Ramble on
gotta find the queen of all my dreams
Hey punks,
I meant to send this little missive out more often. A big reason I haven’t is that I’m trying to cram at least three different newsletters into one here. The original concept of Hearts & Hit Points was a mash-up of romance novels and tabletop roleplaying games. TBH, I had no idea what the Venn diagram of “people who geek out over romance novels” and “people who enjoy rolling shiny math rocks” would look like.
I just wanted a place to dump all my random thoughts about my hyper-fixations. I threw tarot in there, too, because why not? It also serves as a personal blog, because I underestimated how much I personal life I was gonna want to talk about.
But when I’m reading and/or writing romance novels, I’m not usually also thinking about D&D. I have a full-time job, and even as an empty nester, I don’t really have the bandwidth to also manage reading/writing novels, playing/running campaigns, and like, going outdoors and moving my body occasionally.
The past month has been a lot of exploring who I want to be in a new season. Most working moms spend a lot of time feeling like a set of roles without a real person underneath. Like some version of “three raccoons in a trench coat.” Now that my mom responsibilities are scaling back, I’d like to be fairly thoughtful about who that real person becomes.
It is startlingly similar to being a teenager, tbh. Trying on different identities like costumes for a Halloween party that happens every week or so. So far, I’ve purged 90% of the black and grey from my wardrobe. For one thing, black tees and Arizona summers do not mix. For another, the “most boring goth ever” wardrobe was a way of disappearing. Of making myself less noticeable. And I don’t want to do that.
Whoever I’m going to be, it’s not going to be invisible. I’m not going to be a supporting character in my own damn life.
And Tucson is a really good place to figure all that out. There are a lot more identities I could slip into and find a social group here than were available in rural southern Indiana, where your options are pretty much Church Lady or Meth Dealer.
It’s a city with a vibe. I could go for Outdoorsy Hiker Chick, Desert Hippie Artist, or Actual Cowgirl. Western U.S. History Buff. Plant Lady with a Lot of Succulents. Or some blend of those. I’m (probably?) still eligible for Former Military Wife. I guess Church Lady and Meth Dealer are still on the table? But Tucson has more flavors of Church Lady than Indiana did.
Currently, I’m feeling like a mix of 25% Outdoorsy Hiker Chick, 40% Desert Hippie Artist, 20% Church Lady, and maybe 15% Actual Cowgirl/History Buff.
This is a city where marijuana and open carry are both legal and both wildly popular. They’re generally big on personal agency, and if that means toking up and/or packing heat, well, just don’t be an asshole about it. It’s 2 hours from the Mexican border, but the residents are 1000% more stressed out about the seasonal migration of snowbirds and college students than they are about refugees and immigrants.
If Tucson has an unspoken motto, it’s “Live and Let Live.” Or possibly “Live and Let’s Eat” because there’s an extraordinary restaurants-to-residents ratio. On a pace-of-life scale from Hawaii to NYC, well, aloha amigos. Hope you’re not in a rush.
At any rate, I’m figuring out who I want to be when I’m away from this keyboard. Which means I’m spending a lot more time away from this keyboard. Which is, on the whole, a good thing. But it probably means this newsletter/blog is going to end up evolving into something else, too. I’ll let you know what that is when I know.
Till then, stay cool punks.