The Couch Left Out On The Corner

You drive past it regularly. There's almost always one if not many on the way to anything. It's the couch left on the corner. 

Sometimes you glance and think "That's a nice couch," but then you realized it just rained a few days prior so it's probably trashed. Sometimes you are like "wow that is an ugly couch," or "that thing is gross!" Regardless, you drive on by.

Now that I'm not physically ill, mentally things start to move around more and yesterday on my way to work I saw the very infamous couch on the corner. On the road I take to work there is this random cul-de-sac with newer built homes and this couch was perfectly perched for disposal at the edge of this semi-circular neighborhood.

I started to think about all the couches that I have known in my just about 35 years on this earth and how many I have left on curbs. I recall about 5 left on curbs. My dad still has the loveseat couch from my childhood in his house now. It is ugly and not even comfy but if it ever comes my way it will be in my living room in a second.

My best friend has gone through a few couches and this summer it was what I noticed first in the living room when we stayed with her because at one time they had this huge sectional that curved around half the room that could fit all five of them and dogs. The new replacement was comfy though and still fit plenty.

On the one hand it's really weird that some couch on the corner drove me down memory lane of couch land. On the other, tis' the season for nostalgia. The holidays are upon us and I think I speak for everyone when I admit that the more holiday seasons we go through the more nostalgia we hold onto. 

So here I drive around, thinking of the couches. My first apartment I got a couch from a friend for free, the legs were knocked off and there were holes in the back where their ferrets would get in and climb and bite you. I bought my first couch cover and it worked. I kept that quite awhile. When I moved in with then boyfriend, now hubby, I had a loveseat from my mom's apartment she got at some thrift store with a very loud couch cover from Big Lots and half of the sectional from his place.

When me moved from Oregon to Florida, we had no couch, no loveseat, no living room furniture. I bought my new hubby his first recliner and we inherited a chair from my mom that was my grandma's. The first couch we got was...hmmm, possibly a pull out couch that my friend got at an auction which was in good condition but insanely heavy.

That one was left on the curb at our old place when we moved into our current home. It was replaced by a faux leather thing my husband insisted on from a neighbor which barely lasted and then we were graciously given the nicest couch and loveseat addition we have ever had in deep chocolate brown and I yell at my family regularly that we will never be so lucky as to get such nice stuff so, don't wreck it!

I never really thought about it until that particular commute but where do the couches go? Are there sanitation workers that take them home? Are they in a pile in a junk yard or trash heap? I could picture some award winning photo of a couch on top of a trash mountain just reminding us we are nasty slobs that sit on our waste in more ways than one. Wait, is this a perfect idea for some revealing expose on couches?

Do rained on moldy couches get broken down? Are they re-purposed? Do they end up in homeless shelters or lobbies of lesser establishments in this world? So many couch questions!

My daughter was recently given a hand me down doll house. My husband is extremely accurate in saying it is much more likely a doll mansion than doll house. Of course it came with many boxes of furniture. In some ways, you can't have a doll house without the furniture right? What's the fun in an empty house?  

The living room is the gathering place. The TV is the viewpoint from said couch, more often than not. And when those couches end up on the corner, it just made me wonder what happens in the grand scheme.

I wondered if the couch left out "to pasture" was replaced, downsized or just used to it's fullest. See, much like Phoebe on Friends, I love for all of our furniture to have stories:

I agree that otherwise everyone has the same stuff instead of things with history, so on my drive I was left to review the history of all of the couches of house Chriss. For some, this is a whole weird alliteration and wandering of my anxious mind. For me, it made sense after being taken down for a week in every way, that coming back I was thrown into a pensive place where a simple couch on a cul-de-sac could spark some nostalgic mental adventure that would warrant a blog post.

I would bet money you'll see a discarded couch on your way to or from home today. I would also bet that you've had this exact same reaction to the couch on the corner, at one time or another. Perhaps it's some greater metaphor or perhaps it's just "having a think" on a morning drive. Maybe I am onto some thing of a great couch story or maybe I'm just clearly getting back to all things Alison. Regardless, may your couch stay comfy and away from the corner, and may it be the thing that perfectly mirrors the placement of your TV, all while having history and nostalgia, all for the sake of friends. 

The CD Case

I had to borrow my husband's beater car or "hoopdee" as I like to call it, when he took my car in for servicing last week. He has an old Lexus he bought off of a friend. It runs, but as my daughter so lovingly claims, "It smells like fart." It's definitely "worn in." The hoopdee happens to have a  6 CD changer and when we have to swap, not only does he clean it, but he'll put in certain CDs that I might like.

He was sneaky and put in some of my obsession ones. He put in mixes I made him way before living together, let alone before marriage, kid and this life we are living now. He put in some of my most favorite bands. How dare he!

When I got to listen to my favorite CDs I remembered just how much I love putting in a disc and listening to it in it's entirety. I forgot how nice it is to replay a song if it hits a mood or to skip one that might take you back to a moment you don't want to re-live. It was a luxury in some strange way.

We live in a bluetooth, hands free, Pandora Music, Spotify, SoundCloud, and iTunes world. It seems some of the simple things in life have gotten lost fast. After the car swap, I grabbed my big ass CD case, and I put in some legit discs on in my car. Most new cars don't even come with CD players anymore. I think that kinda sucks, because at the end of the day, maybe bluetooth won't connect or your phone isn't working, and you just wanna listen to that old favorite CD. What a shame that they are diminishing that technology. Hell, I still listen to a record player weekly!

We have an upcoming road trip and I demanded, only CDs be happening as our soundtrack from state to state. I've been listening to only CDs since my car was serviced and not only did I forget about some great songs or mixes, but I had forgotten how many CDs I actually have, and this is only one case out of many.

The memories that come from these discs are intense, and awesome all at the same time:

I found an old Modest Mouse CD. Most people know this song pictured above. When this song came on I remembered listening to it in my Toyota Echo, my first car, and crying while shoving cookies in my mouth driving home from my first real break-up. I was 18, he was 22 and he attempted to make off with my car, my laptop but successfully made off with a bunch of my cash and definitely some dignity. He wasn't the best dude. I found out he was addicted to pills among having many other issues. It wasn't love but it still hurt. I later found apology letters in my trunk, written to his entire household, roommates and all, and nothing written for me. 

When that came on it morphed me from my normal commute home to being back on the winding Oregon 1-5 roads, wanting to be home in my apartment to pick up the pieces. It was weird how many memories just engulfed me around popping in that disc and listening to that song with the windows down.

This morning I busted out some Ben Folds Five, which is different from Ben Folds by the way.

My Ben Folds obsession started when I spent most of the summer before my senior year with my sister, and my brother in law had his older CDs. Ben Folds went solo and I listened to "Rocking The Suburbs" on bus rides and car rides between Portland and Eugene, or trips back to Florida on repeat. When he came to Portland when I was 17, I made my dad buy me a ticket and drop me off to see him live. I could still remember singing these songs loudly at the concerts and listening to them until I was sick of them. I still make a point of seeing him live whenever he comes to town.

Even in CD case picture here. That one above that says "sports conditioning" is from my days of training to be a Step Instructor at the YMCA. You just never know what you'll find, and the memories that come from it, are the best.

My music has always followed me and I feel grateful to have physical discs, although some are scratched and don't play very well. I love Spotify because you can make mixes but if you want to hear that ONE song on repeat? You're out of luck. My iPod died long ago, which was the next best thing, but now with Pandora and Spotify you're supposed to get the feel that iPods and CDs are obsolete. I disagree.

With my current CD case revisit,  I feel like the new technologies make us miss out in actuality. Some CDs are actually made to be listened to in order. Some artists order them as they wish for specific reasons. While shuffle is a good thing from time to time, some musical masterpieces are put together in the way they are meant to be heard. You cannot listen to The Decemberists "The Hazards of Love" on shuffle or it loses the storytelling. 

I stopped listening to Pandora years ago because I really hated that Pandora decided that when I wanted to listen to Taylor Swift, that meant then I had to listen to Rascall Flats and Florida Georgia Line and whatever. Pandora decided that if I wanted to listen to 80's, that I enjoyed solely 80's hair metal. I also don't like the idea of paying for anything that's essentially just a new kind of radio. Radio is free!

I love the 97X alternative Tampa radio station but they play the same 8 songs every hour and then randomly intersperse other "oldies" within them. I really like Billie Eilish but not 16 times a day, just the same one or two songs. At least with the CD I could skip the popular ones, right?

My recurring issue with Spotify is, they play the same songs in rotation if you listen too much and they only play 30 minutes in a row of music at best. You could listen all day and you can't go more than 30 minutes without an ad. Ads don't bother me so much but every so often when you have a long run or car ride, you don't want to be fiddling with your phone to get uninterrupted minutes. I don't pay for the service because, why not just by the CDs if I want to listen on repeat? 

See, I don't pay for music services because I'd rather spend that money to buy a CD or go to a concert. I don't want to pay Spotify $8 a month to suggest music I should like just because I put some Maroon 5 on a workout list. I want to pay the ARTISTS who make my beloved music as a thank you in more ways than one, so I'd rather just have a disc or go watch them live. Plus physically owning the music is different than renting it from Spotify, regardless.

Going through my CD case has been a memory-filled journey. You realize forgot about "that band," or "that one song," and everything comes back. I have a photographic memory so I used to know the order of my CD case and know if someone took one of my CDs, especially without me asking. I remember being so annoyed if they came back scratched or destroyed. I remember hours combing used CD stores trying to find the bands I needed or wanted because I had to have the entire collected works. 

For me, music is the key to about 90% of my memories. I could remember a moment, or an entire event based around a song and then it opens those floodgates and away we go! Sometimes it brings up painful memories, I can't lie, but some of them are necessary, and still good in my humble opinion.

As much as I love making playlist after playlist, from time to time just popping in that disc and listening to the full album is it's own kind of magic. I have soundtracks and burned mixes and full albums, EPs and so on and so forth.

I plan on getting hubby to dig out the lot and to fully engulf myself in my discs for the rest of the year, why? Well, this year has been healing and filled with all manners of growth but sometimes it helps to rekindle some old parts of yourself in the process. See, music has always been my safe space. I got caught up in Spotify this year, just making playlists about sad stuff or missing old friends, and with my CD cases every musical mood can shift at my will, with a quick disc change. I still use Spotify for my daughter's kiddo playlist and also for my workouts, but overall, I really want to get back into my CDs. 

It's funny to me how it all fell together, when I think about it. It's funny how I just opened that CD case and dove in. I quickly found a comfort I had forgotten. Sometimes when we are in the middle of transforming and growing, we need some roots revisited. For me, that's my CD case. For me, my music gets to the deepest of depths. My music is and will always be part of my process for anything. It will also always be blog-worthy!

The Bridge Moment

The title of this post sounds more ominous than it is. I take a bridge every day to get to work. It is aptly named "The Bayside Bridge." It's not very long, but from it, when I look left I can see the skyline of Tampa, overlooking the wide expanse that is Tampa Bay.

This is how I spend 5 days a week, taking this bridge to and from work. On the good mornings, I stare at that skyline, ever so briefly with the sun just above it and think to myself, "That is so cool. So gorgeous. What a view!"

On rainy or rushed mornings I am unable to partake, but more often than not I take that as my moment of zen. It's a super simple thing really and I may only sneak one glance or do a double-take or two, but they make all the difference.

I think I've explained just how much I hate, and I mean loathe the cold, and how the heat just does not bother me. I am the exact opposite of princess Elsa:

I hear people complain often about the heat, the rain, and even the hurricanes but I just gently remind them, you get to live in Florida! I understand the summers here are rough but our winters are just perfect. I was just talking to my husband about how everyone in Oregon is posting their camping pictures and their lake and coast pictures and you know what I was thinking? Man I miss being in Oregon IN THE SUMMER.

I actually adore Florida year round because what we lack in decent summer temperatures we make up for in lightning and thunderstorms. They calm me. They are amazing wonders of nature! But, I digress.

The bridge moment had me thinking about how, just a few minutes of a grateful view can help move along your day to a positive way. This morning I almost ditched working out. I woke up tired. I am still even a little tired, but I pushed through and am enjoying that it is Thursday!

I can clearly identify this as an up-swing, most definitely as life doesn't always work out so well. There are and will be some mornings where I could care less about Tampa over there but knowing that I steal away a bridge moment from time to time is comforting.

To me, the bridge moment represents a hint of self care, and of gratefulness. How often do we not care for ourselves well and do we just act like everyone gets to take a nice bridge on their commute? Some people get no views except exit signs. 

I think it's important to be aware of your ability to have these kinds of moments and hold them close to you. Some people find an empty gym to be a bridge moment. My dad probably has bridge moments on hiking trails. Some people find that moment with a quiet cup of coffee or glass of wine. Some people find it in a meal or dessert, the list goes on. What we should think about is not taking it for granted.

Some people's bridge moments are few and far between. I have been that person more often than I'd like to share. There are times when even taking a moment to enjoy a skyline felt pointless and stupid. We all have those seasons of life. For now, even just in terms of just for today, and with the heat and humidity blow-drying my curls, I took my bridge moment seriously in reflection of being grateful that I live by the beach.

There is beauty everywhere. When we were in Pennsylvania I forgot the roaming hills, rivers and farmland was so awesome in summer. I saw NYC from the One World Trade center and thought how amazing that was. I've also been in awe of smaller marvels like the oak trees or a perfectly landscaped yard. Just look around and you can find SOMETHING, even if you feel like it's trivial or silly.

I think it's safe to admit that in life we have plenty to complain about. We face plenty of uncomfortable things regularly if not daily, but for this soapbox blog installment for a Thursday I just encourage you to find and have a bridge moment of your own. It's good for the soul and other things. Feel free to tell me what yours is! I'd love to share and have a follow up post! Happy Friday Eve!

Drivers Driving Me Crazy

I've made no attempt at hiding my PTSD from the accident and some moments are far worse than others, but these drivers down here in sunny Florida are driving me crazy. I was once told that most drivers expect a last minute merge and cutoff, so that's how you should just do it because it's already anticipated...um no. 

I'm overly cautious because I have a huge fear of the sideswipe. Blind spots freak me out and the speed with which people drive around is concerning in general. Since I've been driving to St. Pete daily for the work week, I've become even more sensitive but also more used to how crazy it can get.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend I don't look at my phone while I'm driving ever. Besides needing to be a Spotify DJ and moments at stops lights of boredom, I try very much not to mess with my phone in transit. What concerns me now, is how much cell phones are just a constant in every car and how now one seems to pay attention to what is around them, but rather has phone in hand, just driving along. I'm not exaggerating that it's almost every car and that you'll find it with me too.

Yesterday on my way home on the Bayside bridge I saw this white sedan feverishly tailgating in stop and go traffic. Swerving to get between and in front of everyone and noticeably pissing off drivers everywhere,  when I finally passed her she was texting on her phone. It was crazy, but I sighed to myself, "Of course!" She was already driving recklessly and so naturally, let's add the cell phone into the mix.

I can't speak for anyone else in terms of surviving a traumatic car accident, but I am just very sensitive to all aspects of the commute, along with traffic and driving woes. It is a bitter diatribe overall, but also just a question of safety. When my daughter is in the car with me I'm even more overly cautious, because it just freaks me out how crazy drivers can be these days.

I grew up in places made of small towns, country roads, and then mountain roads. This was before cell phones were really a commodity, let alone commonplace in a car. Oregon has distracted driving laws. My dad will pull over when I call, tell me he can't talk for another hour, then safely call me back at home. New York has something similar I think.

Don't get me wrong, Michael Scott said it best as Florida being a "Colorful, lawless swamp," but I've never seen so many accidents and had never really been in one, until we moved here.

Now, I learned how to drive in south Florida, off of I-95 near one of America's most notably "dangerous" stretches of highway. It was a lot like that iconic scene from Clueless where they end up on the freeway freaking out:

My husband never understood why I drove so defensively like, "kill or be killed" on the Oregon highways until we moved to Tampa and one day had the a-ha moment of "Oh, you had to outwit all these psycho drivers! I see now!"

It doesn't help that we have so many snow birds either. To their credit, we love what our part time residents do for the Florida economy and we appreciate it, but it's confusing and frustrating when the locals need to be places. These drivers are driving me crazy!

It seriously stresses me out and gives me anxiety to the point where I will go out of my way to go around certain trigger areas or areas that I just can't deal with. After driving in Oregon and then coming back to Florida, and I just so happen to actually know the majority of the pedestrian, driving and even cycling laws, I usually have the above Zoolander reaction regularly.

More often than not it is all maddening. I try to just breathe and take it down a notch but these drivers drive me crazy. I'm sure I drive people nuts too, but I seriously wish that before we enter the era where the cars just drive for us, we could all actually learn to drive safely. However, after all this I have come to the conclusion that Florida may be just playing it fast and loose with the definition of "safely."

Buckle up readers!

The Commute

I put in a lot of effort to be less whiny and less of a complainer these days. Why? It serves no purpose. Plus, my six year old is all whine all the time so, you can see how it could get old, and fast.

Last summer my employer moved our office from Downtown Clearwater, land of Scientology, to Downtown St. Petersburg, land of Pride, and my drive went from about 11 miles at maybe 30 minutes to 23 miles each way at anywhere from 35 minutes to an hour, completely depending on traffic, daily. My WORST day was 2 hours there, almost 90 minutes of that stuck on a bridge and 90 minutes to get home. 

I love Downtown St. Pete so I wasn't about to complain but lately the commute has been taking it's toll. As a positive person, and someone fiercely working on her anxieties I remind myself daily, "You can't control the traffic, just how you deal with the traffic," and I listen to many a play list to get me through the mania. I also try to plan accordingly knowing full well, I could get home just before 6 or not until 6:30. 

Lately I've accepted some truths: when you spend two hours a day in your car, you really don't want to drive much in your "free time." This past weekend I did extra driving and yesterday I fell asleep 15 minutes after we got home from church because I needed to "lay down a minute." I couldn't handle all the car time. Sometimes you just need to stay close to home.

Living in Safety Harbor makes it super hard to leave it. We have amazing events. We have great parks and friends in walking distance. We have great restaurants and stores 5 minutes away. Why go further?

I will admit I miss weekend trips to Disney. Man, I miss and adventure involving characters and fun rides, but now I think we were meant to take time off from our passes because this Mommy is too tired to drive! Now, I have dear friends that practically drive for a living and sit in traffic to Orlando and Sarasota, St. Pete, Wesley Chapel and such. I have friends that have kiddos in sports that take them all over, but it's not an easy thing for me. It wipes me out sometimes, as ridiculous as that may seem.

I grew up road tripping and I can be in the car for 8 hours and think nothing of it, but traffic is different than road trips and mentally can be taxing. Or maybe that's just for me.

The commute makes me feel lucky that I can listen to my music as loud as I like. I can rock inappropriate songs my daughter could never listen to. Or rock some Disney without her yelling at me to "Stop singing mom!" I can listen to a random playlist without my husband saying, "What are we listening to?" Or when he talks over the song I wanted to hear all day that finally comes on on Spotify!

But the commute is also stressful as my PTSD from the car accident is still very real and pops up randomly. I'm probably a terrible driver now with weird ways my husband would never point out because he fears I'll have a panic attack alone in the car and hit a pole or something. So sometimes it makes me super uncomfortable and paranoid.

It's all more exercises in balance and finding some peace within the chaos. I constantly remind myself, plenty of people have it worse and some days are better than others. I recite all the mantras I need to be calm and just drive on. Okay sometimes I honk and swear and call people names, but that's just part of driving!

So for this Monday, I plan on putting the good vibes out that I can arrive places on time and feel more grateful than hateful on my commute. Besides, Scientology was a scary area to walk around and I'm much more comfortable with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, etc, that we celebrate and walk amongst down here. And the occasional homeless guys that say inappropriate compliments to me as referenced on my Instagram. Either way, I'm grateful and I just remembered I should update my playlist for the ride home...definitely.