I can hardly believe I’ve been here over a week and not written much at all on the blog. In addition to taking these two weeks to finish my book proposal, I also took on the daunting task of a 10 day sugar detox while here. I realized, yesterday I think, that the detox was consuming so much of my mental and physical energy, it was hard to focus on the book!

So I decided to cut it short by 3 days, finish it today (yeah!) and get back to some kind of normal eating tomorrow. Once I made that decision, my mental energy returned and I have been at the computer, literally for hours today, writing and cleaning up my prior writing.  Oh, I also made some shortbread cookies which I am calling Hypocrite cookies. I have lots of ingredients from the detox I want to use up–lemons, cranberries, tumeric, etc. My host here always has breakfast bread in the freezer for the bnb guests so yesterday I made her some cranberry lemon loaves and today lemon thyme shortbread with chia seeds. Yes, they only appear to be healthy with their golden tumeric glow and tiny chia polka dots. But yeah it’s all sugar and flour and deliciousness. Yeah, I cheated and tried the dough, and a cookie, so there’s that.

(something has changed on wordpress and I can’t figure out how to resize the images so sorry these are so humungous–they are actually quite dainty in person, these hypocrites)

I haven’t left the house for several days. A huge storm was anticipated this weekend. “The biggest the Pacific Northwest has ever seen!” they said. I had not only myself up here in the big house to worry about but my tenants downstairs in the Studio! I prepped with lanterns and candles and chargers and batteries and we were met with a little bit of rain and a few gusts and that was it. Everyone was disappointed. Everyone but Home Depot I mean. I even made a meme about it. 😀

I dove back into a few of my chapters today and will share a snippet. I don’t have the mental energy to go back to see if this has already been shared so if it’s a repeat, please forgive. Not the easiest chapter to write–about Cindy and my relationship.  Here goes:

People often mistook us for twins, although Cindy was always long and lean to my shorter and stockier physique. She was brunette to my blonde, and our faces were really not that similar. Yet our voices were nearly identical, and our mocked expressions were the giveaway.  We played a game at times of fooling people on the phone. Once, in a boring conversation with a friend we had in college, we passed the phone back and forth between us, it’s your turn now-style, and our friend never noticed.  

When sitting side by side, Cindy would often reach down, under the table or under a coat, and discreetly squeeze my hand or my leg, hard. Depending on the circumstance, I always knew what message she was conveying—we need to leave right now or can you believe she is saying that? or if I don’t squeeze your hand right now, I’m gonna lose it. I squeezed back and the squeeze conversation could traverse an entire awkward encounter or family dinner. We created our own little world and relished living in it. We had our own language, our own symbols, our own private jokes, and our own intimacy that no one, or almost no one, ever penetrated.
We differentiated ourselves in natural ways.  Cindy, being five foot nine, always wanted the taller guys. At the average height of five foot six, I didn’t really care, so I went for the shorter guys. She went for blondes, while I magnetized the dark and exotic types. We would walk in a bar, scan the room and I first looked for the tall guys, blonde was even better. I’d give her one of those eye-points toward him, then redirect my gaze at more eye-level options for me.

Cindy, being the oldest, was more the instigator of plans and ideas, and I willingly went along with almost everything. We became famous for our spontaneous road trips.  We would look at each other, and almost simultaneously say “Let’s go”. We’d jump in the car, sometimes late into the evening and head to another city to visit a friend in college, or in some cases explore more dramatic adventures, like that one time to Rocky Point, Mexico on an impulsive Spring break weekend. 
The trip where I had the one and only foreshadowing of what was to come years later.  It was the trip where Cindy went missing and scared the living shit out of me.

(note: this has not been edited yet!)

Hope you all out there are staying safe and warm and happy! I know I am.

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