Wednesday, March 27, 2019

In the face

Still figuring all this out since this is the first time I've lived in Ohio in over 17 years. It is a daunting task but I am up to the task. Good thing I've had to do this -- signing up and fitting into a community -- for decades. I am here. I am staying here. I am back to being a Buckeye Beauty who is also an aging Army brat, and now I'm an aging Army brat and Buckeye beauty living in the Buckeye state. How is that for change?

I've been approved at last for membership to the county YMCA and will be volunteering for the public library and for Hospice if I can pass all the hurdles and get signed up for everything. I might even find a job, the kind that pays, come to that.

Last week I went to the Wherehouse and was told that I am not a likable person. This has been said about me all along, but this is the first time I got it square in the face and couldn't ignore what was being said. I was told I was considered ungracious and tart and didn't come off well. Considering not coming off well, I'd have to cite the fact that I was awakened from a deep sleep and had to start running to keep up. At times like that when I'm unprepared and foggy, I tend to get quiet. I didn't have a good day, probably from being awakened to being fully awake and didn't have my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self in hand. Or something like that.

I could also say that living alone and communicating with other people have been in my control and I often probably came off as short-tempered and probably ungracious as well. I'll have to work on that, get back into fighting fit, or at least not fighting, but fitter than I have been for a very long time.

Oh, well, I'm back in society again and I will have to work on communicating with others and not pontificating or speechifying -- at least not until I'm fully ensconced in politics. Or not. I'll have to figure that out when I am in front of the audience and must kiss babies and thank even the nastiest of politicians. I can do that, but I"ll have to brush off my smile and drag it out to face the world. I'm not unlikable, but I will have to brush off my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed best. I think I still have that persona still on file somewhere in the attic.

I didn't realize I was so far off my game, but I am and probably have been for a decade or three. Even my fellow students have commented on my demeanor, so it must be true. There is nothing like a bucket of ice water directly in the face when you're not expecting it, but there it is. I've been dashed with a whole bucket of icy water. I'll have to work on that.

That is all. Disperse.