One of the reasons me and the mister get along is that we have a similarly weird sense of humor and make each other laugh.

Me, seeing Rick coming out of the garage with a level, crossing arms over chest- We’ve HAD this conversation already. I HATE that you keep checking to make sure they are still level!

A little later on, Rick stomps in from doing the laundry, frowning at me horribly.

Rick, reaching out to hand me my credit card and driver’s license that are shiny clean from yet another trip through the wash- I keep telling you NOT to make me a part of your criminal activities!

Annnnd back to puttering around the house we go, without even a ba-dum tizz…

OK.. I normally couldn’t give a crap about tennis.. but. But.

I was skimming this article when THIS caught my attention-

Julia Elbaba, a sports journalist and former WTA player, said she was disappointed in Osaka’s withdrawal but not surprised. She said if Osaka was struggling with her mental health, she shouldn’t have played in the tournament at all so that another tennis player could have competed.
Being a professional tennis player is “a lonely, cruel journey,” she told VICE World News.
“There is no question they have some social anxiety,” said Elbaba, who competed against Osaka and her sister Mari in local New York tournaments when they were 10 to 12 years old.

YOU. YOU are part of the problem. How fuckin DARE you judge someone like you’re an authority on them personally because you played against them when they were a child? And for what? A quote, a soundbite? Was it worth it?

OK, taking a breath here… look, folks and particularly ladies. Each and every one of us has the ability to lift someone up or slam them down. And we make that decision every single damn day. This world is hard enough for all of us that we don’t need to be putting folk down.

Most of us have nothing but contempt for those that choose to kick someone when they are down. I wonder what the world would look like if we refused to engage with the people we see behaving this way?

I bet it would be a lot quieter. And we might, MIGHT learn something about how our words impact others.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kvxkg/naomi-osaka-depression-french-open?utm_source=vicenewsfacebook

If my universe has a center that isn’t Mr. Wellman, it’d be this little loafy potato dog. Unfamiliar with corgis? Here you go, I’m pretty sure this is the official definition from Mr. Webster himself.

My particular corgi, Duchess Sabrina Waffleton (she deigns to let us call her Bree, corgin, pupnstuff, Breezer, corgbutt, and pupperdoo) has had a rather rough time lately. She is not a big fan of change, you see, and over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of change at Casa de Wellman.

The bedroom had to be completely cleared out for the new bed… and to me, totally worth it. The comforter is hiding the six drawers on each side for storage. And just because it IS so tall, we put the small couch at the end so pups can get up and down, and so Rick has a comfy place to put his shoes on each morning.

Clearing out the bedroom also means that all of my throw pillows got unearthed.. and most of them went to my office couch. Bree does not think highly of this; she has decided it is her mission in life to disarray my pillows and build herself a corgly pillow fort at least twice each day.

It’s hard to be a Bree.

Me, as Rick passes me my package- Ooooh I have been waiting for this!

Rick- Yeah? What is it?

Me, knowing I’ve mentioned WHAT it is a couple of times- Guess.

Rick- Uh… you’ve decided to learn sign language?

Me, turning box over in my hands and looking at it objectively- You know, that’s a fair guess.

One of my areas in which I need to give myself a break is wanting everything just so. I like my gear to look like new, my hair to fall the right way, and ohhh how I have missed my occasional manicure. Even if the places I go didn’t have like cool Star Wars designs and really no black polish at all… it was nice to have them shaped and polished up.

But since I can’t paint my own nails worth a darn, I gave it up cause covid. Because I want them to look just so, you see. And an experiment with Rick painting them proved that while my honeybear has many talents, nail art ain’t among ’em.

Then a friend told me about this poppy thing, and I decided to give it a try.. hence the above box that I definitely mentioned to Rick. Sometimes listening and remembering isn’t among his talents either. And yeah, it took me three tries to figure out that sometimes perfect isn’t important. What’s important is how good I feel about my starscape nails, how good it feels to be back in black, and just indulging in some self care.

And if you’re wondering what Rick’s strong suits are… among the many, he makes me laugh, he feeds my imagination, he makes me feel safe, he gets me retro SNES controllers for my Switch, and yes, he does listen.

Last night, we were in our high altitude bed with the TV on the floor with (what else?) Star Wars on. I told him it was like being at the very tip top of a theater with stadium seating looking down at the screen way way below.

Today, he wall mounted our bedroom TV. And screwed down the last countertop in the kitchen. And you know, he’s why I have a bed again.

We were sitting on the couch, watching Kim’s Convenience and minding our own business when Rick hands me his phone with a blank email pulled up.

Me- What?

Rick- You need to write a thank you to Brandi for getting our parts shipped and you’d do it better than me.

Me, with a sigh- OK, but I need a decent sized keyboard.

Rick- Fine, use my computer.

Down the hall, to the office, sitting down at his computer, and I get a goathead in the tender spot right between my foot and my pinkie toe.

Me- /various noises indicating pain

Rick, with a sigh, crossing the room and holding his hand out for the extracted goathead so he can throw it away. HUGE shock as I pass it to him that lit up the dark and hurt us both- OW! What the hell?????

Me, grumbling and turning back to the computer- and I got hit TWICE, what the hell is that about?

I write up the email, still muttering.

Me- I’d ask you to get me a pepcid, but we’d probably get set on fire!

Rick, sighing some more, exits, I think to let me write in peace. He comes back a minute later, with the pepcid.

Me- oh! OK, great, but…. could you just drop it into my hand?

We probably shouldn’t have laughed about it for as long as we did, but it’s kind of been a long day.

No, that’s not the mistake, in case you were wondering, that’s just a change of attitude and altitude.

Our old bed had a set of pup stairs to help the kids get in and out of bed when they were babies. They still use them, though, so we never moved them. When we put them into place, we saw that it was about a foot from the tippy top step to the bed. Rick and I looked at each other with concern, and figured, well, we’ll see what happens.

No, that’s not the mistake either, quit getting ahead of me here.

Understand, the pups LOVE time laying in bed with mom and dad… like a lot. You want to see three previously catatonic tufts of couch potato fur take flight in this house? Say, “It’s bedtime!” and they all sprout wings.

So when I climbed into bed to test it out, our girls, with minimal trepidation, hopped up and checked it out.

And when I got up to go back into my office, they got up to go with me.

Zoe, the aussie shepherd, has seriously long legs. She was fine going back down the stairs.

Jaina, our morkie, also has fairly long legs, and negotiated the stairs with no trouble.

But Bree…

Bree is a corgi, which means she has no legs. She’s a roly poly sausage with stumps that have footies on the end.

Bree was not okay, and now we’re arriving at the mistake.

Once we’d assured ourselves that Bree was fine after her faceplant moment, I laughed.

Now, as you can see, we have addressed the issue, and I’m glad to say Bree is able to get into and out of bed without any problems.

But I’m still getting some wicked side eye, and I know I’m going to pay for laughing at the corg.

I made a huge mistake.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to tell stories. I can very clearly recall long afternoons in my grandfather’s rocker, pretending we were riding giraffes on Mars. I don’t know why it had to be Mars or giraffes- what I do remember is that my grandfather told me that was just fine and joined in my wild imaginationland.

When I stop and think about it, the people I’ve enjoyed the most are the ones that play along. Rick might be my favorite cause not only will he play along, he’ll add to it.

Coming up on an anniversary of one of those deeply affecting events, I started doing that thing you do during such times when you get older. It’s much more fun when you do it as a kid, cause it usually means your My Little Pony or video game collection- what you have, what you want to get next, how you’ll managed to wheedle it out of a parent.

Cause when you’re older, sometimes taking stock feels like telling your yesterself you weren’t good enough.

Advice- try not to do that. Even if it’s true, beating up yesterself is an exercise in futility.

This minute, I’m within just a few years of the age my grandfather was when we rode the mystical longnecked beasts of Mars. That was a gaspy thought… because within a few years of those long ago golden afternoons, my grandfather was gone.

But then, I gave that thought another look and realized something.. well, magicalish? All these years later, through all the very strange twists and turns life has taken, I’m still telling stories from my wild imaginationland. Even better, these days I get to share them with folk and sometimes I even get paid!

That part is SUPER magical, no mistake about it.

Fairy tales and girls who don’t know who they are.. and women who find out there’s more to learn… fairy godmother drag queens..

… and yes, self help on how NOT to be an asshole. Yes, that’s my Gandhi moment- I’m attempting to BE the change I want to see in the world. We’ll see how it works out.

It’s a weird time to be alive, yall. Be hopeful, be thoughtful, be imaginative, be kind.

Most of all, be you.

Y’all, I’m not going to lie, I’m in a state of shock. I just got the first reporting in on how the prerelease sales have gone, and… well, I’ve never had a more successful launch. Not even with the book after the one in which there was a nasty, nasty cliffhanger.

I guess this proves-

1. Folk want to read about assholes.
2. Folk want to make sure they aren’t assholes.
3. Folk think they are assholes and want to change.
4. Folk want other people to know they think they are assholes in an understated way.
5. Assholes buy books?

Either way, I’m shocked, thrilled, and flabbergasted all in turns… and since I use word of mouth to publicize, I know I have all of you to thank. So thank you for your continued support, I cannot tell you how much it means to me.

Preorders ARE still live, and the release is Friday the 21st!

And I am Jack’s complete state of shock.

Not going to lie… got a sad/happy/shappy thing going on right about now. Yes, it’s a goofy concept for a self help book. No, it’s not a joke. I wrote down the stuff that I have done, keep doing, and will continue to do to try and be a better person. But I’m also the kind of girl that calls something what it is, and I’m trying very hard not to be an asshole. I hope folks who also want to be better people give it a try, and hopefully get a laugh or two along the way.

I didn’t do anything unique or crazy- just a common sense approach to a problem not many folk are willing to admit to having.

And it entertained me to put it in super faaaaaaancy curly font for some reason. I dunno, sometimes I don’t look too deeply into my motives.

At $3 for Kindle, $4 for paperback, if you think you’d enjoy it, I hope you’ll buy it. Give it as a tongue in cheek gift to someone that’ll think it’s funny.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to reach out to Gilbert Gottfried on Cameo and see if he’s willing to do the audiobook version. It’s like I wrote it for him.

The Art of Not Being An Asshole- A Straightforward Guide from a Reforming Asshole

Foreword-

Hopefully you read this before spending your hard earned cash on this book so you know what it will and won’t do.

If you are perfectly happy with who you are and see no reason to change anything at all about how you approach people or how you view the world, this book is not for you.

If this book was given to you as a gift or not so subtle suggestion, but you still don’t see a reason to be open to change, I recommend returning it or using it as a doorstop.

If you think back on situations and you feel like you could have handled them better…

If you feel like people keep telling you that you need to be a better listener…

If you feel like people keep telling you you’re insensitive…

If you feel like people keep telling you you’ve missed the point in a conflict situation…

If you feel like you can’t win…

If you don’t like yourself…

If you feel like you should be more invested in situations around you but just can’t…

If people tell you you’re an asshole…

If you aren’t offended by coarse language and are open to the idea of changing some behaviors about yourself you don’t like…

… yeah, you might want to keep reading.

I think I probably ought to start with why I feel qualified to offer advice here. After all, I’m not any kind of -ologist or -iatrist, and no -ologists or -iatrists were consulted as I underwent my journey to being someone I actually like. And I’m not perfect.. I have days where I fall into my old thinking patterns and have to snap back out of them. In some ways, I’m writing this as much to keep myself on track and accountable as I am to try to help others for whom iastrists and ologists just aren’t helpful or viable for whatever reason.

I was raised by two lovely individuals with narcissistic tendencies, who taught me all the important lessons about how to comport myself and be successful in life.

Yeah, that’s definitely sarcasm, in case you needed the note. What I learned was that no one was going to care about what I wanted or needed but me, so I’d best be on the lookout for number one. When you think about it from a certain point of view, that’s one of the key roots of assholism. You, for whatever reason, elevate yourself to the point that you are the center of your personal universe at all times no matter what. Side effects include the deep seated fear of being wrong, inability to connect with others in a meaningful way, and ongoing rotating groups of friends as people get to know you and then decide they don’t actually want to know you. (Don’t worry about that last one, sometimes it’s a side effect of rejecting toxicity on your own, we’ll talk about that later on.)

So how is it that I broke out of that mindset and made myself aware that there are others in the world that I don’t automatically outrank?

I almost died. Yeah, super dramatic, right? But it wasn’t a near miss car crash. My plane didn’t start falling out of the sky for a couple hundred feet. I didn’t almost get run over by a bus. It wasn’t one of those split second affairs that let me have the oh my god I could have died adrenaline rush and then go back to my life after a fantastic steak dinner and better sex like normal people get to do.

When I say I almost died, that means I laid in bed for two weeks, waiting for my body to decide if my own personal favorite and long running series was going to be renewed for another season or not. That kind of time gives you plenty of opportunity to think about how you got there. It really gives you plenty of time to think when you’re laying there by yourself, maybe because you’ve surrounded yourself with people just fucking like you. Because, as it turns out, they are the only ones that can fucking stand you and find all your not so charming behaviors to be normal.

You start to think about why that situation exists, and if that’s how you want to live the rest of your life. That is honestly how wrong things had to go for me to decide the person I was I wasn’t okay with anymore. I hope if you’re reading this and you identify with anything in that if section, that you’re smarter than I am and you don’t have to be in a place like that to make you want to roll up your sleeves and get started.

Here’s what is not going to happen in the pages of this book- I will not tell you all the answers lie outside of yourself. That means we won’t be acknowledging a higher power, destiny, The Gift, Celestine Prophecies, or any kinda voodoo wuwu stuff. No Wish It, Want It, Do It stuff happening here. (I’m going to say if you’ve come this far and want to keep going, you’re too damn smart for any of that junk to work anyway.) I’m also not going to use a bunch of big words and promise you if you just follow all these steps in order that you’re going to be all better forever. You’re going to do better if you want to do better. And you may find steps that work for you that I’ve never even thought of- and that’s fucking awesome. You do you. 

I’m not going to pretend this is easy.

I’m also not going to try to convince you that you shouldn’t be an asshole. That’s your decision, full stop.

Here’s what will happen. I am going to talk about what worked for me to better understand who I was versus who I wanted to be and how I got there. I’m going to lay it out step by step in plain, kitchen English and if I can make you laugh along the way, so much the better. I’m going to talk to you like I’d talk to a friend, cause if you’re on this journey, you could use a friend and I’m there for you.

So, whenever you’re ready, let’s fuckin do this.