I went the other night and I stayed in a cabin in the middle of the woods. And it's -- there's, there's nobody out there. Like, there's no cell phone service out there. There's a wood stove in the cabin, and that's it. There's no electricity. There's not a toilet. Nothing. And, so, I and my partner were just kind of hanging out and just having a time, you know, having talks about stuff, like you do. I -- that might seem boring for people that are from downstate or big cities, but it's, it's nice to just sit by the fire and talk about random stuff and, you know, just be in nature. And all of a sudden, it sounded like there were footsteps. But there shouldn't have been anybody out there, right? Like, it's the middle of winter, it's not tourist season. There’s -- it’s the middle of the woods, right? It sounded like footsteps, but not quite right. Like, it sounded like multiple people, but it wasn't, like, heavy enough to be a person. And it also sounded like there was something on the roof, and it freaked me out. It freaked me out, and I'm a scaredy cat, right? But my partner's not. He's brave as heck. So I, I scurried into the corner of the cabin, and I waited for the sound to stop. Like, we stopped mid-sentence talking just to listen to what was going on. And after the sound stopped, I was like, “Okay, you're going outside, and you're gonna go check with your pocket knife, just in case, and your flashlight, and see who the heck is out there.” Well, my partner goes outside, starts making a bunch of noise, which tells me there's probably an animal around 'cause, you know, if you make a lot of noise, animals, they run away. He comes back in and he's got pictures of footprints in the snow, fresh ones. And they're big footprints. And if you know anything about cats, they have retractable claws, meaning that if you ever see footprints in, in like dirt or snow or anything, and you see claws, then it's not a cat because cats' claws retract into their paws. So, when they step, they don't leave the little dots, you know. It was a bobcat that had apparently jumped off the roof of this cabin. I guess it…

Friday, we went out, and I haven't gone out in a while. One of my goals is to one day do karaoke. And I don't know if it was a symptom of a stressful week, of not being out in a while, but like, [Name] invited me out with his friends to karaoke, and I felt literally nauseous. I've never had that reaction of -- to an invitation of going out. So, I was like, "I have to go, I can't become a hermit." And I'm so worried 'cause I hate like how I'd be perceived, like I'd get so nervous, and then we went there at this dive bar. We were the youngest table by maybe 40 years. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I feel like 40 is like too -- it was probably like 50, 60 years, like there was 70 and 80 year-olds there, and they were just tearing up some karaoke. I could not get enough of it. Someone was singing like, the, the, “Beautiful Boy of Company B." That was insane. I loved it. And then -- you're kidding -- this couple, um, sang, "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore.” And listen, this old lady? Her shirt said “amore” on it. I was like, "You came prepared." I haven't drank since the new year, and I had two beers that night. This was my first like two beers of the year. And it was just one beer down, and I was just like feeling -- not like any sort of way, but -- yeah, I was just -- I gave -- some of the old ladies gave me hugs, and that was very cute, 'cause I was in no way drunk, just interactive. The vibes there were excellent. We even had one of like my boyfriend's older friends with us -- not older, he's like 50. And he was like, "This is the most fun Friday I've had in a -- maybe ever." And I said, "You know, honestly? Me too!" I think one of those, like, good coming together of just every age group that night. I love it. I loved it.

Is there someone in my life that can be a little too much? I would say I felt this way about my mother-in-law when I first met her. And I wanna be clear that she's really wonderful. She's essentially Buddy the elf from the movie Elf in real life, like subsists almost exclusively on sugar. She was, she was a art teacher. She is just really enthusiastic and excited about everything. And she has very specific ideas about how something should go, like an event, how -- what would make something exciting or fun or memorable. And sometimes, that is at the cost -- or, the cost is that she disregards what someone wants. So, an example of this would be my sister-in-law, her daughter, had a baby shower and said, "I'm happy to do this. I just want two things. The first is that all the gifts be secondhand, and the second is that there's no, um, games. Like, I do not want games." So we got there and her mom had planned all of these games and they were, of course, the like really kind of gross ones. Like, they melted or put different things in the diaper, and you had to reach your hand in and like guess what kind of candy bar or what kind of food. So like, really gross. And that's because her mom felt like that was gonna make the party the most fun, even though her daughter had said she wasn't interested. And in the beginning of my relationship with her, I just didn't know how to navigate that. Because, you know, everything was coming from a well-intentioned, well-meaning place. As I just gave that example -- or, as in the example I just gave, I should say, it still can be -- it can still not feel good sometimes.