Everyone’s experienced the earworm: when a song or melody is stuck in your head and endlessly repeating no matter what you do to shake it out. They’re annoying, but usually disappear once you stop focusing on the fact that you’ve had three bars of the Thong Song echoing in your head for close to 9 hours.

I am experiencing an earworm, but in my nose. Last night before bed, I smelled cigarette smoke. This isn’t unusual; our neighbours smoke and there are benches outside our bedroom window where people like to gather and argue/fight/laugh/sing/smoke/break up at all hours of the day. However, the smoke smell didn’t go away. It was inside my nose, and everything smelled like smoke. I really hate the smell of cigarettes, so I was equal parts annoyed and grossed out that everything reeked. It kept me awake, and when I did eventually drift off, the smell would irritate my nose again and I’d wake up. I figure I got maybe two hours of broken sleep throughout the entire night, and my nose and throat feel raw. When I got out of bed to start my day, I could still smell it – so I asked Ed, who smelled nothing and confirmed there was fresh air coming in from the window. The smell is all in my head (nose), which fucking sucks. It stinks. I’ve tried everything to get the cigarette smell out of my nose, including blowing my nose, using peppermint oil, lighting a scented candle, and burying my face in a cat. Nothing has helped. Everything stinks.

In other news, I am devastated by the results of the US election and fear for the future. All of last week was brutal, from the pre-election anxiety to the awful results rolling in and the terrible aftermath that followed (and is still happening). I wallowed in tears for days, before resolving that I was done with fear: it’s time to fight. I donated to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Centre for Reproductive Rights, and will do so again once I start getting paid. I wear a safety pin, regardless of how useless some vocal hetero cis white men think it is. I haven’t encountered any open hate because I don’t really leave the house – but when I do, I am paying attention. I don’t really care what is said or done to me, but I will gladly step in and fight for others – I am short, but I have a fierce glare and ample vocabulary and I am not afraid to use either.

It is also extremely disheartening to realize that you yourself are a target: I am a non-white, queer-leaning, overweight, unattractive woman of advanced age. In Gilead, I’d be sent to the Colonies. I feel guilty for my unwoman status and associated worry though, because others have it so much worse. I don’t know what to do with either the guilt or the fear, so I’ll just fight. Fighting is good.

My new job is going well. I’m having a lot of anxiety because I don’t know everything yet, and the fact that it’s been less than two weeks is not an acceptable excuse for my ignorance. I’m learning as fast as I can, but I’m terrified that I might be disappointing people. The additional anxiety is not doing me any favours, that’s for sure.

In “look, we’re grownups” news, Ed and I had three of the closets in our condo redone. We now have an actual coat closet with ample shoe storage, an entire storage system in the walk-in closet in my office, and bedroom closets that don’t make me want to kill people. The work was done crazy fast and was all built to spec, and we’re very happy with the home improvementing. It feels a little silly to be so very excited about well-organized closets, but goddamn they were terrible. And now they’re not! We keep opening the doors and marvelling at the non-chaos within. Things are on SHELVES. You can actually walk into the walk-in closet. Frankly, it’s amazing. Everyone should come over and hang out in my closets with me.

We’re off to Seattle this weekend to see friends and have some fun. I am looking forward to this, because November has been so rough. I would like some Good Times.

.. dumps like a truck, truck, truck
thighs like what, what, what
all night long
let me see that thong