I woke up this morning with Elton John’s “Sad Songs” running through my head and, subsequently, the version Sasson paid him to sing for their jeans back in the 80s…

It could be worse… I’ve woken up with all sorts of tunes in my head, not all of them ones I like. Yeah, we all get ear worms at one time or another, but my brain takes it to extremes. I haven’t heard the song currently in my head in decades. Worse, I don’t know why I wake up like this, with just some random song bopping about. Usually I can get them to go away, but there was this one time in high school… For no reason, Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” was running through my head, from the time I woke up until I fell asleep, for 2 weeks straight! And I never even liked that song! It was torture! Luckily, they played it on the radio one day and I recorded it to a cassette in case it happened again. Listening to it got rid of the ear worm. Stupid thing is, now I actually like that song…

On a happier note, I finally figured out how to get my new Tibetan singing bowl to sing! Go me!

I was bound and determined to figure this shit out… I mean, yeah, it sounds nice when you just strike it and it resonates a decent amount of time. But I wanted mine to sing, damn it! I even had other people try it like how I saw it demonstrated on YouTube. Nothing… But I kept on trying and dorking with it. Now, I still don’t know how those people got theirs to work… The gist is that you strike it at the point where it bulges out furthest and run the mallet around the outside near the rim. Easy enough, right? Nope, I just couldn’t get it to work. All these people used the padded end of the striker, which ended up stopping the vibration for me. So I decided to strike it with the padded end and use the wooden end to run around the outside so that, hopefully, the vibration wouldn’t stop. Success! It sang! Beautifully, I might add…

Anyway… Yesterday I had to go see the cardiologist, again, because this was not a good week.

I wasn’t thrilled about going because I was leery that they might end up having me admitted to get my tests done sooner. Luckily that wasn’t the case. I did get scolded for not going to the ER Sunday when I felt really awful after walking around the flea market in that excessive heat… Apparently, any time something is wonky, that’s where I’m to go to see what’s going on. Yeah, I’ll rush right in with all the COVID patients to have them tell me it’s just my anxiety, right? Hahahaa… Nope. Well, the NP I saw decided she wanted to get a Holter monitor on me yesterday, but they were all out and in use. Now I go back Monday to get one on for 24 hours. Isn’t that lovely looking… Looks like I’ll be wearing R2D2’s innards on me. Worse, you can’t shower. That’s not going to be good… I’m a germaphobe! I won’t touch any area I call a clean zone without being squeaky clean. I have no idea where I’ll sleep…

So, to keep myself stress free (sort of), I’ve been playing an awful lot of Animal Crossing New Horizons.

I named my place Zen Isle because I wanted a peaceful place to escape to and avoid stress. And, on occasion, laugh at the weird things my villagers do or say. Like this scene I came across one afternoon… What the fuck is going on here, exactly…? Animal Crossing Mafia…? Yakuza…?! I have no idea, but it looked pretty freaky… What exactly were they planning?

Sometimes I get a good laugh at how goofy and stupid they are. Like this interaction with my favorite villager, Punchy, in the art section of the museum. When I approached him to speak to him, this was his response to me. Mind you… he was looking at the Mona Lisa… Aside from the fact that it’s the most famous painting in the world, I’m pretty sure this is not his mom. She died centuries ago and she’s also not a cat. So when he said this, I said, “What the fuck?!” and burst out laughing. Laughter is the best medicine, so they say.

But amazing as some think my island looks, it’s really not that great in comparison to some. I’ve seen YouTube videos where people went all bat shit insane. A medieval theme, a zoo theme, a Harry Potter theme, even a murder mystery island! They have the most well laid out design, gorgeous terraforming, and they cheated to get items we can’t get yet in the northern hemisphere. I can’t help but watch these videos and get disgusted with how mine looks. Maybe it’s time for massive change…

All I know is that I want my island to be beautiful yet peaceful. I want it to have that feeling of zen without being too crazy.

If nothing else, at least it helps my anxiety, a little… And it’s helping my creativity to come back, to a small degree. I think if I can keep those creative juices flowing, maybe I can start getting rid of stress and relieving anxiety. Or cause more trying to make my island some sort of fucking masterpiece. I’m so particular…