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As something of a hedonist, I struggle with mindfulness because surely if I just eat the right apple fritter, drink the right spiked frozen apple cider, watch my favorite television shows and buy the right pair of boots, I’ll be living my best life.  Mindfulness is something I also feel a certain amount of stubbornness towards because I had a Buddhist boyfriend once and it felt like then it would be a short hop onto complete detachment and not caring about all of the shallow things that make me happy and I’m not about the life.  (Calm down, Buddhists.  I know that it’s an incredibly long and difficult thing to obtain because I have been lectured on it excessively.)

So I tend towards extremes sometimes because that too is a bit of my hedonistic tendencies.  Either it’s a scene from Pippin when he goes nuts in the countryside indulging in every whim ever or we are reenacting a significantly less fun version of Salem and there are no red stockings or beer for you, Goodwife Deborah.   My intentions are sincere, but it’s hard to maintain either extreme.  Generally what happens is I decide that I don’t really need to drink booze, vegetables are fine for breakfast and chicken is great for everything always.  Then I get bored.  Then it’s a super fun weekend binge of eating and drinking all the delicious things, having a fantastic time going out with friends and gossiping and geeking out and going shopping and lying in bed for forever and reading the books I want to read and watching all the things and putting my house back together from the week before and feeling all satisfied and happy with life.  Then Monday morning it’s like the worst reality hang over ever where I know I will need to do tasks I don’t want to do and deal with workplace shenanigans so Monday morning I’m essentially trying to lodge my fingernails in the doorframe so I don’t have to do it.

I had developed a serious unrelenting hatred for a particular young salesgirl.  You have to understand, my experience with her ilk that would visit our office was with her rival company.  Those young women were well dressed like fancy stewardesses, clicking into the office with treats, dressed in conservative corporate gear, perfect lipstick.  They were like deadly viper assassins of the sales world – they would come in, ask for someone, remind me that they can give cpe, hand over their classy treats, smile and leave promptly.  I love them unapologetically.

But this new breed from the other company was . . .just the worst.  Crummy cheap treats (bad), lingering (worse) and overly familiar (death knell).  I couldn’t stand the way she would dress, all hipster casual cute like this would endear her to other tired older admins like myself.  I had a plastic mug from her rivals that was a pretty blue on my desk and I used it for candy related trash so I would not find mystery wrappers strewn all over my desk because some of our clients are goddamn savages.  She immediately assumed this swore my allegiance to her rivals instead of it being a nice colored mug in the cabinet I found, making me dislike her even more intently.  I moved from dislike to outright hatred when she came with some of her brethren at ten to five and proceeded to linger.  Bitch ain’t nobody want to talk to you!  Also, why you got a posse?  Is this suddenly a dangerous neighborhood and no one else but you got the memo?

Usually, when there's a shitstorm on the internet, I tend to hit ignore to be completely honest.  I don't want to weigh in.  I don't want to have a conversation.  I don't want to get involved.  It's only when my Muse nags me half to death to say something that I finally do, fully knowing it's going to force me into pointless conversations that just irritate everyone.  It's why I'd rather talk about pop culture.  No one is going to get too involved or too annoyed but it's generally amusing and interesting.

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Queen Catherine of Aragon was sent into exile because she had the nerve to be aging and menopausal.  A popular legend in that particular histo-mythic cycle is that Henry sent her away (sometimes, with Cromwell to do his dirty work for him because that was the kind of stand up guy he’s remembered as) without saying good bye.  She was once married to his older brother Arthur in a castle in the wild but Arthur got sweating sickness and died.  They were only married to each other for a short time.  She then had her first encounter with exile where she lived somewhat modestly (again, accounts vary depending on the histo-mythic teller) and supposedly bargained for fish and sold her plate while her dad and her ex father in law dawdled over what to do with her.  Her father was a war monger with a bunch of kids, he had no problem waiting.  Her ex father in law held his country in a tight fist, he had been exiled so many times by his mother (Lady Margaret Beaufort) that he too could wait.  Neither appeared to find this particularly cruel, and neither did a seasoned politico warrior like Lady M.  Like . . .I get stressed out not knowing what’s going to happen in a day while still being aware of certain potential outcomes.  I don’t know how stressful it is to not know what country you’re going to live in and/or who you’ll be married to.  Queen Cat’s ex father in law drops dead and she is married off to Henry for almost twenty years when she receives the message, u had too many ded babies, lulz.  super soz.  going 2 marry anne bc babies + she is way hot.  she will only put out if i put a ring on it. thx for nearly twenty years of marriage!  Best of luck or whatever.  Or, you know, no message past whatever Cromwell tried to piece together.  Whatever the medieval royal equivalent of dipping out of a pack of cigs was.

She died in exile a little into Queen Anne’s reign, with only a few of her ladies and servants.  Sometimes the wheel (of fortune) is in your favor, sometimes it’s not.  It was for a long time for Queen Cat, but then she never planned for Queen Anne. Partly because I don’t think anyone, even someone who had headed a battle with Scotland like Queen Cat did, could have planned for Queen Anne.

Hands down, grief is generally my least favorite emotion.  It’s so big and inescapable and words never express it correctly.  What I didn’t know prior to two weeks ago is that it also protects you.  It’s an anesthetic veil wrapped around your eyes  (and your mouth and ears too for good measure) that prevents you from being bothered by anything that is anything less than urgent matters.  Your grief, your pain is so overwhelming that you are required to be cared for by others because you cannot care for yourself.  You need to be fed, you need to be focused, you need to be loved, you need to be hugged–

You need to be treated like an actual human being.

So, in Sicily, my brain was completely clogged with salami, seafood, veal, cheese, pasta, blood orange mimosas, arancini, cannoli and wine.  We were surrounded by the gorgeous sea and because there's a volcano there that still erupts periodically, the whole island is positively fecund with wild olive trees, wild pomegranate trees, poppies, wild oleander, jasmine, almond trees, chamomile, orange trees, lemons.  Like, by the side of the highways, randomly growing in archeology sites.  Palermo is like an explosion of Etsy fever dreams - herb gardens and succulents on every balcony and coverable piece of sidewalk.

So you can imagine that despite the fact that I am absolutely shamefully horrible with any language that's not English, I desperately wanted to stay.  I mean, 65% of women in SIcily are unemployed, but dude that is right on track to have the life that Ali Wong always dreams about, that I want too! ("I DON'T WANT TO LEAN IN!  I WANT TO LIE DOWN!)  But blahblahblah you have a husband or something and a "career" and a stupid business and another book to write and the crushing oppression of your life back in Gilead/America to deal with.  Because yes, in SIcily you can get a literal bunch of asparagus or a beautifully laminated Saint prayer card from a vending machine for a Euro, but the fact remains that they would be having none of my proud freak shenanigans there which would eventually get old.  Eventually.