7/19/18: Today I noticed that exercise actually is the best cure for tiredness. I've been told that all my life, and I even see people in movies saying it, but I could never believe it. If you're tired the point is to rest, not put your body through rigorous movement! Isn't that counter-intuitive?

And today as I was sitting and watching some YouTube videos that I love and that make me laugh, I was already feeling exhausted, and wondering how I'd be able to go into work that day.

But then when I got to work, which does require me to do lots of moving and lifting and smiling, I felt so much better! I still don't understand the science behind this by any means, and it probably won't always prevent me from crashing as soon as I get home, but still, it is encouraging to know that the secret to getting more energy is literally faking that you have energy until your body believes that you actually do.

7/20/18: Today I noticed a spider sitting on the wall about six inches from my head. Fortunately, it didn't alarm me too much; as bugs go spiders probably scare me the least out of any of them. But it always does give me a bit of a jumpscare to see any kind of bug just lurking, especially so close to my head. I'm not even sure if it was alive before I crushed it under a tissue, as it was kind of behind a cupboard, and so may have been there for a while. That just leads me to again be irritated with the house I live in, as killing bugs has been a full-time job, even though the people here are so close with their pest control guys that they're practically all on a first-name basis with them. I'd love to move to a place with no creepy crawlies, but honestly, what kind of place is there like that except, I don't know, Antarctica?

So this begs the question for me, again, of why do bugs exist? One of the best things I ever found in a poetry book was "The Lord in his wisdom made the fly, and then forgot to tell us why." Seriously, why must we be tormented by these tiny specimens of terror and disgust? I did read books in school about actual things they do, but aside from bees helping things to grow and certain bugs keeping the population of other bugs in check, do we really need them?

I don't know, I love being outside and seeing trees and breathing fresh air and realness, but some days I'm ready for a big shuttle to take me to space like in WALL-E.

7/21/18: Today I noticed that my mattress is now sinking at an alarming weight. See, when I moved into this place pretty much exactly one year ago, the bed that I already found there was this super cheap frame that literally came in three pieces to snap together. And the mattress was one where you actually sink into and make a dent in it when you sit on it. I made the mistake, just a few months in, of sitting on the very foot of this mattress and pretty much irreparably tucking it down into the frame. Now that corner of the mattress is always slightly dipped, which I didn't necessarily mind, it's just that I knew I couldn't do it again or it would get worse.

But I DID do it again, at least two other times since, and now today is the first day where both corners of the end of my mattress are sinking, no matter how many times I try to pull it back up. I'd turn the mattress around, but I don't really want my pillow and head to be sinking; I'd much rather it be my feet, even if now about one-fourth of the mattress is unusable now. And mattresses are expensive, I don't want to spring for a new one, even though I've hated this mattress since the minute I first sat on it! So I guess I'll just deal with it. I mean my bedframe DOES have slats on the bottom, so really, how much further down can my mattress go? I guess I can stick it out until I move again. Even though that won't be for at least another two years, and maybe more.

7/22/18: Today I noticed that the towel I used after my shower was a lot fluffier than normal. My regular towel was in the wash, so I'd pulled a new one out of the cupboard, and the difference between the one that gets washed every week and the one that's barely ever been used was staggering. I feel spoiled now, it was so fluffy I don't ever want to go back to my old towel! Although if I used this one instead of course it would get less fluffy the more it was washed, too. So basically I've decided I just want a new towel every time I take a shower.

On a related note, I noticed that the oven mitts had shrunk in the wash. Now they haven't ever been washed since we got them, which I admit is disgusting, but was never a reason for someone to wash them in the past, so I don't know what possessed them to do it now. They were all laying out to dry this morning, when I had to use one. But when I put it on my hand, it wasn't that big floppy piece of cloth I was used to, but now was an effort to put on, and even more so to close any part of my hand around it.

Washing machines do weird things, man. Whether it's taking away the fluffiness of something or making it smaller, cleanliness is certainly hard on the glad rags that make up our everyday lives.

7/23/18: Today I noticed that I had messages on my Instagram feed. I hadn't checked my personal Instagram in about six months, because I have a very difficult time caring about social media, and the posts of people I'm barely friends with. But I recently got a new phone, and when the app was transferred onto it, it logged on to my personal Instagram, so today I actually looked at it for apparently the first time since January. I found one funny picture that my friend had sent to me at the beginning of the year, which I didn't feel bad about missing because she could have just texted it to me if it was really important.

But then I saw my other message, and it was an update from my Grandpa. And that's when I felt guilty. I felt guilty, for not checking my social media! He lives in a different state from me now, and he'd just wanted to check in on me and tell me about the vacation he and my Grandma were on.

He sent that in May.

So not too bad, but still! I love my grandfather, and he and I don't communicate all that often, so I was very upset that I didn't see that at the time. The moral of this story is to check all your social medias, kids. All of them. All the time.

Or just don't get social media in the first place. I'm 21, but I was done with Instagram one week after making an account, and that was just in the last year!

7/24/18: Today I noticed what looked like a 2-inch strip of paper, or a wet leaf, or maybe some stray scrap of food on my floor, but it is a darn good thing I didn't reach down to pick it up, because on further reflection I realized it was a lizard.

A lizard, on my bedroom rug! Now here's the thing, I know this thing was harmless, and it was so microscopic that I couldn't even tell it was a live animal at first. But I hate it when people tell me a lizard or an insect of some kind is harmless, because I'm really not all that concerned about whether something can harm me or not, as I am concerned about the way something moves. Now, lizards I've always been terrified of because they sit so still, but then they suddenly dart away at the speed of light. That and snakes are my biggest phobia, and a lizard is basically a snake with legs. I've gotten over the fear of lizards in recent years, because I know now that unlike cockroaches or spiders, they will do anything to get out of your way if you approach them. The common ones, anyway.

But how much I started freaking out when I saw this thing that wasn't more than a couple centimeters long. I made one attempt to scoop it up in a cup, but when it suddenly darted out of the way I recoiled onto my bed in terror. I then went to the kitchen to get a bowl to hopefully trap it under, but when I returned, the lizard was gone.

I looked for it a bit, but the thing is, it IS so tiny that it could have crawled into my purse, or behind my bookcase, or even into a fold in my bedclothes and I wouldn't see it. And fourteen hours later, I still haven't seen it.

So THAT'S terrifying me kind of a lot. There was a beetle jumping around my room last week at 3am, which woke me up because of a horrible clicking sound it made every time it left the ground. There was the spider that I mentioned a couple of days ago. And now this???

Oh yeah, I'm ready for you, Axiom from WALL-E.

7/25/18: Today I noticed that I only have one more week, or six days rather, or work days before I can go to Tennessee for the weekend. Tennessee may not sound all that desirable of a vacation spot to most, but I'm not really going there for vacation. There's a college in Nashville that I'm very interseted in seeing, because I might apply there, and I want to see if I think I'd enjoy living in Nashville. But also I'm seeing a show with some celebrities that I like, so that makes it even more exciting. And also I'm going by myself, which I haven't really done before. I've travelled by myself before, but there were always people I knew on both ends of the journey. This is the first time that I'm going somewhere where I won't be meeting anyone, because I don't know anyone, so I'll actually have to get a hotel room by myself, which is very cool.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the ten-hour drive. I mean it'll be a long journey, because I've decided to only way for me to stay sane is to stop every two hours on the dot and buy a candy bar or something, and walk around. But still, that's a lot of two hours I'll have to fill, and I'm not sure what I'll be listening to. It'll have to be in CD form, whatever it is, but I don't have really any CDs that I haven't done to death, and other than like a whole long of random songs from various locations (see, this is why I wish I could listen to the songs on my phone), I'm not sure of any I'd want to get from the library either.

But still! Excited for my trip!

7/26/18: Today I noticed that spaghetti tastes really good when you're actually hungry. See, I'm not at all a fan of spaghetti; for whatever reason I just kind of groan whenever I have to eat it. I still do eat it though, because it's not that I can't stomach it, I just would always prefer something else. That being said, I usually have vast amounts of bread or salad to go with it, or I've had a snack less than two hours prior and thus wasn't quite hungry enough for a pasta dish that I didn't really want in the first place.

But today I had spaghetti for dinner, and I hadn't eaten for several hours, and I didn't have salad or bread with it. So I only had a small portion, and then realized it's actually pretty good if you eat it as God intended!

I don't know why I don't like spaghetti, though. I really despise tomatoes, but I've never had a problem with marinara sauce. And I can eat virtually any other kind of pasta, so I don't know what my problem is with these two combinations of foods. But, like I said, I do eat spaghetti anyway, on a regular basis actually, so I must not hate it THAT much.

7/27/18: Today I noticed that the slats under my mattress had shifted! I mentioned a couple of days ago that my mattress was sinking into the bed frame, despite my knowledge that there were actually slats there. Today I decided to actually lift the mattress up and see what the problem was, and I discovered that the slats are kind of attached together in a rope ladder fasion, and about half of them had pushed up against the other half. I have absolutely no idea how this happened, or really how long it's been like that, but I mean they must have been steadily pushed back because of how slowly my mattress was sinking.

Anyway, so I pulled them back to where they were supposed to be, and hey presto the mattress is no longer sinking! So that's a great relief to my mind. I still would love both a new bed frame and a new mattress, but those are not such pressing matters anymore, since I know that I will no longer sink through the bedframe onto my floor one night.

I kind of laugh now too to think that flipping the mattress over would have solved the situation. Man, I would have been so confused...

7/28/18 (AKA Day 10-Revision): Dear Grandpa,

I thought I'd start off by pointing out that this is the 365th letter I've written to you. That's an entire year's worth of letters! And I've never even met you!

I thought I'd tell you some of the things that have happened this past week, and some things that will be happening in the future. I hope, anyway. I can't actually see the future, turns out.

First of all, I have seen a lizard, a spider, and a beetle in my room and in very close proximity to me lately. I know, I know, I live in Texas and it's the middle of July, but I do miss my perfect Southern California lifestyle, where everything was perfect, and there was a perfect lack of bugs. Did I mention everything there was perfect? (And now "perfect" is no longer a word.) Haven't seen any cockroaches in a long while though, which is a good thing. Also, fortunately no snakes, though I have decided that I will move back to my...ideal California again if I ever see one in the house.

You know that whole thing with my mattress that I've been complaining about ever since I got it? Well, it got worse, and then it got better. See, turns out the slats under my mattress had sort of...rearranged themselves, thus causing my mattress to sink. So I pulled them back, and now my bed looks like a bed again, instead of a sinkhole!

...I'm such an idiot.

Also, I've learned some life/adult skills. Turns out exercise is actually the cure for tiredness, food tastes better when you are actually hungry, and the washing machine will reduce the fluffiness of your towels and will shrink your oven mitts. Who knew.

Dad posted a "throwback Thursday" type thing to my Facebook, because apparently a picture of you and Grandma had appeared on his feed from a long time ago. So that was cool, seeing a glimpse of your life from a time before I was born.

And that's it for the past! Now for the glimpse into the future.

I'm driving to Tennessee next week. By myself. To go look at a college. By myself. Doesn't sound all that significant; I mean people do that all the time, and people who a few years younger than me do it even more often. But for me, you'll know that's big. I'm scared of everything, and I was so sheltered that I believed Santa Clause was real until I was ten years old. Plus, I haven't exactly been pro-college before now. I've been taking that journey very slowly.

But I can't tell you how excited I am to go and do this college thing. A road trip and a college visit by myself! It's...it's...actually pretty terrifying. Maybe I haven't thought this through. I mean the road trip I can handle; it's just like driving 15 minutes to my job, just like 40 more times! But the college trip? Can I really do that?

No, I know I can. I know you'd be proud of me for doing it, too. But I do wish you were alive so that I could actually hear you say that to me.

I love you, Grandpa! See you in letter #366!

Sincerely,

Catherine

Rachel Flick

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