The Wizarding Game (and World)

 I have 100% been a hypocrite about HP.

Even when Jo began Tweeting her insane TERF logic, I kept wearing HP jewelry that I own. I kept watching the movies when they came on TV. I kept thinking about buying a video game (thankfully I'm lazy and bad at buying video games so that never happened). I pretended Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts series never happened to put my head in the sand.

We are so far beyond that now.

Jo has begun suing / threatening to sue people who Tweet about how her beliefs align with Nazis. She is using her money (money that I contributed to) to bring lawsuits against people who call her out on her beyond unbelievable and offensive thoughts. To the point where people have to delete the Tweets and formally apologize to her saying that nothing they said was true.

I had been ignoring it pretty successfully until the Wizarding game came out. Watching the near constant online discourse about the politics of buying the game has been watching people twist themselves in mental knots worthy of the Olympics. People are saying they buy the game but also donate to charities!

Jo has directly said that people continuing to buy and support HP are proof that people agree with her. They agree with her destructive TERF logic. They buoy her into thinking that she is somehow right.

I was literally in my high school yearbook as a HP fanatic. I didn't start reading until after GoF came out, but once I did, I went to every midnight release. I would stay up all night to read them because I couldn't stand the idea of having anything spoiled. I went to all the midnight releases of the movies. My friends and I were literally first in line for some of them (this was a million years ago before you could reserve specific seats online. I had so much merch. I had notebooks and board games and stickers and Funko pops and bags and mugs and bracelets and necklaces and snow globes and shirts and posters and DVDs and books and books on tape.

I can't ignore it anymore. It doesn't matter how much the books mattered to me and how it made me feel that good actually can win against evil even in the face of incredible odds. 

The time of HP is over for me, and I hope for a lot of other people.

Where Does The Time Go?

I haven't blogged since way before the pandemic started. July 2019 seems like several decades ago. Last month seems like decades ago.

Summary of what happened: went work from home, our European vacation got cancelled, spent a ton of time in the backyard to try not to lose my mind, did so much pandemic related cleaning (did you know you need to clean the dishwasher trap??), did pandemic projects (replaced the showerhead, painted all the baseboards), moved my "office" three times, finally got vaxxed, went on a nice ladies weekend, got COVID from the masseuse, had no symptoms but anger, probably lost my mind, didn't see family for years, finally went on a few trips, and am sort of getting back into the swing of real life all the time.

My grandmother died over the summer, and I am glad that we got to do some in-person visits.

Time seems to be moving so slowly yet so quickly. We all lost so much time (at least those of us who followed the CDC guidelines and were isolating which I'm still sort of mad about). There isn't any way for us to get time back - time that we should have had with loved ones, time that we should have had with ourselves, and time that we all needed to be part of the world with each other.

I don't want to dwell on everything COVID-related because I'm honestly exhausted.

I want to think about what I should do with the time we have now, the future, and everything else.

10th Anniversary

It's been 10 years since my father died. It's seems like forever. I guess it should, since that means he has been gone for a third of my life. I was only 23 when he died.

July 19 was a Sunday in 2009. I remember that I didn't know what to do, so I went into the work the next day. A coworker was about to transfer a difficult client to me, and I ranted for a bit on the phone. That was out of character for me, so he asked what was wrong. When I told him what happened, he didn't transfer the call over and told me to go the hell home (in a nice "why the hell did you come in?!" kind of way). I don't really know the details, but my manager came over, asked me if it was true, and sent me home. I don't really remember a lot else from around then.

The viewing was exhausting. We did two sessions in one day. I think I had a sandwich or something in the middle? I wish I would have made a sign saying "I'm Blair (the oldest). I graduated from Duquesne. I work in Greentree. I live in Shadyside." I spent more time saying that than anything else. My friends and I have an odd tradition - we go bowling after a family member's viewing. It started with someone else's grandparent and kept going. It's slightly morbid, but you have to do something when you are that numb with grief. Drinking and trying to bowl (it isn't just the drinking - I'm a terrible bowler).

The funeral and the burial were separate because he was cremated. I was a pallbearer at the funeral, and I still have the gloves I wore that day in my dresser (I knew they were there, but I found them again yesterday when putting away laundry). I remember that my mother gave the eulogy and basically nothing else. I don't really remember much about the reception lunch after either (except having a drink from a flask of whiskey).

It becomes a new normal in how you have to answer questions. It's so common when meeting people to ask about family members. If I say that my mother lives where I grew up, the immediate follow up is "Oh, where does your father live?" I inevitably answer that he died and then the other person feels awkward. (Side note: people shouldn't feel awkward! They are common questions, and how would someone even know that?). People my age tend to have experience with great grandparents and grandparents dying, but there are few people who can relate to a deceased parent even now.

There are so many things that my father didn't get to see me do. There is no way to avoid the pain during a life event when you have something this big missing. Even the happiest moments have the twinge of sadness when you think about who is missing.

It also makes you think from a younger age about how none of us are guaranteed anything beyond the present minute. I have tried to make sure that I travel and go see shows and volunteer and do whatever I can to make sure I do the most I can with the time I've given. I don't want to look back and have not something I wanted to do when I had the ability and means to do it.

It's been 10 years. It doesn't get better, but it gets less worse.

We're Gonna Teach Them How to Say Goodbye

When you leave a group of friends, what do you say?

If you're a woman, you probably say "text me when you get home!" I've noticed over the past few years that "text me when you get home!" is basically the female goodbye. Consistently.

I've left parties in Cranberry. "Text me when you get home!"

Work happy hours. "Text me when you get home!"

Friends' house in Friendship. "Text me when you get home!"

Wineries in Gibsonia. "Text me when you get home!"


Dinner in Bakery Square with my sister. "Text me when you get home!"

My husband met me on my walk home tonight because it was a nice evening. I asked him what he said when he left a party  because it was on my mind. He was very confused (definitely thought it was a trap of some kind). "Text me when you get home!" was definitely not one of the options.

Women almost always tell other women to let them know when they are home safely. It's something ingrained in all of us. We want to verify the people we care for get home. Why do we all ask that? Did we all take a seminar at some point that advised us to check in with all our friends and family?

Or is it what has happened to all of us?

Have all of us realized that we ended up in creepy Ubers or roofied at bars or followed on the street by screaming men or been followed into bathrooms or driven alone on strange roads or just walked home alone and didn't know what to do or who to contact.

I am definitely in the "text me when you get home" camp. I do it all the time. I have occasionally waited up until I have heard for someone. Based on what has happened to me and what has happened to people I know, I want to hear that other people have gotten home safely.

While on some level it's a nice thing (yay caring about the safety of others!), on another it's awful. Why do women have to ask and make sure that other women get home? Why do we have to worry that the people we know won't make it even going a short distance?

I'm going to continue asking people to text me when they get home (and I literally ask all my friends regardless of gender because I listen to about a million too many true crime podcasts). When people ask me to text them when I get home, it makes me feel like people care about me. If someone tells me that the want me to stop, I will.

 Unfortunately, I don't think that day will be anytime soon.

That Time I Cried at Zenergy

I've been doing ClassPass for a few months now (if anyone is interested in trying it out, this is my referral link: http://class.ps/m0I5q). I did a few classes at Barre Code Shadyside before taking a class at Zenergy Pittsburgh. I had been to cycle classes at LA Fitness (before leaving that gym because one of their trainers is a total dick jagoff which is a story for later), but I hadn't done anything like this before.

I am usually more of a yoga girl (shout out to my regular studio Yoga Love). I decided to go with something a bit more high energy to try to distract myself from some of my work stress.

Zenergy mixes in some of the yoga mindset with a rave-like atmosphere. I have reached the point where I can do the warm up without looking like a total moron. But, as a great theater professor liked to tell us, don't be afraid to make an ass of yourself!

Let's get to the point where I cried yesterday.

I had a super shitty work day yesterday. Like, the kind of day where I almost went to cry in the Olive Garden parking lot. I knew that I had the class after work, so I was looking forward to shutting my brain off and riding.

During a few minutes of just riding in the dark, the instructors like to give some inspirational monologues.

Yesterday Josh's point was that we either came to class because we had a great or a bad day. And that one of the reasons we come to class is that we have another day on this Earth.

It's coming up on the 10 year anniversary of my father's death. I have been thinking about things like having another day on this Earth a lot recently.

So to be in a class after a bad day and hear the instructor talk about how we are all happy to have another day really got to me.

I cried.

It's always an experience to be reminded of the fact that we aren't guaranteed another day or another minute or another second. We choose what we do with each day, and it's never too late to reset how the day is going.

So I for sure cried during a fun workout class. And I will probably do it again.

(PS: I know this post seemed super like an ad, but I just wanted to give people info. None of the links above sponsored anything!)

Almost Time to Travel

I leave for Rome on Friday! It's incredibly surreal.

Movement Class trip to France!

I never thought I would be at a point in my life where I would be doing something like visiting Rome. I didn't even get on a place until college! I don't think I had even left the Eastern Time Zone until then.

I didn't fly until post 9/11. To me, you have always had to have less than 3.4 ounces of liquids in a plastic bag, take off your shoes, and not be able to go with someone to their gate if you aren't flying with them. So...I don't really have good old days of aviation.

Not traveling definitely doesn't seem like it fits with who I am now. I'm constantly traveling and traveling alone a lot of the time. Less than a month after our Rome trip, we are going to NYC to see Baroness play. After that? I might be going to Seattle.

When I'm debating if I should travel or go somewhere or not, I think about my dad. How I'm sure that he thought there would be time to travel or staycation (side note: for some reason, I imagine him hating the word "staycation").

Sometimes there isn't.

Any opportunity to travel, I take it. I've been to Hawaii, San Diego, Seattle, NYC, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Chicago, Virginia, and more. I will continue to travel as often as I can for as long as it is an option.

Because one day, it won't be.

Doing 2018 Resolutions in 2019

Is there anything more accurate about resolutions that totally ignoring them for an entire year?

My post about my 2018 resolutions didn't turn out exactly as planned. By that, I mean I didn't do any of those things.

I finally went to yoga! Even though (as I said in my last post) not doing something for a while makes you want to continue not to do it, I decided tonight was the night to go back to Yoga Love. I thought that candlelight yoga would take it easy on us. I was wrong.

I hadn't gone in a while because I have been having issues with my shoulder hurting. I went in tonight thinking that I would try and see how it went. Caleb said "listen to my body," but if there's one thing I hate it's listening to anything. As of right now, my shoulder feels really good. There was only one thing tonight I couldn't do (that thing where you do lower crunches with your legs in the air - wasn't happening). If it turns out that all I needed to do for my shoulder to feel better was go back to yoga, I'm going to be so pissed.

As soon as we got started, the instructor said "We are going to go into Crow!" And I was like "Fuck. I haven't been to yoga in a year, and we are starting with an arm balance. Ok." Before we got to Crow, we could try Side Crow. I decided to just try it because if I fall, whatever. I could do Side Crow to my right but not as great my life which is exactly how it was the last time I went to yoga.

As we got closer and closer to Crow, I got more and more nervous. As usual, I was being super dramatic about it and was thinking about how if I couldn't get close to Crow I was going to totally embarrass myself. As usual.

So we finally get to Crow. I'm not a huge fan of using the block to put your head on while attempting to get into the pose. I know some people like it because they don't feel like they are going to faceplant, but I feel like the block is going to move and I'm def going to break my nose.

It wasn't a great Crow. My arms were sort of shaking, my feet weren't high up enough off the ground, and I'm pretty sure I was breathing in a not zen way.

But I did.

And isn't that sort of the summary of resolutions? It's about doing things you want to do while also realizing that no one is perfect.

I've already solved one of my 2018 resolutions: my office moved to Greentree, and it's def not a place I can bike to from Shadyside! One down, five to go. I will definitely get to two new cities in 2019 - Team Wackhaus is going to Rome!