the gang to open gifts. Maybe Mary got Wah-mom’d. 

Maybe she cried. Maybe she cried and maybe she was mad as hell, and maybe she alternated between knowing she had other kids to entertain and make memories with, and feeling the grief of having to send her son away during the midst of it all.

Maybe she stared up at the sky on Solstice and wondered what had become of that Christmas star. What would become of her special boy?

I don’t know. 

Christmas is two days away and I miss my son. He’s fine. He’s with his father. We obviously needed some time apart. Things were just running way too tense, and stuff was breaking.

I cried a lot. I cried a lot. I’ve never been able to tell this particular child how much he means to me. It’s hard to discipline him. I think I have spoiled him.

I dreamed last night about being pregnant, about the joy of that child in my belly, moving. I dreamed about what awful roommates children make. One in particular was mopping the floor (truly filthy), and then picking up the dirty mop to “clean” the walls with it. The state of that house was untenable. We either had to clean it up–really, REALLY clean it up–or we had to move.

There’s only so long you can be Wah-mom’d at Christmas. I won’t crawl into bed and cry. I have cookies to bake, lights to go see.

I wish my child was with us to make more Christmas memories.

I wish there wasn’t such a big mess left around here.

But I have to move on now. I can’t sit here feeling Whammed! and musing over past Christmases. I have so many presents to wrap.

I miss my child the way I’d miss a lung. But I must keep breathing, and try to make things merry. No one is allowed to ruin Christmas for the rest of us. It’s just not fair.

So here I go.

My everything hurts. I’ve been on a roll. Got too busy for vitamins. Ate one too many junk food...

My everything hurts.

I’ve been on a roll. Got too busy for vitamins. Ate one too many junk food meals. Had a coffee after 4 pm and couldn’t sleep because my muscles were twitching all night. (Also, it thundered once, so Grantham barked at that for a solid 20.)

I tried to get going this morning. Thought maybe I could pull it off—cleaning lady coming, work, errands, the housework that no one else will do…maybe a cup of coffee will change how I feel…

Nope. Back to bed. I’m crawling through the bare minimum today. Trying to function. Even with Aleve, everything hurts. No temperature, but hot flashes. I’m not sick, just exhausted and out of spoons.

Tonight, I need vitamins and fresh green juice. Water and tea. Rest. Tomorrow will be better.

One Day of Summer

The Covid has done its best to force us to skip past summer. No swimming, no amusement parks, no winery concerts, no summer camp for the kids, no summer sports (wrestling, tennis), no drive-in movies, no summer reading club…

Okay, so there is still a summer reading club, but without the promise of tangible prizes and trips to the library, I can’t get the kids interested. So, it doesn’t count!

However, the good news is, we have remained healthy. We are all working, those of us who are old enough to work. We have a new student driver. Time marches on!

And today, before school starts inexplicably too soon (again), NEXT WEEK, we stole a day of summer.  We got together as a family, all six of us, and had an outing. I chose Schooner Valley Stables in Nashville, IN as the destination. We had a good experience with them a few years ago and we were looking forward to another. I figured it was a low risk environment, since you don’t come into contact with many people, and those you do are wearing masks. The kids were excited to go, so off we went!

After coaxing and prodding all my late risers out the door, we hit the road. The conversation was disgustingly peppered with comments about flatulence and belching (which I refer to as “face farting,” and for once the kids saw the logic in that). We banned the topic, so naturally it kept coming back up. We stopped for snacks in Columbus, Indiana, and then headed west toward Nashville.

When we reached Gnaw Bone, we passed a sign saying “Story, 10 miles” and pointing south, so I impulsively took it, explaining that we would grab lunch in Story and check it out, since we’d never been there. I told the kids it had a General Store, and they were sold! A few minutes later, we encountered construction traffic. 

The kids grew more and more restless as we waited for our turn to drive down the one way country back road, which adjoins Brown County State Park. It is a rural back road, the kind that winds through the hills and the trees and often disappears into gravel. The longer we sat, the more one of the boys complained that he had to go to the restroom. Inexplicably, the conversation turned once again to potty talk, before making a wild right angle into the realm of pot. The same boy who needed to go to the restroom informed us that he thought he saw a lot of marijuana plants ringing a corn field that we’d passed. As he put it, “weed.” He wanted to know how it grew out in a field like that, if it was “supposed” to grow inside under lights. Tim explained that it grows everywhere, which is why it is called a “weed,” and that people who use grow lights are hiding illegal drugs in their basements and trying to not get caught. SO. That ate up a few minutes of the traffic stop. Next piped up the baby of the group, asking if this subject was the same as “the weed for smoking,” followed quickly by my instant regret in letting the conversation go on in the first place.

Now, I know marijuana is legal in much of the country, but it isn’t here, and the last thing I need is her telling her classmates, “What did I do this summer? Oh, I went horseback riding and learned about the weed for smoking.”

On the other hand, I believe in educating my kids. If they want to know what drugs are, I will explain to them what I know, which also goes back to the RISKs of such things. And, truthfully, I don’t know a ton about drugs, per se, but…now the baby knows about as much as I do, so…sigh.

The traffic was stopped for about 20 minutes, which was just about untenable for the kids. I told them about the many times I sat still on the highway trying to get off on an exit to see a concert. I don’t know if concerts even work like that now! It was tough for them to imagine sitting 3 hours in a hot car with no air conditioning. As we waited, the radio played John Mellencamp’s “Cherry Bomb,” because of course it did.

When the road reopened, it was a scenic drive to Story, Indiana, which was sadly closed. THEY HAD A GENERAL STORE! And a restaurant. And wine. *sad face*. We contented ourselves with taking photos in the garden, and headed back to town for food. 

On the way, Tim suggested we avoid the construction and take Horseman’s Camp Road, which just happens to be the road that runs right through Brown County State Park. The hospitable lady at the gate let us cut through, which was quite nice, although I would have been fine paying admission. She told us to look for the signs that said “North Gate,” so every time we passed a sign, multiple people would say “This way,” or “North gate,” or whatever…and at the last minute, Sean would yell, “NORTH GATE!” It instantly became a meme, along with face farting.

ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY DRIVE INTO NORTH GATE!

It sounds very silly, because it was. On our way through the park, the kids expressed a desire to come back and see it for real, so I said maybe we could, post-covid. Come up and get a cabin for a week or something. We passed several scenic vistas that were just breathtaking, so naturally the kids were like, “Eh,” though they did at least turn their heads each time and look.

Next up, we sampled the fine dining Nashville is known for…McDonald’s!

Honestly, I wish we could have stopped at the Birds’s Nest Cafe, my favorite, or any of the other local cafes, but we really only had time by that point for a quick snack at the Golden Arches. After gobbling down our sustenance, we were off to Schooner Valley!

Schooner Valley was tremendous fun. The staff and volunteers really make you feel at home and the horses are just well-loved and beautiful. They’re not tired old trail horses…although by 3 pm in the hot weather, they sort of were…they still required a little guidance, especially my horse, Karma. She was a bossy lady, but she did as asked, eventually! The kids all had a great time, not just riding through gorgeous Yellowwood Forest, but also in bossing each other around about the proper form for riding. They weren’t shy about bossing me, either. You’d never know I’ve been riding for years.

We finished out our ride in a gentle rain shower that turned into a downpour as we dismounted. The rain felt cool and refreshing, as both our humans and our horses were soaked in sweat. We rode for over and hour, and my old bones and weak muscles were screaming on the way to the car. I admit, I limped a little. I’m a lot heavier right now than I want to be! All the kids and Tim were stiff, I think, except for the two youngest, who are by far the most fit. What amazing exercise that was!

We tried to roll into Nashville for a celebratory ice cream for all the kids, but it was impossible. Chocolate Moose was closed due to Covid-19 (waiting for test results, the sign on the window

said!) The other ice cream parlor in town was not safe for us re: peanut/tree nut allergies…so back to McDonald’s! It’s ironic…there is nothing like going to a fun, quirky, tourist-oriented place and just end up eating McDonald’s. So wrong, but for the kids, it was so right. 

It rained while the sun shined, something that I’ve usually only seen here at the Treehouse. “Where’s the rainbow?” Sean asked.

We did a little rubbernecking, checking out the area when we saw a for sale sign on a country road. Brown County gets very rural, very fast. More so than Floyd County where we live. I shouldn’t be surprised. I have spent a lot of time in rural Indiana–REAL Indiana, not this semi-suburban rural adjacent kind of place that we adoringly hail from. Where we live, we are metro Louisville, really. REAL Indiana is country AF. It’s corn and potential pot plants and pulling over on a gravel road to ask a man in denim overalls if we’re headed the right direction, knowing he’s going to help. REAL Indiana is a paved road turning suddenly into a gravel road. A trailer next to a log cabin. An artist colony that hides away some of the best scenic views in the country, and a sweet State Park employee who lets you cut through just because the kids are hungry and she can tell you’re not lying to get free admission.

We talked all the way home, through a downpour that lasted about an hour. I almost took the back way through Seymour to avoid the rain, but it let up not long after we passed Muscatatuck. Tim and Sam were both falling asleep. The kids thanked us for the trip…I suggested maybe we could go back this fall. Two of them said yes and two said they needed to think about it. Tim reminded me about Covid. I agreed to put it off for a bit. 

The kids reminisced about Piomingo, looking forward to next summer so much. Sean suggested that instead of a trip this fall, we build our own slide at home like the one at Piomingo. He suggested we dig a tunnel and have the slide go underground, before emptying us out into the creek at the back of our property. We shall see.

To the east of the highway emerged an enormous rainbow. Seamus took a photo.

We won’t get to swim this summer. We could. We could make our way to Buffalo Trace or some other semi-local beach, but I can’t take the risk. We’re all healthy right now. I can’t risk some rando swimming up to the kids and ruining that, and I definitely do NOT want to be that mom standing at the beach screaming “SOCIAL DISTANCING! SOCIAL DISTANCING!”

So we had one day of summer. Farts and belches were the topic du jour, only intensified by the horses pooping on the trail. It wasn’t the kind of conversation I would have chosen, but it was EXACTLY the kind of day. Adventurous, spontaneous, full of laughter and fun and a bit of sweat and excitement.

We arrived home smelling of horses and happiness.

The gift

Last night I dreamed about someone who I rarely think of by choice. We were fighting, as was our habit of old. The children were crying. I was weeping, collapsed on the steps, my head on my arms, exhausted.

This morning, as I made it about halfway through that first cup of coffee, having finished hand-making a birthday card for my beloved Sean, I realized why I had that dream.

In some ways, it feels like I am fighting with that person, ongoing. I would like to put the past in the past, and I do try. Not angrily, just…in a practical fashion. He was in my driveway yesterday, though, delivering gifts to two of the boys. We didn’t talk. I wasn’t even mad. I consciously moved on, but my subconscious was telling me, “I remember.” Spirit just does what spirit wants, I suppose. Last night it wanted to cry.

As I made the aforementioned birthday card, I knew the birthday boy likely wouldn’t love it. It includes references to his favorite anime shows. It is made with love. It is made just for him. In other words, it reeks of MOM.

He won’t like it because he doesn’t like me. He doesn’t like me because I am always here for him. He doesn’t like me because he has the freedom to push me away as hard as he can (teenagers do that), and he knows I’ll still be here. Not just because of the pandemic, but because I love him and he knows I love him. I so deeply love him, he has the luxury of loathing me, even though he loves me.

The man in the driveway last night didn’t have any bad intentions whatsoever, I am sure. He showed up, gave the two birthday boys (one belated, due to an abundance of Covid-19 caution) sacks full of gifts. They were not expensive gifts. Were they thoughtful? Sort of…ish. Not a single one of them was new, but the details didn’t matter to the boys. They were overjoyed to see the man. They were overjoyed to be thought of, to be special boys. They were overjoyed to explore those bags of gifts. They even cleaned them properly (where applicable) due to their second-hand nature and carted them off after the obligatory DISPLAYING OF THE TREASURES. Wow, were they psyched. Very happy guys. It was a fun show and tell, especially the bag of 80s cassette tapes!

Contrast this scene to the month surrounding their birthdays, here at home. Literally, anything I give them for their birthdays has to be approved by them, or it is going to be a waste of my money. My tangible birthday gifts tend to get pricier, harder to come by, and less appreciated. This is not why my subconscious was crying a la dream. (That was just a leftover, a reminder.) I get it. I’m a middle-aged lady, everything isn’t about me, and I’m happy about that. I’m just thinking about it, because…dream tears. Leftovers.

The teenagers take me for granted and kids really OUGHT to have a parent they can take for granted. That is the REAL gift. They don’t understand it yet, but someday they will.

It’s not a competition with the man. I wish him well. I wish the kids well. I bless the gift giving and receiving. It’s all good. (Prince and Meatloaf and Sting and Mötley Crüe, forever!)

My gift to them will never be wrapped. I will buy things today online, at the behest of the birthday boy, and I will enjoy spoiling him, as I always do…but he will not unwrap the real gift for many years to come. Someday he will, I know. I know he will.

I hope, hope, hope someday he hand makes a card for a child of his own. I love him so much. I want that for him–a family of his own, in a peaceful home, where one rarely ever weeps, even in his dreams.

sosuperawesome:Johanna Puhl on Instagram

sosuperawesome:

Johanna Puhl on Instagram

The Quick and the Dead and the Thoughtless

Someone said something unkind today. Not to me. Not about me, per se. You could say it was within my earshot, metaphorically…and that it pertained to me.

Sounds minor, doesn’t it? It must be minor. It wasn’t even about me, so how much more minor could it get?

I’m not going into specifics here, but suffice it to say, the words said were unintentionally hurtful. They were unintentionally divisive and caused me to catch my breath, feel a stab of pain in my heart, and then wrestle with my own reaction for over an hour. Say something? Not say something? Say something…no, no, don’t say anything. And so on, and so on. 

My husband was having a terrific father’s day, so I kept this to myself, until he noticed I was quietly leaning over my phone, typing and backspacing, typing and backspacing…he asked if something was wrong, so I tried to explain, in general terms.

“Someone hurt me. The person didn’t mean to, but they did. I forgive the person for saying it, but it still hurts.”

And as it turned out, explaining it that way wasn’t enough. Tim wanted to know more. So I told him specifics. A few minutes later, I was in full tears.

I know from experience that with this particular person, and with people in general, confronting them (even in the nicest, most self-owning way i.e. “these are my feelings and they exist, even though you did not mean to trigger this reaction”) will do no good. Nothing will change. In fact, today’s comment was proof of just that. It’s not like the topic hasn’t come up before.

That’s the funny thing about mixed signals, though. When you want a positive, you receive the positive and forget the negative. Then the negative surprises you, and you’re like…wow, I didn’t see that coming even though of course I should have, because I did after all receive signals like these before and they hurt me before! 

So here’s the thing. We’re all thoughtless. We hurt other people, whether we intend to or not. I think there must have been times through the years when my very existence hurt this person. I don’t say that I understand it, because I don’t, but I’ve received that message loud and clear, several times. And yet this person keeps communicating with me. It is so complicated, isn’t it? I can’t get more into it without calling this person out for perceived bad behavior, and the truth is, I am CERTAIN the person thought nothing of it. They did NOT intend to hurt me. I know that letting them know they hurt me will change NOTHING, because it NEVER has. So, I have to accept this person as they are.

(Am I angry about that? Yes. I think if I were not angry then that would signal that I do not care. The anger is the correct response, I just don’t want to be angry at this person for something that they can’t control and have no wish to learn to overcome, for basically the benefit of our particular relationship.) Sorry again for this being so vague, I just can’t be open about it without looking like a horrible person. And I’m not a horrible person. I’m a very loving person processing feelings of hurt and betrayal, which is a healthier than ignoring them or swallowing them or denying them. Blergh. Welcome to my journal, remember you asked to read this.

So what now? I don’t have to expose myself to the Quick and the Thoughtless. I can make a choice to shut that door. 

It’s a choice I have made many times in my life with various hurtful, thoughtless people. I have let this particular person drift before. Not with an angry letter, not with tears expressed out loud, just…letting go. You can’t hold onto something that bites, anyway, can you? It’s just not natural. So I have let go in the past.

The thing is, the Quick and the Thoughtless have a way of turning into the Dead, eventually. Rather Quickly. And then, no matter how much thought I have put into forgiveness, I am the one left behind, sad about it.

I try, as much as possible, to put myself into that person’s shoes. The perspective that person has doesn’t align with my reality, and to be honest, I don’t know how they reconcile that, but…

I suppose I am grateful that people generally know where they stand with me. I don’t have to check a compass twice a day and record where the sun is setting, because I have learned that life is much simpler if I just orient myself toward things that do not change. Plenty of chaos all around me, so I don’t have to create it in my relationships. I think of this as integrity, but some people…I honestly don’t know how much they have even examined their choices like that. Do they even *think* about their relationship with me? If the demonstrated answer is consistently NO, then it’s no surprise they would say something hurtful. The only surprise is that it can still hurt me after all this time. It can hurt me because I let it. Not because I enjoy the pain, or that I want to be mad, or that I want to be hurt, but because I want to keep that door open to that relationship, with no hope of them changing, and with no expectation of growing closer.

It’s history. Can’t be changed. Wishing it were different, that our perspectives were closer aligned because of how the past OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN is not going to help anyone with anything.

I want to cry, I think, because I feel robbed of a certain kind of relationship.

I will work on accepting it for what it is.

Slowly. Thoughtfully. As long as I am alive.

A Spell of Compassion

redtash:

I’ve been working on another Kitchen Witch book, and I keep struggling with how to address protest in the time of quarantine. Everywhere you look, gatherings of thousands of people are changing the world, and here I sit, recovering from pnuemonia and immunocompromised, and unable to put my feet on the pavement in support of a cause that means so much to me.

Black lives matter. Police brutality endangers us all. Breonna Taylor and so many other valuable American lives have been lost to the bad judgment of those who are sworn to serve and protect. I live in a country where the color of your skin is punishable by death, or rewardable with a free pass. HOW do I help change this? I want to march, but I dare not risk my fragile health.

I’ve been researching the science of compassion. The brain chemistry of how compassion works, inside the human brain, and how it affects those around the compassionate.

Compassion is the acceptance of others’ suffering as your own, in order to lighten their burden. If you’ve ever had to look away from those Sarah McLachlan dogs in cages commercials because it hurt too badly to watch, then you have compassion in you. You have the seed. So why should you water it? Why should you grow it, if it’s going to cause you any pain?

The answer is, because it will actually change the world for the better. First of all, YOU will feel better. How does others’ suffering make you feel better? Simply put, my dears, it’s magic. You take on a bit of their suffering, then it becomes your own… you take some step to decrease your suffering, which also decreases their suffering, and you are both relieved. Maybe you haven’t created world peace in a day, but you’ve taken a step toward it, which is much more powerful than standing in the same old spot, or even cowardly running away. The thing is, you can’t run far enough away from humanity to escape it, entirely. Not without becoming a sociopath. A cowardly, uncool, unfun, unattractive sociopath.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a coward. Not in the slightest. I know I’m compassionate. So what is my next step? I can listen. I can offer my platform to amplify voices. I can donate money to BLM or the ACLU or Planned Parenthood or other charities that help bear the burden of suffering in this country. For the sake of my children, who need their mother, I should not endanger my life by exposing myself to a deadly virus for which there is no cure, and no vaccine. I can lend my voice, though. I can lend my platform. I can amplify my friends’ voices. I can give money. It’s not a windfall of money, but it’s something. It’s a step in the right direction. It’s not running away.

I’m writing a book about having the Quarantime of my Life…it’s a little sarcastic, that working title, because obviously quarantine isn’t great fun at times. It just feels so silly to even work on that project when there are important civil rights movements going on. Like, how does staying healthy matter, when others aren’t even allowed to live?

Well, staying healthy does matter. When I see those George Floyd posters that say, “I can’t breathe,” I know that no one with compassion would wish me to die of Covid-19. No one who mourns for countless American deaths at the hands of police would want me to leave my children motherless and my husband a widower. Of course my health matters. Of course my life matters. 

I will keep working on my book, and I will support BLM because I am brave enough to work a spell for compassion.

The ManDEANa effect

I am in an alternate universe. 

Last week, I posted the following on reddit’s Mandela Effect subforum, looking for others who may have slipped through with me:

I’ve been rewatching Community on Netflix. At some point in season 2 I realized I didn’t remember a lot of the episodes. They were good and I was entertained, so I just kept binging. I was mentally sort of waiting for Chevy Chase’s character to be written off, but I’m on season 3 now and he’s still on the show. I remember from the last time I watched the series (about 7-8 years ago), that Chase was fired after season 1 because of the Dan Harmon feud. I remember that season 2 began with Pierce Hawthorn’s (Chase’s char) dying. Professor Chang took on a much larger role.

The only episode I’ve definitely remembered from season 2 on was the blanket fort episode. I know that I watched the entire series in the past, including a Yahoo! Sponsored final season.

Just as a sanity check, I googled the Chevy Chase issue and found that he left the show after season 5. I can accept that I misremembered this bit of tv trivia. It’s not like I am a super fan or anything. It is REALLY weird, though, that I don’t remember these episodes. I’ve rewatched Friends, the Office, Parks & Rec, and other shows that predated or ran concurrently with Community. I have not experienced this kind of “amnesia” before. The whole point of rewatching the shows is for comfort value, for me.

Anyone else out there remember Chevy Chase departing the show after season 1?

BTW I actually think the show is way funnier than I remembered, so it’s not a complaint. Maybe Dan Harmon is a time traveler. (Would explain a lot, huh?)

I’m now into season 5 of the show (the first without Chevy Chase in *this* timeline). Not only is Community MUCH funnier in this timeline, but it also has a lot more depth. Sadly, the post-Chevy seasons are really sinking fast.

I have recalled at least one other episode: embarrassingly, the one about the Butt Crack Bandit. (What is my life?)

In my original timeline, John Oliver was barely in the show. He has a much larger role now.

It’s interesting to me, but not really life-changing. I have googled other misremembered details and found out that they still ran season 6 on Yahoo!. I was actually kind of hoping to find out there had never been a Yahoo! tv experiment, as well, because that would have confirmed that either I’m absolutely stark raving mad, or I have truly and unequivocally slipped into an alternate universe.

Dan Harmon, the creator of Community and Rick & Morty, writes a lot about alternate timelines and time travel. Almost *too* much.

Oddly, I really do NOT remember there being such a focus on alternate timelines the first time I watched Community. I’m going to watch Rick & Morty when I’m done with this rewatch.

Maybe being an alternate timeline/mandela effecting weirdo is just a Harmon thing? It is legally half of my last name.

We are in the Harmon timeline, then, I suppose?

I mean, life has felt pretty surreal since the 2016 election. I don’t know. I’m just a Sim.

spidaerman:To all my black followers and friends, stay...

spidaerman:

To all my black followers and friends, stay safe.

Also, I would like to add that black lives have always mattered, will always matter.

It’s awful that we even have to say that because it should be a given. However, we need to say it loud and clear for the racists.

We cannot be silent.