Saul Good and Co.

Style Council

You wouldn't know to look at me these days, but if you've known or followed me for any amount of time you're aware that I am and have always been a clothes lady. I don't know or care about fashion per se, not from a "rules" standpoint. I understand things being well-made and brand loyalty, but whether things are designer or not is not a concern. I just like to have fun getting dressed. I've had strictly jeans-and-tees periods in my life, but I eventually gravitate back to dresses and fun, interesting pieces. 

 

When the pandemic started three whole years ago and it became apparent that I wouldn't be leaving my house for a spell, I made it into a leisure-fashion challenge, trying to make sure I utilized every piece of comfortable loungewear in my arsenal. What can I say, we all thought that's what losing our minds felt like back then, what cute dumbasses we were. The point is I leaned into that stretchy clothing life and I still haven't leaned back out, not really. 

 

I'm back in the office a couple days a week but very few people see me and even fewer care what I look like, so I haven't had any incentive to get back to dressing myself for the aesthetic experience. I miss it, though. I have some profesh events coming up soon and I'm looking forward to spiffing up. The problem is that now I'm looking at my closet and I'm like, bleh. But I'm trying to do that thing where I participate in "fast fashion" as little as possible. I buy almost everything second-hand, and I even though I love browsing and picking up new items here and there, I'm trying to be as mindful as possible with that. So I guess I'll just spoonful-of-sugar this bitch and make another challenge for myself. Cue: OPERATION DRESS THIS MESS, 2023. 

 

The thing with me is, as I love a lot of dranks and have never settled on a signature cocktail, I don't have a signature style. I have preferences and I definitely know what I don't like, but there's not one look that's like, oh-so-Dawn. I've always envied people who have a set style, but on the other hand I like to mix it up. Some of my muses and inspirations have been TV characters - Eve Mackey from "Mrs. Fletcher," Devi Vishwakumar from "Never Have I Ever," Johanne from "Hjem til jul," Andrea Warren from "I'm Sorry," Jean Milburn from "Sex Education" and Sharon Morris from "Catastrophe." I also love the make-up artist Bobbi Brown with her clean, simple wardrobe that seems to be the same top and jeans in every color - her every day look is an uncomplicated sort of uniform. My ideal wardrobe is a combination of that of all my aspirational fashion faves. One of these days I might even figure out which elements are purely me.

 

I don't even really have a point to this entry, but what a dang pleasure it is to write something purely superficial. Bye then.

 

In Search of a Grip

I don't think that anyone is really cut out to parent a sick kid, but some people are better at it than others. Certainly they're better at it than me. Not that I don't attend to my kid when he's under the weather, actually I think I'm great at doing whatever needs to be done in the throes of illness. It helps me for me to have a task, medicine to fetch, messes to clean up, a snuggle spot for a feverish napper, but the waiting and watching and feeling out of control, JFC. The mental part is where I'm all disarray, I mean, just the suggestion of a fever and I'm a wreck until full health is restored and I know this is due to personal trauma and the occupational hazard of seeing worst-case scenarios every day. Now that my almost-teenager-baby seems to have recovered from the worst of this weekend's stomach bug (as if he could afford to lose a single calorie as we try to solve the mystery of his latest growth plateau), I'm feeling more calm and in full acknowledgement of my issues. I'm also immeasurably thankful that I have Mike share the caretaking, which includes tempering my neuroses. I have no idea how anyone gets through a single day with a seriously ill child, how my parents did it, or, my god, how single people find the strength to deal. I know that they somehow do, because when you love someone on a cellular level, you just do it. (Or, you don't and I've seen that too in my time but it's another story.)

 

 

Anyway, we had a rough weekend, which also included the loss of my parents' pup Auggie. She was a pain in the ass and we loved her, but nobody loved her more than Gram and vice versa. 

 

Goodbye little Auggie (gone the same week as my cat-nephew Bert, who I didn't get to know but was well loved and much missed by his parents) and here's to some mental and physical recuperation and weekend do-overs for us all.  

State of The

Well I had this pointed ambition to blog more (Blogmore, sounds like a terrible fictional kingdom) and that went off the rails for a bunch of reasons, one being the loss of my dear Uncle Bob. I know that last time I wrote I was all rah-rah about authentically experiencing my feelings but I really was not putting it out there to court more sadness. Oh, Uncle Bobby, you will be missed.

In the midst of the grief chronicles, life has been happening in that blessedly annoying way it does. Work's work-y. Home's home-y. We're still trying to solve the mystery of the celiac boy whose gut won't heal, but I know all too well that it could be a lot worse. We continue to have fun times with family and friends, I've read a lot of good books, and if I can say that it's saying a lot. All of this combined has aided me in resuming my creative life, which went underground sometime in November. My small writing goals include:

 

-working on my current WIP for a tight, dedicated 25 minutes every weekday, with an eye to finishing the first draft by Memorial Day, or the last day of HR's school, at the latest;

 

-submitting 1-2 agent queries per week;

 

-blog more often, as I mentioned above (why? Some questions have no good answers). 

 

It's been 3 years since I finished the first draft of the book of my heart and like I said, I really believe in it, it just has to find the right fit. I haven't ruled out self-publishing, I just enjoy games and puzzles and it's kind of a puzzle game to figure out how to get a manuscript represented and ultimately published. 

 

I let my guitar get dusty again, but I've been making a point to pick it up for just a few minutes a day. It has to add up, right?

 

I'm overwhelmed with anxiety about life in this country on the daily, but again, that's being alive and engaged. I don't always talk about what I'm doing on my antiracism journey but it's ongoing. One of the biggest parts, honestly, is one of the hardest parts for confrontation-averse me: talking to my own people about it. But if I can't even do that, if I'm not brave enough to get uncomfortable, then what's the point? It's no good if I'm interacting in an echo chamber. For example, if you're someone I love and you truly don't understand why "It's OK to be white" is a problematic thing to say, talk to me. 

 

Anyway, it's March again and the world is still here and I'm doing all right so let's dance.