Confessions to My Doctors
The times I've had to reveal something embarrassing to get proper treatment
Free Hugs
My weekend of giving hugs was so wonderfully heartwarming, as it always is. Some of the people I hugged were clearly not getting enough hugs in their life, and one older woman even said, “You don’t get many hugs at my age.” I was instantly heartbroken for this woman and gave her an extra good hug.
I’m very pleased with how my setup came together. I had a sign printed with space left in the middle to attach printed sheets that might include what hours I was giving hugs, my hug safety protocol, or any other info that might be needed. I also bought an easel to place it on.
Joy’s tiki hut was a wonderful place to give hugs, and there was a fan overhead to keep air circulating. I’m positive I did not get or give Covid, and you can see in the video that my face was nowhere near the face of anyone I hugged. I’m also happy with the fabric I chose to be in the back of my video shot and love the way it flowed in the breeze.
I sold 8 packages of Postcard Hugs, which made me very happy (and paid for all the fabric I bought). And it was great hanging out with two of my besties who volunteered by taking photos, directing people, helping sell the postcards, and looking adorable.
I’m tickled with the tutu I stitched together quickly right before my first shift on Saturday. I was having such a brain block about how to put it together, and then I just did it. A guy who came through said I and my space had a very Burning Man vibe. He told me about his camp (Camp Mystic), and I might go to Love Burn next year when it will be on or near my 50th birthday.
Lastly, one of the best ideas I had was to print stickers that said, “I hugged Crazy Sexy Elsie.” Each sticker had a barcode that sent people to my website, and almost everyone thought they were cute and immediately stuck them on.
Diplomacy
I posted recently on Facebook that it’s ironic that I can't fit my giant, framed master’s degree diploma (for which I still owe $50k) on my tiny apartment walls because it would look so pretentious.
Well, I've come up with a solution: I'm going to turn my diploma into a piece of collage art, and then it won't look so weird hanging in my apartment. I'm so terribly thrilled about this idea! Stay tuned for updates! It's going to be epic.
Minimalism and Digital “Stuff”
I’m currently pairing down an entire lifetime of photos. Why? Because I never look at them. They are just stored away either in real boxes or in digital boxes (folders) on my computer and backup drives. My goal for my digital photos is to delete any that aren’t good quality, I don’t know what the photo is showing, it’s a repeat photo of the same thing, or I just don’t effing care about the photo. First, this will save gigs of data on my hard drive. Also, once I pair them down, I plan to pick the highlights from each year (no more than 100 photos for each year) and create a yearly montage on my website. Then I can scroll through the pages to easily see what my years were like.
Having all these photos (especially ones that mean nothing to me) clogging up my computer is just silly. But it’s what we do now.
Right now, I can’t move my phone images to my computer until I clean off my computer images, and then I need to get an extra backup drive so I can clean off my computer images and keep a copy on a backup drive. Look how much time all these images take to manage! And if I don’t manage them, they’ll never been seen. And if they’re never seen, WHY DO I HAVE THEM???
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