I am breathing hard, apparently a little more cardio out of shape than I realized. I walk a lot more here in England than I ever dreamed of walking in Texas, but it’s just walking, it’s not power walking or pushing myself to a state of out of breath-ness.
The reason I’m breathing hard is that I’ve gotten the compelling desire to learn how to do this:
Sometimes I mystify myself. But then what’s the point of anything—of being a thinking, feeling being, alive and functioning in this lifegift, if I don’t notice the occasional odd, random appealing urge, and give it a go?
So, I’ve been trying to master the running man, or woman in my case. I get out of breath after just a few minutes, so it’s going to be slow going. I’ll keep you posted. Maybe one day I’ll be a mesmerizing meme gif you can’t stop watching. Goals.
Sometimes I mystify myself, but mostly, I know myself. Like I know I can’t buy a box of cookies or candy or any thing that is more than one single sweet item. I will eat them until they are gone. The item will bury into my being like a parasite and stay until there’s no more to be had. Now and then I hope for a different result, like tonight—I got a box of dark choc ginger florentines. There’s only nine in each box, but they pack a punch.
At first I pretended that I had it all under control. I had three back to back, and felt kind of sick. “That’ll show me,” I thought. As if. A few hours later I had a couple more, and then I knew. I knew, because I know me, that I wouldn’t be free until they were all gone. (I’m free now.)
Most of the time, I don’t buy anything like that, because of how I am. My poor Audrey, when I’d get sweets for the house—since she was a kid, or a middle schooler, and kids want treats in the house—would come to me in dismay: Mom, she’d say, where are the choc chip cookies? They are all gone. Did you eat them all?
And I say: I’m sorry. I have a problem.
I don’t know what the source of this problem is, but I know it’s the same reason I don’t drink.
Bright side → The source of the problem also has a very persistent flip side that compels me in other ways. I don’t give up. If something isn’t working, or not opening, or not shutting, or not turning on, or not doing what I want—I’m not one to say fuck it and walk away. I don’t stop until I have fixed the problem. This is also one of the things that makes me a good musician.
In most ways, I know exactly how I am and appreciate my assets and observe in a bemused fashion my flaws. This has all been about what older is, the good part of it.
Sometimes I mystify myself. There’s a 31 year old guy with an older woman kink who is mesmerized by me, (even before I’ve become a running woman meme gif) and he’s flirting shamelessly via disappearing DM’s on Insta and I’m letting him. I’m not encouraging it in anyway, but I wouldn’t say I’m discouraging it either. Whatever, he’s super hot, talented, interesting, and no guys my age are into me. Well except for the 100s I swiped past on the dating apps which I deleted months ago. The guys in real life who aren’t fishing on apps don’t give me a glance.
I’ve heard “You’d be a good catch” from the two single men I know in my age bracket, which I think is a friendly way of saying “but not for me.” This doesn’t sting. One of the good things about being my age is that my self-esteem has petrified. It’s baked in, a beautiful and tangible fossil. It’s virtually indestructible.
In case you’ve ever wondered if I think: “I am a rock star. I am a literal fucking rock star” the answer is yes, I think it. Often. I’m going to enjoy thinking it while I can, because another thing about being my age is I know everything is transient. Fossilized self esteem or not, I don’t know if I’d be thinking “I am a rock star” while tossing out my soiled Depends 20 odd years down the road. Or whatever happens at 88. For now, I’m good. Intact. Grateful. And a rock star.
Morning Routine
How much does a morning routine reveal about who a person is? What is your morning routine—do you have a regular one?
I have a friend that gets up at 5am every single day and spends the first two hours of her day meditating, doing inspirational reading and then going for a long morning walk. It didn’t work to think, “fine for you, but I’m a rock star” because my friend that does this is also a rock star. This sort of routine is mind boggling to me. I’ll never be like this, even though I think it’s probably the right way to be.
My routine is this: wake up in bed with 2 cats on top of me, purring loudly. Go downstairs, make coffee, feed cats. Turn on fire. Get phone and computer and play Quartiles, Wordle, LetterBoxed and Connections. These are short games, I save the longer ones for train rides or later day breaks. The speed and adeptness at which I solve the short games gives me a nice boost. Take that, meditation. I’m especially boosted if I get Wordle in 3 guesses.
Once I’m more awake, I read the news, which is equal to doom scrolling these days. Usually from the news, I find an interesting rabbit hole to dive into. Today, after reading about Elon Musk gaining access to the US Treasury’s payments system, I started compiling publicly available information about tax rates for the uber wealthy. For instance, Musk’s company Tesla earned 10.8 billion in profits over 2022-2024. The statutory corporate tax rate is 21%—not that any of them pay near this. At that rate, Tesla should’ve paid 2.268 billion in taxes over those three tax years. Which still leaves 8.5 billion in profit. But instead Tesla paid only 48 million in taxes. This is an astounding .4 percent. Can you imagine only paying .4 percent in income tax? This is one billionaire—soon to be trillionaire. He seems to be the worst offender, but none of them are ponying up near the rates that a firefighter, nurse, teacher, family, etc are paying. None of them. Not Bezos, not Buffet, not Bloomberg, not Zuckerberg. None of them.
We all know this, have known this. It’s worth diving into, and seeing the numbers. I can’t even conceive of this much money and will always be mystified why anyone needs and wants so much. Pro Publica did a great investigation about billionaires not paying taxes, here’s one of their many stories on this, and while you’re at it, maybe consider supporting Pro Publica, as we are desperately in need of trustworthy outlets willing to report on abuses of power.
Sometimes I mystify myself, like out of nowhere, acute pangs of uncertainty and feeling utterly lost; when just the day before I might’ve been marinating in swag and smugness at how lucky I am to be where I am with so much going on. These episodes, when dissected, can usually be pinpointed to a specific cause or trigger if I must use that overused word. Today I met friends for lunch in the area I hope and thought I wanted to live in, and afterwards spent some time vibechecking how it felt to walk around. I didn’t like how it felt. Once I got back I started perusing Right Move, the go-to site for living somewhere in London. Dragging outlines around sections of the city map and looking at places. Suddenly it all seemed pointless and stupid and I thought maybe I should just go back to Texas. Then I thought maybe New York. Then I just felt like a lonely and sad and unsure of everything rock star.
there ya have it. Thank you SO SO much for subscribing, opening, reading this far. If you want to recommend, share or restack part of this please do. I’m clueless how to hustle a damn substack so I kind of just hope readers will find me eventually. Your support and interest keep me going. until next time, xkv
Going to a concert to watch Kathy Valentine play bass while doing Walking Woman.
Goals.
The U.S. Treasury may be in serious trouble thanks to the aforementioned oligarchs, but fortunately, there will always be some redeeming qualities, thanks to people like you. You're a national treasure, Kathy Valentine, Rock Star!