The Creative Nest

I think I have decided that I am the biggest bawl baby there ever is. No, it is not hormones. I have been this way forever. This is not new. This is not a phase. This is just me. I will cry when I know someone whose dog passed away. That one makes sense, I think. A dog died. That is sad. Fine. But I will also cry when I see an enduring ad. An ad. A commercial. A thirty second clip designed to sell me something, and I am sitting there with tears running down my face because a man adopted a puppy or a grandmother learned to video call her grandson. I know it is an ad. I know they are actors. I know the puppy is probably fine and living on a farm somewhere. I cry anyway. I will cry when I see an adult diaper ad because I feel bad for them. That is the one that really gets me. I am watching television and an ad for adult diapers comes on and my eyes well up because I feel bad for the people in the ad. Not even the real people. The actors. The actors playing people who need adult diapers....

I have noticed something about the way other people talk. It is small. It should not bother me. It bothers me. They enunciate the "ing." Not all of them. But enough of them. Enough that I hear it everywhere now and cannot stop hearing it. Someone says "writing" and they hit that "ing" like it owes them money. Wri-ting. With a hard g and everything. The "ing" gets its own little moment, its own little stage, like it is the star of the word and the rest of the syllables are just backup dancers. I do not know why this irritates me. That is the honest truth. I have tried to figure it out. I sit there and I listen to someone say "running" or "going" or "thinking" and they give that "ing" so much energy and I feel my jaw tighten and I do not know why. It is a sound. It is a normal sound. People are allowed to pronounce words correctly. That is the whole point of words. But here we are. I think part of it is ...

I recently discovered live auctions, and by "discovered" I mean I stumbled onto one the way a person stumbles onto a clearance rack and walks out with forty pounds of discount socks. I found myself in two auctions and won both of them. That's right. Two for two. A bracelet and a moissanite ring. I am now the proud owner of jewelry I have not yet seen in person, which is either exciting or a cautionary tale depending on how this story ends. The bracelet came first. I watched the countdown tick down and placed a bid with the confidence of someone who has never been to an auction before. The ring followed shortly after. I told myself I was being strategic. I was not being strategic. I was being competitive, which is a fancy word for "I will not lose to a stranger named Brenda." Now I am waiting. The packages are somewhere between "sold" and "sitting on my porch," and I have found myself refreshing tracking numbers with the intensity of a dog w...