Hodgepodge

I have so many things I want to write about, but right now I'm lacking in both cognitive capacity to put words on paper in a cohesive and coherent manner as well as the time to do so.

Lately, most of my writing time and energy has been devoted to writing or calling my elected officials to voice my concerns about, well, pretty much everything the president has done, is trying to do, or has plans to do.  I doubt it matters much, but it makes me feel like I'm doing something.

The reaction to my last post has been overwhelming.  While definitely not my most commented on post, in 2.5 years of blogging, it is the most viewed post that I've published.  I interpret that to mean that it struck a chord or at least made people think.  And I really hope that I didn't piss anybody off. Privilege is a hard thing to think about, acknowledge, and write about, and I'm thankful to have this space to do it (even if it isn't remotely related to my usual topics).

I'm also still in the midst of the wonky cycle that I mentioned earlier in January.  So, just in general, I'm still feeling pretty crappy, and am really close to surpassing my longest cycle record.  I'm still hitting it pretty hard at the gym, I'm down a few pounds, and I'm starting to see the physical changes in my appearance, which is both positive and motivating.

My nephew's first birthday and birthday party are rapidly approaching.  Much like her baby shower, my sister wants me to put my feelings aside and attend.  I've already thanked her for the invitation and declined, but she's having a hard time accepting my decision as final.  I got a bit blunt with her yesterday after she tried the guilt trip route, so hopefully that will put an end to it.  Even putting all of the difficult feelings about babies and birthday parties aside, it's not practical to go, because I have two nieces and two nephews who all have birthdays that fall in a span of 4 weeks.  It's not fair to just go to one or two parties and it's not possible to go to all four.

Finally, my grandpa passed away in his sleep on Wednesday morning.  I'm thankful that I got to make two trips to see him in January, and mostly I'm thankful that he's no longer suffering.  It's hard to watch someone slowly die, but at least he is at peace now.  It's a weird feeling to know that he's no longer here.  Thankfully the family seems to be mostly well behaved and is rallying around my grandma, so that's good.

I guess there's not much else that I can really say.  Despite everything I mentioned above, I'm actually doing pretty well.  Thanks for still reading along even though I haven't been doing a very good job at writing or commenting on your blogs lately.