My lovable readers, which of today’s images seem lovable to you?
Personally, I think the Daily Bitch is very lovable. And cognitive distortions like personalization get in the way of feeling lovable.
Is this a lovable version of “You’re Nobody ‘til Somebody Loves You”?
No matter how lovable you feel, please leave a comment, below.
It’s lovable to express and receive gratitude, so thanks to all who help me blog daily, including YOU.
Many people I work with in therapy have trouble forgiving themselves for past mistakes and transgressions. Yesterday, I gave somebody this assignment: to look themselves in the face (in a mirror, any other reflective surface, or, yesterday, during our ZOOM call) and say, “I forgive you.” We practiced that many times during the therapy session, with this person adding their name at the end of the self-forgiving statement.
I’ve been practicing that also, and it really helps. I forgive you, Ann, for
I forgive you, Ann, for sharing this song for the umpteenth time.
I forgive you, Ann, for asking people to comment on your blog about their own experience with self-forgiveness.
I forgive you, Ann, for ending each blog in the same way, day after day.
I have the capacity to
After reaching out to many HVAC repair people since Saturday, we finally found one who had the capacity to respond to our requests, to show up last night at 10 PM without charging us overtime rates, and to diagnose and fix the problem in less than 30 minutes.
Many other HVAC experts did not have the capacity to respond to our pleas for help and one with a very good rating online didn’t have the capacity to show up yesterday as he had promised or to call us and let us know.
Now our central air conditioning system with its new capacitor has the capacity to cool us down on another 90 degree+ day.
I don’t seem to have the capacity to stop thinking about the flux capacitor from “Back to the Future,” but I usually have the capacity to associate EVERYTHING with a film or a song.
I had the capacity to find this video about the flux capacitor on YouTube:
Yesterday, I had the capacity to take these photos in the heat before our central air capacitor was replaced:
As you can see from the photos above, Michael has the capacity to reach and remove Trump stickers that I can’t.
I have the capacity to use Twitter as a distraction from discomforts.
Now that I AM chilling, I have the capacity to notice that The Flux Capacitors band have the capacity to cover “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
If you have the capacity to leave a comment, please do so.
As you might know, I have an unlimited capacity to express gratitude, so thanks to all who help me maintain my capacity to blog every day, including YOU.
Even when your place has no air conditioning during a heat wave, it’s still possible to find your happy place.
This sign was at a happy place in our local shopping mall, where we were searching for a fan to make our place a cooler and therefore happy place:
How do you find your happy place? Is it inside yourself? Is it outside?
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Can you find your happy place shopping at a mall?
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Can you find your happy place on social media?
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Sometimes you need to find your sad place before you can find your happy place.
Very soon, I’ll be finding my happy place when I have a ZOOM call this morning with my friend Megan, who is moving to a new happy place in Connecticut with her family.
Let’s see if the Daily Bitch can find her happy place.
This is what I find on YouTube when I try to find “find your happy place.”
I find my happy place through gratitude, so thanks to everyone who helps make this blogging place happier, including YOU.
Many people I know — through therapy and elsewhere — are uncomfortable with compliments and often don’t believe or even recognize compliments when they receive them.
I hope wonderful blogger Mark Bialczak and his lovely wife Karen consider it a compliment that I always want to spend time with them when they are visiting Cape Cod. Yesterday, I drove many miles and minutes to spend a delightful few hours with them and their adorable, 10-year-old rescue dog Ellie B.
As we spent time together in beautiful Dennis Port, Mark and I gave each other compliments about our blogs — which both are experiencing dwindling readership. Also, Mark — who used to review music for many years at the big daily newspaper in Syracuse — gave me inspiring and almost- hard-for-me to-believe compliments about my original songs which, honestly, meant the world to me.
I hope everybody considers it a compliment that I wanted to capture all these images of a fabulous day and to share them with you, here and now:
If the noble and irresistible Ellie B read my blog, I assume she’d consider it a compliment that I took so many photos of her yesterday.
I wanted to specifically compliment Karen on her “diamond painting” ..
… which Mark called “my wife’s beading.”
Mark also complimented me yesterday on my Twitter interactions, so I feel more confident sharing these with you today:
It’s more difficult being nice when you’re uncomfortable and our central air conditioning is not working, just in time for a heat wave here. I have to compliment my husband, Michael, who still cooked for me last night …
… and who is going to try to fix our air conditioning system today by locating and replacing the air filter, which is probably somewhere here:
I’m sure our air conditioning system …
… doesn’t consider it a compliment that we’ve never replaced the filter in the FOUR years we’ve been here.
Here’s one of my original songs that I performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, which Mark complimented me on yesterday:
I’ll consider it a great compliment if you comment on this blog post, below.
I’m grateful for all compliments, for great friendships, and, of course, for YOU!
It’s no lie that I am
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It’s no lie that it helps to know that you are not alone — that’s why I love being a group therapist (and that’s no lie either).
It’s no lie that my coping strategies, as we all deal with the pandemic and politics, include blogging, singing, dancing, walking, talking, eating, and tweeting.
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It’s no lie that I’m no expert on lots of things, including Brazilians.
It’s no lie that Mark Bialczak and I both love Steely Dan and it’s no lie that I was singing and dancing to this in my neighborhood yesterday:
It’s no lie that I end each blog post with gratitude, so thanks to all who help me blog every day, including YOU!
Using your senses, what senses do you notice in today’s post?
On August 23rd, my son Aaron, my niece Victoria, and I will be experiencing the sense of humor of John Mulaney IN PERSON at a Boston theatre, which barely makes sense to me in the moment.
What’s the sense of this Saturday Night Live skit co-written by John Mulaney, which the show’s producers didn’t have the sense to include until after he had left the show and become famous?
Here are co-writers John Mulaney and Colin Jost discussing their senses of that Diner Lobster sketch:
I sense some comments coming my way, below.
Thanks to all who help me make sense of things every day, including YOU!
Before I began walking my walk yesterday, I tweeted this:
Why did I post that I was better at walking and talking than I was at tweeting? I was doing the familiar and unhelpful cognitive distortion of comparisons — feeling “less than” because everyone I looked at on Twitter was getting way more likes and replies than I was.
Usually I tweet just for fun, not caring about numbers; yesterday, I got caught up in comparisons and felt worse and worse. I kept tweeting, hoping I would get more responses. I didn’t. I knew I would feel better if I stopped tweeting and started walking, but I didn’t, for TWO HOURS on a BEAUTIFUL day.
This reminded me of a therapy session earlier when somebody was talking about the difficulty of breaking old patterns of taking risks with money. This person was stuck in those behaviors and in unhelpful comparisons, too, which we talked about.
I broke my own comparison/tweeting cycle by posting the tweet above, putting on my shoes, and walking the walk.
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After watching that duck swimming the swim, I tweeted this tweet:
Eventually, I stopped walking and saw impressive evidence of Michael decking the deck:
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I messaged this message to my friend Jenn, who loves pugs …
… and enjoyed eating the eats.
I prepared for blogging the blog by capturing all these other images:
As usual, the Daily Bitch is bitching the bitch.
Here’s what was playing when I was walking the walk by the sea:
I can’t believe there are only 106 likes on YouTube for that amazing performance of the wonderful “Sea Journey” by the late, great Chick Corea, who always walked the walk. Here he is walking his fingers all over the keyboards with his Elektric Band in “Side Walk”:
Who wants to comment the comment?
Thanks to all who help me walk the walk, talk the talk, tweet the tweet, and blog the blog, including YOU!
I woke up to this email this morning:
I’m always looking for hope over fear. Do you see that in my other images for today?
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I’m hoping for hope over fear as we navigate the future.
I hope you enjoy these songs that appeared in today’s post (here, here, and here on YouTube):
Hope over fear that there will be comments on this post.
Gratitude over everything, so thanks to all who help me put hope over fear every day, including YOU!
Yesterday, during Memorial Day in the USA, I watched the PBS documentary “Death is But a Dream.” Here is the official trailer of “Death is But a Dream”:
I plan to tell people I work with who are dying about “Death is But a Dream,” which movingly describes the dreams of terminally ill people.
My life near the ocean is but a dream, as you might see in today’s photos.
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I hope that peace is not just a dream
Twitter is but a dream.
Edinburgh feels like a dream to me now.
Here is the TED talk by Dr. Christopher Kerr of “Death is But a Dream”:
I expect that when I am dying I will dream about my father, my mother, my friends Hillel, Eleanor, Tony, and Michelle, Oscar and several other cats, and maybe some of my patients. I find this dreamily comforting, here and now.
What are your thoughts and feelings about this death-is-but-a-dream post?
Thanks to all who help me fulfill my dream of blogging every day that I am still on this earth, including YOU.
