jamelah.net

Sometimes when I have the thought that I should update this blog, but I don’t have any ideas of what I might update it with, I go back through my drafts to see if there’s anything that might serve as a spark. This morning I read this, which I originally wrote in 2014:

Thunderstorms last night, and today felt like summer, maybe early June (though yes, I realize that early June is technically late spring), with the temperature not quite sweltering (Michigan usually saves that for July) and water hanging in the air. This morning, the sky promised another show, covered in clouds colored gunmetal gray, but the storms never came back. The thing I love about days like that, days with the promise of storms, is that they are full of the most curious light. If you look at the sky all you see is blue steel (not in the Zoolander sense) and where is the sun? Yet there it is, the earth all golden, basking in sunlight that seems to come from nowhere. This light is like the definition of faith -- the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I don’t have much to say about that — seems true still, I do in fact love weird storm light — but I’m sorry I left that languishing in my drafts for 11 years because it was a pretty good paragraph, as far as paragraphs go. I’m not sure where I was planning to go with it, but it seemed nice enough to share.

When I was 15, I first heard about ADHD, and I was absolutely certain that I had it. My mom, I’m pretty sure, thought it was made up, or at least that I was being a hypochondriac, but she did agree to take me to a psychologist for testing. I bombed (or passed, depending on your perspective) one test, but then went through several sessions of IQ testing, and the end result was that my IQ was too high to have ADHD but that I probably had ADHD because I did really bad on the attention part. Maybe he was a bad psychologist, or maybe it was the 90s and if you were a girl and you weren’t disruptive and were also smart and passing your classes then it was considered fine.

Anyway, all of that to say I have basically been just going for it all my life, unaided, but over the past few years I have started feeling a little bit… worse? I have heard it gets worse in perimenopause which according to my hormones I had tested in March I am not experiencing although nobody can explain why I have symptoms because I am either a medical mystery or nobody understands how women’s bodies work. Long story short, I finally decided to talk to my doctor about it and see if maybe being able to focus might be right for me.

Not sure when but I guess I’m going to get ADHD testing, guys. It comes at a great time when maybe RFK will send me to a work camp for taking a stimulant because reasons, so maybe I should not get ADHD testing, guys.

All of that to say I have a lot of drafts here on this blog because I have a tendency of starting something and then walking away from it and then having absolutely no idea what the hell I was going on about. This is why also I am probably never writing a novel.

But maybe I will share nice paragraphs with you from time to time so get ’em here.

It is also why I have gotten into photography and acting, why I can bake bread, grow plants, talk at length about Greek mythology and probably why I was really good at bar trivia when my local brewery hosted bar trivia, because random facts just really love to stick in my head while I absolutely will never be able to find my keys if I do not leave them in 1 of 2 expected places every time I put them down, no excuses. It is why I often forget what I was saying when I am in the middle of a sentence and why I interrupt my husband while he is working to say important things like “did you know there is a groundhog outside right now?” which sounds not as obnoxious as it is (maybe) but is kinda obnoxious.

It is also why I am going to leave you guessing as to why I am leading this post with a photo of raccoons in a swamp, because, as it happens I am also guessing why I am leading this post with a photo of raccoons in a swamp, but it fits because I’m weird.

speaking of my husband

We just celebrated our anniversary so I guess I am not too obnoxious.

He also took a picture of what my face looks like when I am seeing a dog.

At that point we were at a winery trying a tasting flight. Meanwhile there was a party bus full of Black women in cowboy hats and fringe celebrating a bachelorette party and having an amazing time. One of them apparently wanted to take my husband on the party bus but he came back and drank wine with me instead. Whatta guy.

prints for palestine

Don’t forget that if you donate at least $10 to a Palestinian fundraiser (links in previous post if you are looking for one to donate to) and send me a screenshot of your donation receipt I will send you a print. Here’s the form to fill out to request a print.

a poem

Love Poem with Apologies for

My Appearance

Ada Limón

Sometimes, I think you get the worst

of me. The much-loved loose forest-green

sweatpants, the long bra-less days, hair

knotted and uncivilized. a shadowed brow

where the devilish thoughts do their hoofed

dance on the brain. I’d like to say this means

I love you, the stained white cotton T-shirt

the tears, pistachio shells, the mess of orange

peels on my desk but it’s different than that.

I move in this house with you, the way I move

in my mind, unencumbered by beauty’s cage.

I do like I do in the tall grass, more animal-me

than much else. I’m wrong, it is that I love you,

but it’s more that when you say it back, lights

out, a cold wind through curtains, for maybe

the first time in my life, I believe it.