[This is a repeat of a post I had a nightmare about last night. It’s from 2019.]
An argyle design on a wood bow tie is never out of fashion. Bow Tie o’ the Day is solid evidence of its infinite appeal.
I can’t decide if my solitary hairs spike is supposed to be a “1,” or an “I,” or a dart point. Maybe it’s my interpretation of a toothpick. Or perhaps it’s an antenna or an ice pick. Is it a fur middle finger, and I’m flipping off the galaxy just by walking around? Is this hairy “point” trying to make a point? I dunno. What I do know is that I have the Three Dog Night song, “One”, running repeatedly through my brain. Sing with me: “One is the loneliest experience you’ll ever do./ Two can be as bad as one./ It’s the loneliest number since the number one…/” And for some reason, I’m bigly concerned my ‘do-point might poke my own eyes out if this skinny, tall tower accidentally collapses. It’s sharp.
We had our annual H&R Block appointment to file our taxes yesterday evening. I think of it as tax settlement, after the manner of the equally math-related technical thing called “tithing settlement” over at the church. Filing our taxes was, as it generally is, a mostly painless but ultimately uninteresting yearly event. We left the appointment certain we hadn’t committed any fiscal infractions which might cause us to be audited, so that itself felt like a success.
If you’re a long-time TIE O’ THE DAY reader, you know that my annual tax post is where I happily repeat the claim that I am proud to pay taxes. I co-own this country, with every other citizen who has lived here or ever will live here. I literally pay for it. It’s mine. Furthermore, I assert that every tax dollar I spend buys me more than any other dollar I spend—from roads, libraries, schools, parks, baseball diamonds, airports, cemeteries, police departments, deer hunts, fire departments, the military, national parks, public health research institutions, 911 service, etc. to unseen layers of infrastructure and security for my personal benefit. I could never afford to pay my share of the actual cost of these services I use, even if I forked over my entire paycheck—even if my paycheck was exponentially and astronomically more than it is. A tax dollar spent is a bargain. My dad taught me how to see it this way.
So my taxes are done for the year. And my annual tax post is written and offered up for perusal on TIE O’ THE DAY. My tax work is done here. 💵💸
I have posted a bunch of sappy stuff about love recently, in honor of Valentine’s Day. I’m a cheerleader for kindness, forgiveness, empathy, and compassion. I will defend those higher values until the day I drop dead. I really do believe in the ideas I’ve been writing about, but I also believe it’s a sign of a healthy mental state to face and deal with other, less sweet-and-gushy, feelings. As human beings, we all have what I will call moments of feeling darkly—those times when we encounter rudeness, unfairness, betrayal, injustice, etc. We feel more darkly when these negative things we encounter are such that we can’t (or think we can’t) really do anything to change what we see. We struggle with the way things are. We have emotional responses to these situations that are natural but not especially nice. Don’t feel guilty about feeling “not especially nice.” I suggest you acknowledge your feelings, figure out why you feel them, and then move on. If you can do something to fix the situation that upsets you, do. If you can’t, keep on truckin’, as we used to say in the 70’s. Been there, felt that.
There’s a trick I came up with in order to accomplish just this. It might not work for you, but I swear by it. If I’m in the midst of a situation in which someone is promoting contention, I talk to myself in my head. More specifically, I say not-nice things privately to myself. Outwardly, I will be as civil as the situation allows. I will try to talk the contention-maker down to a dull roar. But at some point, if it’s clear this person is hell-bent on being contentious to others, I give myself permission to rant in my head—while remaining polite. If a person is being a jerk, I give myself permission to repeat a mantra like, “You’re being a jerk” over and over again, out loud inside my brain. It is true that sometimes I say—in my head—words that are a bit stronger than “jerk.” I make no apologies for doing this. It makes me feel better without creating more contention by throwing fists or by running my mouth directly at someone else. Generally, if I just acknowledge and respect my not-nice feelings, these not-nice feelings pass. In most instances, there’s no reason to ruin a relationship about it.
Here’s an example of what I’m saying. In the late 80’s, I had a spiky short hairdo with one small tail of neon hair down to my right shoulder. I was in my mid-20’s at the time. I was with a friend (also in her 20’s) at Trolley Square in SLC, when we ran into her mother. It was the first time I had met my friend’s mother, so she introduced me. I said to the mother I was glad to meet her and stuck out my hand to shake hers—you know, I was polite. My friend’s mother kept her hands to her side and immediately asked me, “Do you really think you can meet Jesus with hair like that?” Now I know for a fact that I had never used the spikes in my hair to stab anyone or poke their eyes out or pick a lock to steal stuff. And I know for a fact that my neon yellow or pink or blue hair-tail never strangled anybody. Sadly, I had dealt with people like this before, so it didn’t startle me. I said to my friend’s mother, “The Jesus I am familiar with is busy dealing with real problems like hate and poverty and fear and hopelessness. The Jesus I know isn’t a busybody judging people’s hair.” I don’t remember how the conversation went after that, but I do remember that talking to myself, repeating “You are a jerk,” over and over again in my own noggin, helped me remain relatively civil in the situation. I knew the mother for many years after that and I grew to appreciate her for her other, less judgmental qualities. No matter the style of my hair during the more than decade I knew my friend’s mother, I always knew that in her eyes, my head hairs and I were never worthy of meeting Jesus. Oh well. I’m not worried.
The first three paragraphs of this post set the context for this afternoon’s “coded” Tie o’ the Day. It’s an uber-easy code to break, with only two words to be deciphered. (I realized as I was writing this that I’ve never actually said these two specific words together out loud to a person in my life.) The idea I’m trying to explore in this post is that it is sometimes fitting to feel not-nice about a not-nice situation or a not-nice person. It doesn’t make you a bad person to get fed-up with something. It is, however, usually better to deal with the raggedy feeling yourself, rather than lash out directly at someone in the heat of the moment. Egos get bruised that way. Pride gets injured. Even the most helpful, insightful point gets lost in translation under such circumstances. Saying things only to myself and/or wearing this Tie o’ the Day at strategic times can help me remain composed in life’s mean chaos: I’m subtly registering my dissent by expressing an authentic not-nice emotion, without causing emotional injury to someone else’s fragility. It’s a strategy which works effectively for me. 👁 💜 U’all
I seem to have been feeling a lumberjack-y vibe when I put on my clothes today. Tie o’ the Day is replete with split wood ready for stacking, on top of my red-and-gray plaid shirt. The paisley mask is just because I try to rock some paisley no matter what I wear, as y’all well know. I can’t explain the reason for wearing the cow-spots flat cap, except to say it seemed like a silly way to finish the look. Perhaps the hat is just my way of saying “howdy” to my friend, Myrt, who is a faithful TIE O’ THE DAY reader and is always up for any cow-themed attire I have to show off. Consider yourself “howdy-“ed, Myrt. 🐄 Moo!
Jumbo red Bow Tie o’ the Day and candy hearts Lapel Pin o’ the Day were a fitting combo for our February 13th brunch reservation. The bigly Scrabble board behind me is a sure sign we’re at Hotel Manaco for a meal at Bambara. We ate a tasty Valentine’s Eve brunch there at the absolute best time to have an up-scale restaurant to ourselves: Super Bowl Sunday. While everyone else was home or at an all-day Super Bowl party stuffing themselves with Buffalo wings and pizza and every variety of chip and dip known to humankind, we had a hoity-toity restaurant almost completely to ourselves. We didn’t plan it that way, but we had such a fine time I can guarantee fancy dining out on the day of the NFL Championship is going to be an annual tradition. 🏈 💘
On this Monday after the Super Bowl, I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks for their League Championship win yesterday. I would like to, but I can’t—since my Seahawks were not in this year’s bigly game. ‘Scuse me while I sob about it for two whole seconds. Oh, well. There’s always next year. Go next year, Seahawks!
Candy conversation hearts Tie o’ Valentine’s Day is joined by my Suzanne-sewn pink hearts Cape o’ the Day. As far as love itself goes, I say, “Go bigly, or go home!” If you’re not willing to put in the effort that love of any type requires, don’t even attempt to get involved in it. If you aren’t in it for the long-haul, you’ll surely end up inadvertently hurting people who don’t deserve it. And you will just as certainly end up dooming yourself to regrets. Once embarked upon, love is a deepening and complication of every decision you will make thereafter. If you’re loving another person properly, you’re always juggling your own goals, feelings, needs, and wants with those of someone else. To keep a relationship alive, you must nurture the closeness between you and your beloved, while at the same time maintaining clearly defined boundaries that keep your own soul free, independent, and accountable. That nugget of wisdom is as true for loving your companion, as it is for loving your kid, your parent, or your neighbor. Maybe even your football team.
Loving someone is a wondrous task. It demands work. It requires regular attention and ever-evolving interpersonal skills. It requires selfless passion and pointed self-reflection. It also requires unending resilience, because no matter how much you care and how hard you work at a relationship, you will sometimes get hurt—as certainly as you will cause pain to whoever you love. When human beings are involved in an endeavor, pain and loss are inevitable. The distress that comes out of plain old human imperfection can be intentional or unintentional (It’s mostly unintentional, from what I’ve observed)—but if you love somebody, you will experience it from both sides. Remember: you are perfectly you, but you are not perfect. Let me yell that thought boldly, so you don’t miss it: YOU ARE NOT PERFECT! No one is, so it’s a good idea to always love with a dollop of forgiveness handy. Continue to love onward, with your trusty shield of resilience at the ready. Resilience won’t keep you safe from the pangs of loving, but it will help you survive pain like the Adult of God you are likely trying so hard to become. 💝 ❣️
So far, no one has ever left a baby on my front step. Sometimes, however, I open my front door to find that some anonymous but wonderful delivery driver has left me a bigly package like this. This one hails from ties.com—one of only a handful of companies with whom I will do neckwear business. They were having a clearance sale on their website earlier in the week, and I ended up ordering nearly 40 new neckties. Most of these ties were thriftily priced at $2.18 or $3.28, so y’all can see why I had to stock up. A star item in this particular crop o’ neckties is the bacon tie you saw in this morning’s TIE O’ THE DAY post. That bacon tie is normally $38.50. I’ll tell you a little secret about collecting just about anything with a price tag: the key is to be patient about prices. Everything goes on sale at some point. Of the thousands of ties and bow ties I have in my collection, I have paid full price on maybe a dozen. For all of my alleged extravagance regarding my neckwear, I am truly a thrifty chick. 💸
I wish, I wish, I wish. If I could, I would send a Valentine to my true friend, bacon. It’s the best. It has been around for me through every twist and turn of my life since I grew teeth. It has been with me during every manic or depressive ride I’ve taken on my bipolar merry-go-round. It has been a comforting companion through every relationship I’ve had—success or failure. I’m not embarrassed to say it: I love bacon. And I know most of y’all are right there with me on this. To bacon, I say, “Be my Valentine!” Tie o’ the Day is a symbol of this tasty true love I will always feel for bacon. If only bacon could hear me, or read. Alas, this thing I feel so deeply and consistently is destined to be a case of unrequited love forever. Must. Make. Breakfast.
I took my hearts Face Mask o’ the Day and my hearts-and-arrows Tie o’ the Day to my appointment with the dermatologist this afternoon. My doc relayed to me the final results of my biopsies, and now the rash on my torso is diagnosed. For those of you who want me to violate my own HIPAA rules, here’s the name of what I have: disseminated granuloma annulare. According to my dermatologist, it is not something she usually sees. It is not common, nor is it rare. She last saw it on someone over 5 years ago. It’s just rare enough that it can be difficult to diagnose without all the biopsies and x-rays I just had.
The good news is that disseminated granuloma annulare is a relatively harmless condition, although my doc says I need to be vigilant about having mammograms and “lady parts” exams more frequently than is generally recommended for a chick of my age. But here’s the bigly annoying thing: there is no cure to make my rash go away. It will go away on its own—just as it came to me—whenever it dang well wants to. If it decides to go, it can also decide to come back—repeating the process over and over. Or it might disappear tomorrow—never to recur again. Or it might decide to never leave my body at all. So I finally know what the malady is, but there’s nothing anyone can do to eliminate it. My rash has a mind of its own. Fortunately for me, it does not hurt or itch. It simply covers part of my belly and back in patches of red bumps. All in all, I remain grateful my rash is neither dangerous nor hideous. I’m also happy to report that the rash is not contagious. As long as the rash remains innocuous, I guess it’s okay if it hangs around here with me and the neckwear if it really has nowhere else to go. The more the merrier, I always say.
[Here’s a much-requested Valentine repeat post. Enjoy.]
Tie o’ the Day is content to hang in the background, while Mom stars in this morning’s pix. These are evidence of Mom’s alluring ways. Dad was born into a beekeeping family, and bees were his thing. He was crazy for bees from the minute he could toddle. Based on that fact, I have no doubt Dad thought the photo of Mom dressed up in beekeeper attire was the sexiest of these two pictures. Mom does have nice legs though.
Dad’s family lived in Delta. Mom was from Oak City, a small town about 15 miles away. In Oak City, at that time, the kids went to school there until high school, then the Oak City-ites rode the bus to Delta High School every day. Mom and Dad didn’t know each other until that came to pass.
But they had sort of met once before high school. One summer day, Dad and his pals happened to be at the Oak City swimming pool when Mom was there with her friends. Mom was standing by the edge of the pool when Dad walked by and rudely pushed her in.
Mom was ticked off, turned to her gal pals, and said, “Ignernt Delta boys!”
Dad smiled, turned to his friends, and said, “I’m gonna marry that girl.”
