In my last post I mentioned that I’m constantly afraid. I thought about elaborating on that, but I think we all know the scary things right now. So at the risk of seeming very tone deaf, I’m going to make a lighter list instead. Because as many things are really fucking dark right now, some things are still funny. 

Like, this is the view I see of my dog almost all day. 

She just splats right there half under the bed, far enough away to get a little distance but close enough that she knows the second I even consider going to the kitchen.

Overhearing Nathan on conference calls is funny. The other day I heard him say “Yeah man, I’m silly as hell.” That’s a very silly thing to overhear with or without context. Later, I swear I heard him say he didn’t know what Kohl’s was, and I spent the next hour before he hung up wondering how it was possible to love a man for 7 years that doesn’t know about this nation’s foremost suburban department store. Turns out he DOES know about Kohl’s, I just misheard. 

I put a teddy bear in my window because I saw on NextDoor that parents are taking their kids on “bear walks.” But my apartment is behind a big tree, so no one can see the bear except for me. But I still get really excited every time a kid walks past, and I turn around so I am also looking out the window. If a kid ever DOES see the bear, they’ll also see me, staring very intensely down at them right next to the bear, which is terrifying but also funny.

Schitt’s Creek is extremely funny. I’m A Little Bit Alexis!

In almost every video meeting, someone always reflexively asks “what are you doing this weekend?” And every time I think “I’m probably just going to have a cozy night in.” It hasn’t gotten old to me yet! In fact, just as I typed this, someone on an executive conference call I’m supposed to be listening to asked if the group had weekend plans. “Just indoor activities, I guess,” someone replied. I guess!

I am still so scared for so many reasons so much of the time. But I do think we’re going to be okay.

This summer would be my 10 year high school reunion. Maybe it still will be, who knows. If you’re reading this, Plano West High School Senior Class President Matt Leudke, inquiring minds want to know.

Everything is really weird right now. I feel lonely and sad and tired but also, mostly I feel okay. Which is kind of how I felt 10 years ago, at 18, so unsure of everything. I’ve been thinking about 18- year-old me a lot during this quarantine. I wonder how she would handle this. 

I was such a firecracker back then. I wanted to run wild and get loud and break the rules, but for the most part I didn’t do any of those things except for the loud part. Teenage Kelly wanted so, so badly to live recklessly even though she was basically always afraid. Adult Kelly is still really loud, and I’m still basically always afraid. 

I still listen to the same terrible whiny pop punk bands, I still curse like a fucking sailor, I still spend hours wandering around my neighborhood thinking about absolutely nothing. It’s crazy how close I still feel to 18, 10 years and so much life lived later. I think maybe that girl would be handling this quarantine the same way I am. But by god she’d be wearing so much eyeliner. An unfathomable amount of eyeliner. 

This blog actually existed then, too. And while adult me has focused more on writing what’s funny, teenage me wrote a lot like this. She was meandering and moody and pointless and introspective in a way that adult me absolutely isn’t. She wrote constantly; I barely write at all anymore. She would have rolled her eyes so hard at that semicolon but I’m a professional writer now, baby Kelly, so suck it.

I used to sign all my blog posts with “pieces.” I can’t remember why I thought it was so funny, but I really thought it was funny. 

Pieces,

Kelly