BREAKING NEWS: I have been medically cleared to shower like a normal human being.
To be clear, I have not yet done this. But I can. Which feels like being released back into the wild.
The Plastic Foot Condom™ has not been retired, but it has been significantly demoted. It will now oversee the preliminary stages of bathing before being ceremonially removed so I can wash my foot with soap and water like a civilized person.
I am now permitted to put very minimal weight on my left heel—which sounds simple until you realize it requires the balance of a flamingo and a level of coordination you have not recently demonstrated.
I also no longer have to sleep with my foot elevated on what can only be described as a Princess-and-the-Pea mattress tower—a position that assumes a flexibility I do not possess.
I’ve been cleared to drive short distances, which feels both liberating and mildly threatening to the surrounding mailboxes. I’ve also been cleared for a manicure tomorrow, which might be the truest sign of recovery.
For the record, I am still in the boot. And if I need to travel any distance longer than a dignified shuffle, the knee scooter remains my noble steed. So let’s not get carried away.
But the stitches come out in just over two weeks.
We are not fully operational. But we are trending upward.
There was surgery. There was anesthesia. There was a boot. There was a whole dramatic arc involving waterproofing my foot like I was preparing it for a NASA mission just to take a shower.
And then… there was the walnut.
If you’ve never been on opioids after surgery, here’s what happens: your colon politely clocks out. It takes a vacation. It ignores emails. It stops forwarding internal memos. Everything slows down. Time becomes theoretical.
I pooped the night of my surgery because I had the audacity to eat a kale salad from Chick-fil-A, and kale fears no narcotic. Then… nothing. Days passed. I was busy managing medication schedules like a suburban pharmacist and Googling whether ibuprofen has feelings about my liver. Meanwhile, my colon was stockpiling.
And then today.
Today I became aware of my own internal infrastructure in a way that felt biblical.
There I was: one week post-toe amputation, in a surgical boot, sitting on the toilet, trying to negotiate with something that felt like it had been kiln-dried inside me.
The cramps came in waves. Actual waves. I briefly considered whether I should start timing them like contractions. I leaned forward. I breathed. I reflected on an episode of a medical drama I had watched the night before where an elderly woman arrived impacted and left victorious but projectile.
This is what happens when you watch true crime instead of editing your novel.
You assume you are now That Woman.
Spoiler: I was not That Woman. I was just a person with hard stool and a flair for catastrophizing.
Eventually—after small negotiations, strategic retreats, and what I can only describe as Booted Labor & Delivery—progress was made. Not glamorous progress. Not cinematic. Just human progress.
And as I sat there, I realized something deeply irritating:
This is exactly what writing (and editing) a novel feels like.
You build something slowly. You let it sit. You ignore it while you watch true crime. Pressure accumulates. The longer you avoid it, the harder it becomes. Then one day you decide it’s time. And it hurts. It’s awkward. You wonder if you’ve ruined everything. You consider calling in reinforcements. You think about suppositories—metaphorical or otherwise.
And then, finally, something decent-sized emerges.
Relief follows. Not immediately. There are aftershocks. Small intermittent cramps. The system recalibrates.
Colon as metaphor.
Opioids slow you down. Fear slows you down. Perfectionism slows you down. And eventually the only way out is through—gently, with breathing, preferably not straining too hard.
I would like to say I returned heroically to my manuscript afterward.
Instead, I settled back into my recliner, foot elevated and heating pad on my abdomen, marveling at how late-stage civilization allows a woman to narrate her own gastrointestinal crisis to the void while actively taking a shit.
If that’s not creative process, I don’t know what is.
Today, I discovered I have been sleeping at a Sleep Number setting of FIVE for what appears to be multiple fiscal quarters.
For those unfamiliar with Sleep Number technology, five is not a “preference.” Five is what happens when you accidentally brush the remote in 2021 and never emotionally recover.
For years I have wondered:
Why does this mattress feel like hard plastic?
Why does my upper back hurt?
Why does my side look like a geological depression?
Turns out: I have been sleeping on what can best be described as a gently inflated pool float.
Setting five is not “soft.”
It is “suggestion of air.”
This afternoon, while lying flat on my back with my foot elevated like a Renaissance painting of convalescence, I realized something was off. The mattress claimed it was at 100.
Reader, it was not.
I had been inflating the wrong side.
My side was at five.
My husband’s side was fine.
Naturally.
I inflated my side to 100, briefly considered leaving his there as a social experiment, and then decided I am, in fact, a good person.
At 100, I felt like I was lying on a folding table.
We negotiated down to 85.
Peace was restored.
Meanwhile, I had convinced myself I might need shoulder surgery. (I have already had a C6/7 fusion because I like drama.)
But no.
I just needed air.
And a better pillow.
And to stop holding my phone above my face like I was training for Thoracic Olympics.
In conclusion:
My mattress is fine.
My spine is dramatic but intact.
My toe is gone.
My pride is wounded.
I have saved approximately $4,000.
If you need me, I will be napping at 85 like a fiscally responsible adult.
And if you own a Sleep Number bed, please check your settings.
Yesterday, I did what I always do before something big and inconvenient:
I cleaned.
Not deep-cleaned. Not “let me reorganize my entire life and finally deal with the closet” cleaned.
Just… functional cleaned.
The bathrooms.
The kitchen counters (mostly).
The floors that actually get walked on.
The kind of cleaning that says, I will not be able to do much for a while, and I would like my future self to suffer less.
Apparently this is called nesting, and yes—it’s a real thing before surgery. You prepare your environment the way your brain knows how, because your body is about to be temporarily off-duty. It’s not anxiety, exactly. It’s logistics with feelings.
I did not, for the record, touch my closet.
That would have been a bridge too far.
The closet is a different emotional project.
By late afternoon, I was sweaty, proud, and completely done. And then—because the universe loves timing—I stopped moving and immediately became freezing.
Our windows are original to our 1996 house, which somehow makes them old now.
Not old old. Just… vintage.
In the same way Green Day is now considered classic rock, which I still refuse to process.
The gas fireplace was on, looking beautiful and doing absolutely nothing useful, because gas fireplaces are more about vibes than heat. The thermostat was set to 70, but my body cycled between I am overheating and I have entered the Ice Age every five minutes.
Which honestly feels like a metaphor for my entire existence lately.
Today, I’m having surgery.
They’re amputating my second toe and shortening the one next to it.
This is not news, exactly—the decision has been made—but I don’t think decision is the same thing as readiness.
I am not ready.
I know it’s “just a toe.”
I know I’ve had far bigger things happen to my body.
I know all the rational arguments.
But this particular toe has been with me for nearly 49 years.
It has survived childhood, adulthood, bad shoes, worse shoes, pregnancies, cancer, surgery, and a truly impressive five-year era of post-surgical freelancing where it stuck straight up like it was trying to get better reception.
It has history.
It has personality.
It has, frankly, overstayed its lease—but still.
You don’t spend almost five decades with a body part and feel nothing when it’s time to say goodbye.
People keep reminding me how well I handle things. How I always find the humor. How resilient I am. Which is kind—and also a little misleading.
Humor isn’t bravery.
It’s a coping mechanism.
It’s how I hold two things at once:
This is absurd and this is hard.
I can joke about pickling a toe, cremating it and turning it into a diamond, mummifying it and having my husband wear it to work on a lanyard (office dress codes permitting), or selling it on eBay. I can laugh about how my friends have collectively decided this toe deserves more afterlife options than most people.
And I can still be quietly sad about letting it go.
Both things are true.
The nesting, the cleaning, the worrying about towels being clean and whether or not I can apply lotion before surgery (I can’t) and whether my veins will cooperate—it’s all part of the same instinct. It’s my nervous system saying, If I can’t control what’s about to happen, I can at least make the landing softer.
So the house is “good enough.”
The closet remains untouched.
The windows are still vintage.
Green Day is still apparently classic rock, which I will never accept.
And now, I’m about to hand myself over to people who know what they’re doing and trust that my body—which has been through a lot—knows how to do this too.
After two surgeries designed to save my toe (the same one that had cancer in 2020 and through nearly half of 2021), my foot surgeon and I have decided to stop pretending and simply… not do that anymore.
This feels like a mature outcome. A respectful one. At some point, you have to accept when a toe has chosen a different life path.
I briefly considered asking if I could keep it. Not in a dramatic way—more like, Hey, do you offer curbside pickup for body parts? But it’s not a whole leg, and I didn’t want to seem greedy. They can have it. I’ve had it for almost 49 years. That feels fair.
Still, I did wonder about cremation. Surely people cremate toes? Or at least someone has tried. Maybe the ashes could be scattered into the ocean. Or placed into a necklace. Nothing says “closure” like wearing your former toe around your neck at a dinner party and refusing to explain it.
This is where my sister entered the conversation and immediately made it worse.
She suggested I have the toe pickled.
Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Literally. Pickled. Preserved. Floating.
I don’t know where one even pickles a toe. Is this something the hospital offers if you ask nicely? Do you bring your own vinegar? Is it artisanal? Do you get to choose between dill and sweet, or is that a decision for later once the shock wears off?
I briefly imagined opening my refrigerator and finding it between the olives and the mustard—just there, suspended in brine, preserved, smug, and somehow still judging my life choices. I imagine this is when a doctor would gently suggest I stop being in charge of my own medical decisions.
Cremation, by comparison, suddenly felt extremely normal. Tasteful, even. Respectable. Something you could explain to people without them slowly backing away.
The amputation itself, oddly enough, isn’t even the worst part of this news.
The real tragedy is that my other foot—the one with the bunion that desperately needs minimally invasive surgery—is not being fixed yet. Which means another full year of practical shoes, supportive soles, and pretending I don’t care about footwear.
More importantly, it means another year without my cowboy boots.
I own beautiful cowboy boots. Real ones. Confident ones. The kind that make you feel like a person who has her life together, even if she is actively Googling “can you pickle a toe” at midnight.
And now they wait. In the closet. Judging me.
I know, objectively, that this is not the biggest thing I’ve ever survived. I have endured worse than a rebellious toe and delayed footwear gratification. But loss is sneaky. It shows up disguised as a joke and taps you on the shoulder when you aren’t paying attention.
So yes—the toe is going.
Yes—I will be fine.
Yes—I will almost certainly make inappropriate jokes about it forever.
But if you see me next year still talking about my cowboy boots like a widow talks about her late husband, please mind your business.
A storm is coming. So are the questionable grocery choices
Every time Northern Virginia hears the word snow, we collectively lose our damn minds.
Milk disappears. Bread vanishes. Eggs are treated like contraband. And suddenly people who haven’t cooked since 2019 are emotionally support-shopping like Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Which brings me to a recent post in a local Facebook group—one that stopped me dead in my scrolling tracks.
“I’m ready for the damn snow,” the caption announced.
Reader, she was not.
On the table:
– Wine (fine, expected, encouraged)
– Cold brew coffee (sure, we love a caffeinated panic)
– Nerds
– Sour Patch Kids
– Pitted black olives
– A single cucumber (???)
And suddenly I realized something important:
If our survival during a snowstorm—or frankly, a zombie apocalypse—depended on this grocery haul, we would all perish immediately.
Now listen. I am not a minimalist pantry person. I, too, have an eclectic assortment of household staples. Somewhere in my house right now there are probably Nerds and Sour Patch Kids. I am not above chaos snacks.
But here’s the difference:
Those items exist incidentally, not as part of a deliberate emergency preparedness strategy.
Because what exactly is the plan here?
Day 1:
Cold brew and wine. Vibes. Confidence.
Day 2:
Nerds for breakfast. Sour Patch Kids for lunch. A handful of black olives for… electrolytes? Hope?
Day 3:
One cucumber, ceremoniously sliced, as morale collapses.
I commented—because I could not help myself—that black olives are the perfect complement to Nerds and Sour Patch Kids, and that very few people know this.
Her response was simply:
“Really”
And that’s when I knew.
She was not joking.
She thought I was offering a pairing suggestion.
This was not irony.
This was a woman who genuinely believed she had assembled a functional snowstorm spread.
And again—wine? Absolutely. No notes.
But everything else feels like what happens when you grocery shop exclusively by vibes and dopamine.
There is no soup.
There is no bread.
There is no protein.
There is no plan.
It’s just sugar, olives, caffeine, and confidence.
Which, to be fair, is how many of us live our lives—but not how we survive a weather event.
The thing is, I don’t even seek out “storm snacks.” I don’t suddenly think, Ah yes, the barometric pressure is dropping—fetch the Nerds. These items simply exist in my house alongside boring, sustaining foods that will, in fact, keep us alive if the power goes out.
This grocery list isn’t wrong.
It’s just… unhinged.
And honestly?
If the snow comes and this woman thrives on nothing but cold brew, candy, olives, and vibes?
My husband uses his suitcase for months after we travel. Not as luggage—no, no. As a dresser. As in: it sits open in our bedroom like a sad, navy blue clamshell he lives out of by choice. I have never understood this. I’ve asked questions. I’ve investigated. I’ve stared at it the way archaeologists stare at ruins, hoping the past will whisper answers.
And before anyone comes for me, yes—there is a massage chair in the corner of our room that I don’t use because I’ve turned it into a textile museum of clothes, blankets, and the occasional rogue tote bag. But that is not the point.
Sometimes I genuinely wonder: Does my husband’s perpetually open suitcase signal that he’s preparing to leave me?
Probably not, since he keeps asking me to fetch his Milo’s artificially sweetened tea. I assume if you’re planning a dramatic marital exit, you stop requesting beverage service.
But I will admit—his system is convenient.
When we went to Myrtle Beach, packing took him all of six minutes. Just toss in what he needed and boom—vacation-ready. Meanwhile, I was over here doing laundry, checking weather patterns, and making sure my skincare didn’t exceed TSA guidelines even though we were driving.
Now we’re leaving for Ireland next month (because apparently we enjoy cold, damp weather that slaps you in the face), and I guess he’ll be ready.
The suitcase is already open.
The man is perpetually half-packed.
He might actually be the only one of us prepared for international travel.
The calm, sparkling backdrop for what will forever be known—privately, at least—as The Incident at Night of a Thousand Candles.
Myrtle Beach gave us many things—ocean views, quiet mornings, and three moments I will be processing for the rest of my natural life.
First, at Brookgreen Gardens’ Night of a Thousand Candles, a woman in front of us let out a fart so forceful it could’ve shifted the jet stream. If it hadn’t been raining and she’d passed anywhere near a candle, we would have witnessed a brushfire that would go down in South Carolina history. Jeremy and I stood there blinking, unsure whether to laugh, run, or consult the forestry service.
The next morning at Blueberry’s Grill, I baptized my sweater in maple syrup. I thought I’d gotten lucky with just one small spot on my jeans—cute, manageable, something I could pretend didn’t happen. Then I looked in the mirror. A full syrup rivulet ran from neckline to hem like I’d been anointed by Mrs. Butterworth herself. And as if fate wanted to emphasize my humiliation, the Christmas song playing overhead was filled with enough sexual innuendo to make Santa sound like he needed an HR department.
And then there was the radio. In the span of one short drive, we heard a cheerful midday hiring ad for Treasure Club (the gentleman’s club), followed by a DUI lawyer confidently declaring, “When life gets bent, better call Trent.” But the real showstopper was learning that one of the local stations runs something called “The T&A Morning Show.” I don’t know what the T stands for. I don’t know what the A stands for. I don’t actually want to know. All I know is that if I had named a show that, the FCC would have personally escorted me out of the building.
But honestly? We still had a wonderful time. Myrtle Beach may not behave, but it certainly knows how to make an impression.
A peaceful view… which in no way reflects the energy of this trip so far.
We knew this trip was going to be interesting the moment we hit construction on the drive down. “Detour ahead” would imply actual instructions, but that would require too much coordination for South Carolina roadwork apparently. Instead, we got a single man standing in the middle of the highway holding up a stop sign for absolutely no reason I could decipher.
Across from him? A cotton field.
Beyond him? A massive piece of construction machinery parked sideways across the road like it had simply given up and decided to spend its remaining days communing with nature.
There were no detour signs. No arrows. No cones. No driveways. Nothing. Just us, a blocked road, and a man doing traffic control in a location where no traffic could possibly go.
Meanwhile, Waze—using the spicy gingerbread man voice, because why wouldn’t it—remained silent, unhelpful, and completely unbothered. We were on a cosmic scavenger hunt with no clues, praying that whatever vague alternate route we found wouldn’t send us looping back into the same cotton field from a different angle.
By the time we reached the Hilton Myrtle Beach timeshare, I naïvely thought the worst was behind us.
Reader, I was wrong.
We pulled into the covered entryway and immediately got stuck behind a woman who could not, for reasons known only to her and possibly her luggage cart, move her vehicle forward even one inch. Jeremy parked close enough to the wall that I was wedged in place like a human doorstop—and, of course, I had to pee. It was the perfect trifecta: trapped, immobilized, and acutely aware of my bladder. If divine intervention had shown up in the form of a forklift, I would not have asked questions.
Dinner that night came with a bonus feature: a front-row seat to the world’s most painfully self-impressed job interview at the table in front of us. The candidate was the sort of man who speaks like he’s narrating a documentary about his own greatness.
“We had to let go of a lot of smart people,” he announced with the confidence of someone who absolutely did not make the cut himself.
He went on to explain how much he loves working—sixty, seventy, maybe eighty hours a week if the moment calls for it. He loves small companies. He loves big companies. He loves work. He just really, really loves to work.
The woman sitting across from him—presumably part of the hiring team—looked like her soul had slipped quietly out of her body and was waiting in the car. If I’d run into her in the restroom, I would have whispered, “Please don’t hire that guy—he sounds like a real asshole.” Of course, with my luck, she would have been his wife. Honestly? Even then, I think she would’ve agreed with me.
We didn’t get to see the ocean from our table—the glare on the windows was so intense we might as well have been sitting in a dentist’s office—but we did get a live-action National Geographic moment when a cat launched itself at what I’m fairly sure was a rat darting underneath the restaurant.
Nature is healing, I guess.
After escaping dinner theater, we headed to the hot tub back at our timeshare, which was—mercifully—lovely. Both tubs supposedly overlook the ocean, though it was pitch-black, so we had to take Hilton’s word for it. Still, it was warm, peaceful, and blissfully free of corporate interviews, cats, rats, or roadside construction personnel holding signs for no reason.
The true highlight so far, though? This morning’s breakfast.
A mimosa, a Starbucks gingerbread latte, eggs, bacon, and toast with Kerrygold butter—all made by Jeremy for thirty dollars instead of the seventy-five Myrtle Beach restaurants believe eggs are worth. It was calm. Warm. Sane. A rare oasis in this swirling coastal fever dream.
And then—because the universe enjoys contrast—it started raining. The “partially indoor” hot tub now contains shards of glass because workmen broke a window trying to replace it. The concierge would love to “give us a gift,” which is Hilton for “please spend three hours letting us sell you points.” And Forensic Files II is looking more and more like a respectable afternoon plan.
And the best part?
We’re only on Day 2.
Stay tuned. Something else is absolutely going to happen—it’s just a matter of when.
I walked into Kohl’s this morning with $60 in Kohl’s Cash, a sense of purpose, and the kind of optimism that only someone who hasn’t yet spoken to their customer service department can possess. My plan was simple: buy two sweaters, leave feeling accomplished, and maybe even get home in time to live the rest of my life.
Naturally, none of that happened.
I started at the Tommy Hilfiger sweaters—buy one, get one half off. Beautiful. Tempting. Beacons of preppy joy. But then I wandered over to the Izod section, where the sweaters were cheaper and marked down another 20 percent. It felt responsible. Mature. Financially savvy. So I grabbed two Izods and headed for the register.
This is where Kohl’s decided to play games with me.
The cashier scanned my sweaters and informed me that, between rewards points and Kohl’s Cash, I actually had ninety dollars. Ninety. At that moment, I absolutely wished I’d gone with the Tommy sweaters, but I told myself I’d made the smart choice. Sensible. Practical. Adulting at its finest.
I paid, went to my car, and prepared to move forward with my day. Except I couldn’t, because during my stroll around the men’s department, I’d also gone looking for Levi’s in the incredibly specific size 30×34. The Levi’s employee explained that while the store didn’t carry that mystical unicorn of a size, I could get it online for the same $49.99 price. Perfect. Easy. Foolproof.
I sat in my car, opened the Kohl’s app, and bought the jeans.
And the app happily ignored the fact that I had $25 in remaining rewards.
So I called customer service.
The connection was crystal clear on my end, but on her end it sounded like she was phoning me from inside a dryer full of spoons. I repeated myself endlessly because I knew if I hung up, I’d spend another thirty minutes trying to get someone else on the line. We finally got the rewards situation sorted out. I was seconds away from freedom when I looked down and noticed a 40 percent off coupon that expired today.
Of course, I asked about it.
She told me she couldn’t apply it to the Levi’s since they were already on sale, but I could go back inside and use it on something else. So, like the obedient bargain-chaser I apparently am, I marched back into Kohl’s.
I grabbed the Tommy Hilfiger sweaters I had emotionally abandoned an hour earlier. With my 40 percent coupon in hand, I waited in a line that lasted about fifteen minutes and presented my sweaters to the cashier… only to be told that Tommy Hilfiger is an excluded brand.
Of course it is.
But then she offered a creative solution: I could go back out to my car, return the Izod sweaters I’d just purchased, come back inside, and rebuy them using the 40 percent coupon. This made no sense. Absolutely none. Which is precisely why I did it.
I trekked back outside, retrieved the sweaters and my receipt, came back in, waited in an even longer line—now closer to twenty-five minutes—and explained everything to the original cashier.
She listened, nodded, typed a few things, and then delivered the final blow: I couldn’t use the 40 percent coupon because I’d used Kohl’s Cash on the original purchase. It didn’t matter that I was returning the items. Kohl’s Cash had tainted the entire transaction like a cursed relic.
I took my sweaters and left the store a broken but wiser woman.
When I got home, I couldn’t decide whether I’d gotten a deal or lost four hours of my life to a department store that runs on coupons, chaos, and a vague sense of emotional manipulation. It may have been the most absurd shopping trip I’ve ever taken. And that includes the time I accidentally bought jeggings thinking they were “flex denim.”
Absurdities and Fires 