the end is the beginning

I've been to some great concerts in my past. Bands that I was excited for months or even years to see. I've seen My Morning Jacket and the Decemberists too many times to count and even got on stage at the Ryman once. I met a member of the Polyphonic Spree and I've seen Radiohead at an arena. I get really excited when Brit Floyd comes to town. And my concert experiences are only a mere cupful compared to all the concerts Peppy has gone to over his entire life. My concert career didn't begin until I was about 14. His mom was a DJ and his dad has always been super into live music. Peppy's been to all kinds of concerts since he was born. He's seen the REAL Pink Floyd! When we first married and Peppy had lots of free time, one of his biggest hobbies was finding new music to listen to. He loves music. Music is his passion and he's seen all of his favorite bands during all the stages of his life. All this to say, neither of us have ever experienced amnesia at a con...

By definition, planned obsolescence is producing consumer goods that are designed to become obsolete so that a newer, shinier version needs to be purchased. This is not a new fad at all. Since the beginning of advertising, we've always been prompted to buy the newest, most up-to-date product. We've always got to keep up with the people next door. Our lives must look envious to the outsider, even if it's all fake. Sometimes it feels like we are the products and the ones being sold.  These bras are scientifically designed.  One of my favorite time wasting subreddits is Expectation vs Reality. It's mostly pictures of what someone ordered off Wish or Ali Express, and the received item is NOTHING like the one that was pictured. Why is it called Wish? Because you wish you received what you ordered. But it goes further than cheaply made overseas items, and now nothing is really what it is advertised to be.  What is this? Cornhole for ants? by u/neophaltr in E...

Whether or not you believe it to be true, at one time the entire world shared similar architecture and construction. You can search this out yourself. It's not hidden, it's just not the history they teach you in school. Buildings that we were told were Grecian have been found in Asian countries and vice versa. This was in America too. The world used to be filled with these fabulous mansions and castles that shared many similar qualities. For tons more information, check out the  Divergent youtube channel. He must spend all his free time digging up old pictures. And to go down the entire false history rabbit hole,  John Levi  is my absolute favorite old world history youtuber. I truly believe something happened in the mid 1800s that caused western society to completely rewrite history. I have been really interested in the orphan trains and these huge abandoned cities with state fairs that they *say* were built just to destroy, but today I was thinking about insane asylums...

It had rained Friday and so yesterday I was looking around for mushrooms for Peppy's cousin. I only found a couple, but while I was searching I was hit with the realization that, Hello! I love trees. I had really forgotten this about myself. My phone gallery used to be screenshots that made me laugh, my family, animals, and nature (although a majority of trees with various intricacies.) So I spent the better part of an hour just walking around the property appreciating the trees for what felt like the first time in my life, although this just means the first time in my post brain mush Deanna. I would look at all the gnarled parts and appreciate all the little things that made them different.  I have so many (unironic) pictures of me hugging trees all over America. A couple cacti too. How did I forget this about myself? Well, I actually have a theory on this. Covid has made the world so much smaller to me, and I really only pay attention to what is directly in front of my face at an...

*The Rockefeller Foundation and the WHO announce partnership to expand global pandemic preparedness in the face of.... climate change . John D. Rockefeller. Most elderly men don't look like the guy from poltergeist. Just the evil ones. I think his reptilian was coming out in this picture. See also: Prince Phillip. You can look up younger pictures of John Rockefeller and his eyes look just as possessed as they do here. That's not cataracts. Look up Helena Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley. They all have the same eyes. I need to make a slide show of all these faces with My Morning Jacket 'Sec Walkin' playing. "Look for eyes that hypnotize and sparkle. Demon eyes are watching everywhere. Brother, brother, don't you care?" *AI is unlocking the secrets of the human  brain . * AI  helps scientists find a medication that could help combat drug-resistant infections. *Bear helps himself to sixty  cupcakes  at a bakery in Connecticut. *India official drops phone while tak...

Last night Peppy and I watched  Nightmare Alley . I gave him a couple choices, one being  Crimes of the Future , which did not interest him at all and I will probably have to watch by myself sometime. I was looking at a May Hulu list and it said Nightmare Alley was available to stream there, but apparently I was looking at a list from last May. (Fun fact: I kept telling people on the phone at the food bank that we were going to be closed Monday for Labor Day because apparently my brain thought it was September. Can't believe I somehow missed the entire summer.) Anyway, we ended up renting it on Amazon because we like del Toro films and this one looked really good. And it is so hard for me to find us something to watch together. Not because we have vastly different tastes in movies, but because it is all the same. Plus all the nudity. I do not mind the cursing because it really goes in one ear and out the other, but I hate a gratuitous sex scene. All I can think about is h...

Here's another unpublished short story from eight years ago. This one is not autobiographical, but it could be based on a true story of an eight year old's traumatized imagination. Maybe mine. Maybe not. You can make anything you don't understand mean anything you want it to. _____________________________________ THE PAGEANT QUEEN The little girl didn't like being in beauty pageants, but she disliked disappointing her mother even more. Oh, how the mother could guilt trip like no other, and the little girl often thought it was better to be passive than attempt to stand up to her mother. It just wasn't worth disappointing her. She knew no one could out-victim her mother. Even as a small child the girl had enough wisdom to understand that. Up until this point, the little girl had spent her whole life trying to be the daughter her mother wanted her to be. But it was hard to be the perfect daughter for a few good reasons, the first being that the little girl was quite p...

This is a short story that I wrote ten years ago. I clicked on my old blog this morning looking for a particular picture and saw all these drafts of short stories that I either never finished or just never published. Probably because these didn't really fit in with my mommy blog persona. All of them are pretty dark, so I'm thinking they might fit in better here. Re-reading them I truly understand why I never posted them for my fellow mommy bloggers. So I present to you, unnamed story #1. This is a work of fiction and any names and situations (and personality traits) are purely coincidental . This event didn't happen ten years ago or any other time in my life.  ________________________________________________________________ THE WAR ON DRUGS My brother texted me at midnight. 120 mg of adderall and i can't stop moving. I laughed in spite of the text. Oh, my younger brother. Never content with life. Always trying to get the next fix. At least he's only hurting himself...

*An AI picture of a fire at the  Pentagon  went viral yesterday and briefly affected the stock market. This was just a minor glitch in the system, but this is only the beginning. Seeing is no longer believing. You must have discernment and wisdom from the Lord to survive the coming days. *AI company claims to be able to hold a  seance  on your dead loved ones. Really, what could go wrong? The article is basically a verbatim Black Mirror episode of using your loved ones' prior social media posts to recreate the illusion of a dead person speaking to you.  * Guam  braces for the most powerful typhoon in 20 years, Super Typhoon Mawar. *The global loss of  wildlife  is significantly higher than previously thought.  *Epstein had threatened to report Bill Gates's  affair  with a fourteen year old girl.  *60,000 tons of  explosives  were 'lost' in shipping. *Millions of Mexicans warned to evacuate as  Popocatepetl volcan...

I just woke up from a deeeeeep three hour nap on the couch. The naps that draw the outside world into your mind and weave into your dreams (which I never have,) but I swear Peppy sat down next to me wearing long knaki pants talking about a show, The Light Horse, that clearly does not exist. But I just googled it, and it is actually a bar in Virgina, so now I'm thinking that he was talking on the phone to one of the beverage distributors.  We had some last minute guests this weekend. Peppy's stepdad (Tim), his wife (Donna) and his mother-in-law (Shella) were taking a cross country RV trip from Arizona to Kentucky. They had a few breakdowns as well as a flat, and time considering, we had initially been planning on meeting them in Kentucky, but we all decided it was just best to come and hang out here. I knew Donna's birthday had been earlier in the week so I was already planning on making her a cake, but now I had to do that and clean the house. And figure out some meal ideas...