No regular cream cheese? How is it possible that there is no regular cream cheese? Are the tourists using it as sunscreen? Waxing their surfboards with it? How can a big store like ShopRite BE OUT OF REGULAR CREAM CHEESE??
I had been doing fine up to that point. I was in the store by 7:00 a.m. to beat the crowds, stocking up on household staples for the long weekend. I had been negotiating the packed island like a game of Frogger all week- jumping on swiftly moving logs and clinging for dear life on the backs of turtles and alligators. We all know how it works this time of year. Back roads, odd times, obscure pop-ins, side alleys, dark shadows. Up to the Cream Cheese Debacle I had managed to skirt along the edges of the Panic! at the Shore. But the dairy aisle pushed me past my point of tolerance.
No regular cream cheese? Fine. It was time to do something drastic.
So I bought strawberry.
Joke’s on you! The silly crowds aren’t bothering me. I’m barely even aware of them, my mental state is so completely Zen. I’m headed out of town tomorrow. I’ve lived on this island for 30 years, and I am finally, FINALLY, going to be able to spend my Fourth of July the way I want to.
Quietly. Quiet streets, quiet water, quiet walks, quiet museums. I’ll be attending a private barbeque in a friend’s backyard, sitting in a plastic chair watching modest fireworks in the grass with a total of about twenty people, all of whom I know.
Truly my Independence Day.
I hope you had a week filled with roses and buds, and I want to reiterate that there are a lot of changes coming for The (Not) It Girl. By my count, there are probably only eight more “normal” weeks left before “The (Not) It Girl,” a.k.a. Mary, is catapulted into chaos and blogosphere. On a recent Zoom call with my agent, I watched her face scrunch up as she uttered these words:
“’The (Not) It Girl’? Mary, I gotta tell you, I’m not married to it.”
Changes will be small at first, then will grow exponentially. My website might have a different URL (we are consulting about that now), and will feature not only my daily blog in a fancier format and paid for by advertisers, but also a travel gallery, a product and services store and a schedule of my 2022 speaking appearances and my media credits. The email list will be a big addition- when you log onto my blog for the day, an email request will pop up. Make sure you sign up for updates and free stuff.
It’s funny. Most of us have a story about the struggle and frustration of first starting out, don’t we? Days spent living in small drafty apartments, eating Ramen noodles, living paycheck to paycheck. Days that seemed harrowing when we were in them, but then years later, when we look back on them we realize they were some of the best times of our lives.
I can already tell how it’s going to feel looking back on these times. I know that in one year, I will think fondly back to when my life was just sitting on my couch with my laptop perched up on a pillow on my knees, writing my daily blog to my little readership. It has been a sweet, sweet ride, and I have loved having you along. I hope you enjoy my writing and my thoughts enough to follow me onto my next journey. I’ll keep you fully apprised, and I can’t thank you enough for reading.
And have a great holiday, wherever you’re celebrating it from. I’ll be spending part of mine writing some good stuff for you for next week, to make up for the recent lame content. I promise you that the missing quality in this past week’s posts was applied elsewhere. I am humbled, TRULY HUMBLED, by the sequence of events in my life in the past few weeks. Gratitude doesn’t come close to describing it, although it will have to do. To wit:
When riches begin to come, they come so quickly, in such great abundance, that one wonders where they have been hiding during all those lean years.
Love ya a ton.
