Friday chickenIn which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.

And you get to join in if you feel like it.

The hard stuff

Still tired.

Blah, boring. Take that damn vacation already. Or at least pretend you have mono.

Weather gloom.

Come on, Portland.

It’s cherry-blossom-week. It’s time to be your most shiny and beautiful.

I am very serious. Let’s do this.

Stupid stupid daylight savings throws me off track like you would not believe.

I was the biggest confused cranky-mouse this week because of being half jet-lagged.

Everything was stupid and bewildering and wrong this week. Also, please do not take light away from a morning person who is recovering from winter. It is not nice.

A symbolic thing I take way too seriously.

A symbolic thing that has, I’m assuming, no actual impact on my life, threw me into alternating panic and depression this week. Ugh.

And now I can’t stop obsessing over it.

Too many projects. Caring about all of them. .

And then, if that weren’t enough, lots of post ideas no time to work on them.

I then invariably proceed to write what seems like the perfect reminder note, but then no, it’s gone. No more idea.

And I’m left wondering what I possibly could have meant by Thoughtful Bathrooms. (Is it just one guy?)

Okay, actually, I think I could still write that one, but really, how much could I honestly have to say about Permission Slip Popsicle Sticks? Are they not self-explanatory?

But the post! It was so beautiful in my head before it vanished. Alas.

The good stuff

Happy Hoppy House.

New and wonderful things happening to my beloved Hoppy House.

We planted a beautiful tree.

And Svevo, my marvelous uncle who is full or surprises and whom you probably remember from endless mentions here, managed to procure one of the exact kind of rocking chair that lives in his magical house in the woods.

And now it is in our living room.

It’s like a piece of Svevo-land with me all the time. I love it. Best present ever.

Rally! Of course.

Ohmygod. As one of the Rallions said, I got so much done that it’s just stupid.

Exactly. It is outrageous how much progress has been made on things. And how good I feel about it.

Huge.

And the Rallions were amazing. And smart. No big surprise there. And it was fun.

Bounce-FLYYYYY!.

The shivanautical epiphanies were absolutely massive this time. My mind: it is blown.

And that’s because we were doing all kinds of crazy things with the practice.

We did it with scarves. We did it with symbols. We did it with words we invented on the spot:

Like Bounce-Landing-Giving-FLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

The realizations and insights of this past week are really pretty astonishing. I’m still processing but wow.

I got my picture taken and did not cry. .

Not only did Jillian do an amazing job as Rally photographer and Head Shot Magician, and not only is she the loveliest person in the world, she also had special Sparklepoints stickers custom-made for me.

Because she knows I am constantly awarding myself imaginary sparklepoints. Sparklepoints for me!

So now I get to stick them on myself.

Yay!

Short, but sweet.

I decided to shorten the intro bits on these Friday Chickens and on the Very Personal Ads (you’ll see what that looks like this Sunday).

This is something I have been meaning to do for a while now.

But apparently if you subscribe by email it kind of looks like I’m writing the same exact post every Friday and Sunday because the first paragraph is the same?

Anyway, it’s way, way, way crazy shorter now. I think this is good.

And this is from last week but it still counts!

I was totally going to tell you about this last time but then having gone away for my birthday erased my brain. Roller Derby!

Portland’s Wheels of Justice looked absolutely great at the Wild West Showdown up in Washington. After a depressing loss to Denver, our girls beat the crap out of both Philly and Seattle and looked damn good doing it.

Best. Season. Ever. This is all very exciting and pretty much all I’ll be talking about over the next few months, not that this is exactly news.

And … playing live at the meme beach house it’s the Fake Band of the Week!

My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”

This week’s band is in honor of the thing we almost always end up forgetting on the Jessica-inspired Wine & Cheese night at Rally (Rally!).

Volunteer Baguette.

They’re playing in town all week. Except that it’s really just one guy.

That’s it for me …

And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.

Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?

And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day and a restful weekend-ing.

And a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.

p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s always chicken amnesty — you can join in absolutely whenever you want.

The Fluent Self