Hello, it’s good to be back!
Thanks to all of you for standing by me, supporting me, my blog, and my blogging break.
Against all odds, I’ve tried to keep up with your blogs too, but couldn’t seem to muster the energy or inspiration to write a post myself.
I’ve resolved not to make any resolutions this new year, but to keep exploring this uncharted life of mine.
But here’s what happened when I was gone, sort of….
1. I learned I’m never going to be a proper gym bunny. It seems to involve an excessive amount of hair-flipping, giggling, spandex, and a thong or two where they don’t belong or two.
2. Inconsiderate people keep using my public library to take out books I wish to read. On a brighter note, they’ve increased the hold limit to 60 items!

3. Another plane, another train, but no way to get those Beastie Boys outta of my brain. Every time I see or hear an ad for the movie, Brooklyn voices inside my head sing: “No sleep till Brooklyn!”.
4. If you don’t try you can’t fail, but you can’t succeed either.
5. I miss when stuff didn’t have so many names or labels, when you could just like what you liked. My lovely childhood crushes on Tom Baker, Kirk, and Bobby Darin, ok, that one ended badly when I found out he’d been dead for several years (somewhere beyond the sea, for sure), anyway, all that would now be called ‘fangirling’. Long before Mr. Darcy plunged into that lake and Daryl Dixon picked up a crossbow, I had labels I didn’t know about. Forget labels, just be you, that’s enough.
6. People who say, “I’m not going to say I told you so” are really saying, “I told you so”.

7. I missed blogging! I needed a break, to write my book, catch up on life, which is being dreadfully uncooperative, but I missed this and you, dear readers and I bet you missed all my, er, blogging advice.
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/04/10/im-hooked-on-a-feeling/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/03/26/why-i-will-never-be-freshly-pressed/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/08/27/message-in-a-bottle/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/10/16/you-cant-handle-the-blogging-truth/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/05/12/i-cant-make-you-love-me/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/09/26/the-phantom-of-the-blogging-tips/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/06/09/to-blog-or-not-to-blog/
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/11/07/can-you-feel-the-blog-love-tonight/

8. Imagine, you win millions in the lottery, would you spend it on a vanity project? That’s what Alice (Kristen Wiig) does in Welcome To Me, a weird little film with a big, brilliant cast including: Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack, James Marsden, Wes Bentley, Linda Cardellini, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alan Tudyk. Full of uncomfortable moments, it had me questioning quite a few things, especially blogging – is blogging just a vanity project, a sort of emotional exhibitionism?

9. While suffering from Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Haven, The Blacklist, Into The Badlands withdrawal, which wasn’t pretty and mostly consisted of me trying not to whine about it, since these are clearly First World Problems, to the extreme, I decided to read more (is that possible?). Why not get caught up on a few of the fascinating ‘And Philosophy…’ series from Open Court? I started with Doctor Who and Philosophy, then Downton Abbey, Homeland, and The Walking Dead. I noticed all these books toil to shatter the myth that TV is simply a vast cultural wasteland. Fighting zombies, taking tea, traveling through time and space, those are hooks to get us to watch and keep watching, it’s really about the interaction between the characters, the choices, the sacrifices, those moments when we see ourselves and feel or learn something. If it can happen in a book, why can’t it happen on TV or in movies? I love these books because like the TARDIS, they’re bigger on the inside, making me feel all esoteric, ideologicalish, and thinky, but without getting that time-consuming philosophy degree. Just the way I like it.

10. I sometimes forget (or wish to forget) what a tricky beast and ruthless, relentless taskmaster Fibromyalgia can be, but I’ll keep trying to keep on keeping on…easier said than done.

Tomorrow we could be alive or dead, but today, my friends, today we are alive, so go out there and live.
