Author: Angel Beldam

I had planned to post a very detailed account of the weekend today, but just didn’t have it in me. I still feel like I’m in recovery mode so maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime here are some pics:.

Some of you may have noticed that I did not post last week at all and that I haven’t been posting regularly. I’ve been debating about how much to share, but I figured only those who are interested are reading this anyway, so here’s a little bit about why that is.

I take medication for anxiety and depression, but last week my anxiety overwhelmed my meds. I wasn’t eating very well, nor was I getting adequate or consistent sleep. I was binge-watching shows and TikTok until 2 or 3 in the morning then trying to work a normal workday. I had crying jags. I was defensive and raw and not very good company.

So it’s fortunate that during weekdays Tennessee and I don’t see much of each other, or she might have throttled me or thrown me out. She was very patient and took care of me when I could not seem to take care of myself.

I have shared some of my concerns about my reduced mobility and this was the major cause of my anxiety. I know how much Tennessee loves Brandi Carlile and how much she was looking forward to this concert weekend. I was so worried that I was going to ruin it for her that I almost ruined it for her.

If I could have hidden my anxiety and my physical limitations from her and faked it, I totally would have. But I’m trying not to do that anymore. I’m trying to always be my authentic self with her.

However, I admit that I hid the severity of my anxiety until I couldn’t hide it anymore. I’m trying not to feel shame around that…shame for feeling weak for having anxiety…shame for letting myself get to such a place physically…shame for feeling like I had to hide that from this amazing woman that I love.

I swore I’d never let shame take hold in my life ever again, but here we are, again.

Fortunately, she has been so supportive, and in the end, I didn’t disappoint her. I didn’t stay home so she could take someone else. I didn’t sell the tickets to someone else because she insisted on not going without me. I did the walking and the standing and the climbing and the descending and the walking. We went slowly and I had to use a cane, but we made it and got to see a spectacular show.

I was exhausted and sore, I still am, to be honest, but what a thrill when Tennessee said she was proud of me and so I felt proud of myself too.

I’m not where I wish I was, but I did something hard, and it was great. I have more hard stuff to do, but it no longer feels quite so daunting.

I’m still trying to process where the shame is coming from and where to put that. Guess it’s a good thing I have a therapy appointment this week. Might could be I need to chat a bit about why I feel the need to hide my struggles from Tennessee too. I don’t ever want her to think I don’t trust her or love her enough to be completely, authentically me. I do love her and trust her, but some walls are harder to bring down.

She deserves happiness and joy, we both do, so I’ll keep doing hard things for as long as it takes.

Take care of yourselves my friends.

Quote

“Keep fighting, Tennessee!”

-Brandi Carlile on 9/22/23

Book

I started and stopped many books this week because I could not settle my anxiety. I did manage to finish “Written in the Stars” by Alexandria Bellefleur for my book club. It was a pretty typical opposites-attract lesbian romance, but I can’t give it my top recommendation. I want to always support authors because I know how hard it is to write a book now, but I wish I had gotten the eBook version on Kindle Unlimited rather than using an Audible credit. It is not as though it’s a bad book. It’s not. It’s just not a book I would have used a credit on or paid for if it hadn’t been a book club book.

Best Thing of the Week

Spending the weekend in Nashville with Tennessee. I don’t have the bandwidth to say much here as we just got back a short while ago and I’m exhausted, but I promise to write several blogs about last week and this weekend soon.

I will say that Pink was off the charts–the best performer I have ever seen. She has a powerful voice and such presence and energy. If you ever get a chance to go see her in concert you have to go.

As for Brandi Carlile, I can’t wait to go see her again! Next time though at a more intimate venue where she is the headliner and we get more than a handful of songs. Where I can really get a chance to hear her stories and the other songs she didn’t have time for and the songs she sings with her wife.

Again, I promise more to come on our adventures over the next several days.

Yes, I’m a Nerd

Why I Love Living Here

Posted on one of the local FB pages:

And also this:

Closing Words

I know I haven’t been around, but I have a reason. Stay tuned for some future posts where I’ll explain and share.

I hope you all have a great week.

Take care of yourselves.

Quote

“It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a higher standard of living than any have ever known… It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.”

— Buckminster Fuller

Book

“Back in a Spell” by Lana Harper

This is the third book in the series that started with “Payback’s a Witch”. I still love the first one best, but I enjoyed visiting with these Thistle Grove characters again. The magic was fun, and I liked the parts that describe their witchbond which is similar to what my MCs experience in my novel. I hope my version will be as well-written as hers.

Best Thing of the Week

Date night consisted of watching college football and making a fabulous dinner together. We were both having a hormonal day so dinner could have been a total catastrophe, but it wasn’t. We worked well as a team on the most complicated meal we’ve had so far, and it turned out so good!

Sadly the Vols lost to the Gators, but the Buffs won The Rocky Mountain Showdown in an exciting double-overtime game. Well done Coach Prime!

Yes, I’m a Nerd

IYKYK and if you don’t, no amount of lengthy discourse will help. The Silence is missing though.

Why I Love Living Here

Posted on one of the local FB pages:

Pig running loose on dogwood lane

I laughed and told Tennessee that this was one of the reasons I loved living here. Then she told me about Barbie (as in Bar-B-Q) our neighborhood porcine resident. I have not seen her yet, but I’ll keep an eye out the next time I’m out and about.

Weekly Tarot Reading

Five of Cups – Upright

Sometimes the universe has a strange sense of humor. It’s dark, morbid, and needs to be bitch-slapped too.

I’ve really been struggling with my physical health and feeling a bit of despair and grief over the loss of my mobility. At the end of this week, I’m supposed to be going to see Pink and Brandi and I have no idea if I am physically capable of walking from the shuttle to our seats. I’ve asked Tennessee if she’d be upset if I had her take someone else. She is mulling it over.

While I’m wallowing in this feeling after pulling the card, my son calls me in a total panic. I had just texted him telling him he needed to get an emissions test before we can renew his plates. He tells me he hit something in the road yesterday and the damage that was done may cause it not to be able to pass an emissions test. Like others his age, he can barely make ends meet without having to get his car fixed, but he can’t not have a car because he drives it to make money. Panic was a natural reaction.

It’s going to be an uncomfortable week I think.

Closing Words

May you always be the one who finds joy in the little things.

Have a great week!

Be well, my friends.

Yesterday was my Grandmother Merlinda’s 97th birthday. We call her Abuelita. This is a picture taken of her by my Tia Nilda.

I don’t know her well as she lives in Chile. She does not speak English and I don’t speak enough Spanish for getting to know you types of talks. I’ve been to Chile three times with my mother to visit, but 10 days or 2 weeks is not enough time to get to know someone, especially if you can’t talk to them.

The last time we were there was to celebrate my mother’s 70th and my grandmother’s 90th birthdays. Abuelita asked us when we were coming back and since neither my mother nor I really wanted to go back there we half-jokingly said we would be back for her 100th birthday.

If we are going to go back to Chile, which is now starting to look like it might could happen, I’m going to have to start saving my money for airfare. Flights to Antofagasta, Chile, where my abuela, tias, and primas live, are very expensive.

I have primos and tios there too of course but I don’t like most of them. They are either anti-American and let me know it or are too arrogant bordering on machismo. The only adult male cousins I like are my prima Rosanna’s two sons. One is a young musician and the other is a world traveler who spent COVID in New Zealand and is currently working in Canada.

I really don’t want to go back though. The last time I was there I was still straight. Okay, I knew by then I wasn’t straight, but I wasn’t out yet either.

I’m trying to imagine taking Tennessee and introducing her as my wife and I just can’t. I would never put her through that. It’s hard enough meeting the in-laws without throwing in language and cultural barriers.

The fact that homosexuality was only recently decriminalized there, that my mother’s youngest sister is the only one who knows I’m a lesbian, and that Tennessee has no desire to travel overseas makes the decision to not invite her pretty easy.

If mom and I go, I will invite her, as that’s respectful and I’m not stupid, but I won’t be surprised or upset when she says hell no.

Got the local paper yesterday, and I was disappointed. I have no idea why. I guess I keep hoping to see a glimmer. Something that will spark joy or make me feel welcome.

It is full of what it is always full of…crime reports, recognition of locals for good deeds, hard work or creativity, local events, and high school sports. I suppose if I actually knew any of the people in the articles, that would make it more interesting.

There was something a bit different–still a local event but it’s politics–sort of. There is going to be an election for two of the seats on the Board of Directors for BTC Fiber, a local internet provider headquartered in Pikeville, which is the next town over on Hwy 127.

The are three white men running for those two seats. To be fair I only know for certain that two of them a white…and old-ish. Those two had pictures in their ads. I tried to look up the third guy but I only got his deceased father’s obit pic. The father was an old white dude so it’s not a stretch to assume that he is too.

This, while different than the usual, did not spark joy or feelings of welcome. I think I need to find a way to be more involved in this community so that the names I see printed will actually mean something to me. I have absolutely no idea what except maybe something to do with the library.

Speaking of which, in the column about the library they announced that September is library card sign-up month. I’m going to try and get Tennessee signed up. Also, every week they recommend a book in 5 categories: Adult Fiction, Adult Non-fiction, Young Adult, Chapter Book, and Easy Fiction.

I went back to check the book titles just in case though I was certain they would not be something I would be interested in just like all the others before. For the first time, however, they actually have two books I might find interesting.

The first is “The Keeper of the Hidden Books'” by Madeline Martin from the Adult Fiction category, which I put on hold using my Aurora Public Library card. It’s not available for 8 weeks so I thought it was a good time to add my Sequatchie County Library card to my Libby to see if I could get it faster. No such luck. However, I was able to borrow the other book, “When It All Syncs Up” by Maya Ameyaw, the Young Adult book recommendation. I’ll do a review when I’m finished.

Through this little adventure, I was able to actually discover something that made me feel welcome and brought a little joy. My local library is able to connect with the Libby App through the Tennessee Reads Network. Our physical library is small but through the network many other books are available so I thought I’d see if there were any LGBT books available.

Y’all they had 500 books, 96 audiobooks, and 2 magazines!

The magazines are “Outre” and “A Modern Gay’s Guide”. I checked out the latest “Outre”. I’ve never read a magazine through Libby but I’ll try it out and let you know.

So 596 books aren’t a lot of books comparatively, and I’ll likely never be able to find their physical counterparts in the building down the street, but that is way more than I expected to find. Good on them, and yay me! What a great way to start the weekend!

It’s been a while since I’ve been up before the sun. I used to have a view of the eastern horizon and some of the sunrises used to be so glorious.

I no longer have a horizon view, so I don’t get to see the sun make its first appearance. However, I still get to watch the sky slowly light up, and because there are almost always clouds here sometimes those clouds glow orange and pink from the rays I cannot see, and the promise of a new day is still there.

It’s just that the new day here is heralded by that damn rooster and the meowing demands of Silas to be let back in for breakfast.

I have no idea what the day holds for me, but I love the promise of it despite knowing I’ve got a busy day of doing nothing for seven hours. Let’s hope something promising actually happens.

Have a great day y’all.

I saw this

and it really made me think. How often do I miss these?

I’ve been spending a lot of my time doing chores and checking off to-do list items. I’ve been constantly in pain and I find myself starting to get a bit down. However, there are so many little things that can bring joy if I can be open to experiencing them.

For instance, this morning when I went into the bathroom I saw that Tennessee had put up the new shower curtain she bought. Y’all it is so cute and it gave me the warm fuzzies. Not just because it was cute but because she did it for both of us to make this house more ours.

Or grinding coffee beans. I’ve been drinking coffee made from already ground coffee because I accidently ordered that instead of whole beans. But this morning I was out of the pre-ground stuff and I opened the new package of beans and the sound of the grinder and the smell of the fresh ground coffee…heaven.

It really is the little things. I hope your day is full of glimmers.

Be well my friends.

I can’t believe it’s been 22 years. I had completely forgotten that today was 9/11. How is that possible?

I’m wondering if somewhere in my brain or body I did know because I did not sleep at all last night. When I realized what day it was I felt overwhelming sadness for a time. Of course, being tired often leads to me being weepy.

I, like everybody else who was old enough, remember exactly what I was doing that morning 22 years ago. I was working for the Department of Defense then, and we were all sent home when the Pentagon got hit and we stayed home for three days. I still feel that trauma sometimes.  

My lack of sleep could also be that I physically overdid it yesterday. I got quite a few things done including a visit to Dollar Tree, where very few things are still a dollar. I got a bunch of things that were mostly practical, but I had fun despite how hard it has become to walk or even stand for very long. I’m really struggling with that right now.

I also got some writing done yesterday.  During my Sunday afternoon writing group sprints I used most of the time to actually start my subplot outline. I’ve been putting it off for so long that it felt daunting but since I promised my accountability partner that I would work on it this month I had to start and so I just dove in.

I wanted to get it all done but that didn’t quite happen. However, I did get some ideas about how to integrate certain scenes. That is a big win.

I also got a few letters and a birthday card written and put in the mail, so a lot of writing was done. I am really proud of myself for getting that done. It felt really good.

This then brings me back to why I had such a terrible night. I know I sit way too much. I work for 8 hours a day and then I sit down to write for a couple more. On the weekends I’m not working but I still read and write for hours. This difficulty moving kind of crept up on me over time while I was doing all this sitting and wasn’t paying attention.

I can’t ignore it anymore.

I know I need to move more, but it hurts to move now so I’m stuck in a vicious cycle…it hurts if I don’t move, and it hurts when I do. Added to the problem is that the humidity here makes my joints ache like I never experienced back in Colorado, and it gets worse when we are expecting rain.

When did I become one of those old codgers that can predict rain because my knee aches?

I’ve been taking over-the-counter pain meds, I’ve started doing some extensive stretching, and I get a massage every month, but I think I may need more help. Now that I have new health care coverage I’m going to try and make an appt with a medical practice Tennessee recommended.

Also, I have an accountability partner for my writing, maybe I need one for my moving. I’d ask Tennessee but that is just asking for stress and strife and no relationship needs that.  We only have a couple of weeks left until the Pink and Brandi concert and there will be lots of walking required then, so I need to try and be as ready for that as I can.

Wish me luck.

Quote

“You can’t be a success if you make halfhearted efforts. You need to follow through on your chosen path to the very end.” – Daisaku Ikeda

Food

https://www.blueapron.com/

We signed up for Blue Apron to get two meals per week sent to us. This was our first one: gnocchi with spinach and artichoke in a cream sauce with prosciutto and parmesan. It was easy to make, basically, just dump all the ingredients into the provided pan, cover it with foil, and bake. Clean-up was a breeze. It was one of the ‘ready to cook’ recipes. Tonight will be a salmon recipe but it will require a few more steps

The box arrived Friday morning, which works perfectly because the only nights we get to spend eating meals together are on the weekends. If we end up going out with friends on the weekend, I can always make one of the meals for my dinner after work and Tennessee can have it for her dinner when she’s done working.

It’s not cheap, and I know we’re lucky that we can afford to do this, but it is less expensive than eating out and there’s no food waste. You don’t have to buy a whole bag of spinach and then throw out the spoiled unused remains weeks later like you do when buying groceries for trying out new recipes because you get only the amount of ingredients you need for each specific recipe.

It also helps with the hardest parts of cooking which are deciding what to make and then planning how to get everything together to make it.  You only have a handful of options available for each week so you don’t get paralyzed with too many options, but the options change each week so you won’t get bored and you get a chance to try foods you might not normally try.

Books

Weyward by Emilia Hart

I finally got this back on my library shelf and was able to listen to the final hour of the audiobook. I love that if you don’t finish a library book, the Libby app opens right back up to where you left off when you check it back out again. I thought I’d have to go back quite a bit to remind myself of where I was in the book, but I only had to start at the beginning of the chapter where I left off and I was easily right back into the lives of the amazing characters in this book. Highly recommend this book!

Agents of the Crown series by Lindsay Buroker

I’m finally on book five of the series and about halfway through this final book. I still don’t know if the main romantic characters are going to get together or not, though I have a feeling I know how the author is going to make it happen. We’ll see if I’m right. Superb high fantasy.

Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

Also, started listening to the September selection for my SLC book club. I’m only in the second chapter, but the meet-cute of the lesbian and bisexual main characters was pretty good.  I have several friends who’ve read it and recommended it so I’m looking forward to finishing it.

US Open

Coco Gauff is the real deal and she won her first major tournament yesterday with grace and poise not normally found in a 19-year-old and definitely not found in her 25-year-old opponent whose little ‘medical’ stunt in the third set did not work to throw off Coco’s exceptional play. Fortunately, Coco was too focused to fall for that, having had plenty of practice from dealing with earlier opponents.

Coco received the championship trophy from Billie Jean King, who helped pave the way for Coco and all other women’s tennis champions to get the same amount of prize money as the men, which in this case was $3 Million. That is no small thing, and neither is her new world ranking which is 3^rd. Way to go Coco!

Vols

Got to wear my new Vols cap today. We missed part of the first half of the game because we were watching tennis and the Vols were slated to win by like 65 points. We didn’t figure we were going to miss a very good game. But the Vols did not in fact win by 65…only by 17. It was a much better game than the talking heads predicted.

Hat’s off to Austin Peay for keeping the score close and giving the Vols a much tougher game than they thought they’d get. It’s not only a real boost for the Austin Peay team but it’s also a good life lesson for the Vols, I think. Never overlook an opponent and don’t get cocky. The Vols are ranked at number 9 and deservedly so, but a shot of humility is not a bad thing and will help them in the long run. Go Vols!

Tarot

I’ve decided to not do a reading today because frankly, I don’t want to know what the universe has in store for me this week. I’m just going to wing it. To be honest, even when I do a reading I almost always have forgotten it by the time I get up on Monday morning. Tarot cards are fun and when I’m truly struggling with a decision, they do help me sort through my subconscious better than just journaling does, but they don’t hold the same power for me that they do for others.

Pen Pals

I need to make sure I have the mailing addresses for all my closest friends, not only so I can make sure to send them Christmas cards, but so I can send them notes and letters throughout the year. I do love to write, and I know how wonderful it is to get handwritten cards and letters in the mail, so I want to make sure I do this regularly. I think it’ll be good for me, and it’ll hopefully maintain strong friendships.

Parting Words

My wish is that the week ahead holds love, laughter, and light for each of you.

Be well, my friends.