And so it begins...

We’re four hours into our Detroit-Beijing leg and I think my mind is finally starting to slow down and sort all it’s thoughts. I’ve known, since August, about our impending move to China; it seems that would be more than enough time for me to get my shit together. But instead… the last two days were a complete frenzy trying to get really important things, that I had of course procrastinated on, done.

For instance: I went to our Safe Deposit box three times in two days… (and I still ended up with a pile of crap I’m relying on Jordie to get in there for me!) I only put a change-of-address request in on Monday of this week. My new drivers license? I cut that so close that as of Friday… it was still not in my mailbox!

None of this actually surprises me… or anyone in my family for that matter. When Mikey asked me, last night, “What all did you put in our carry-on?”, I replied... “Our life.” And that’s not too far from the truth. I’ve had an ever-growing pile of papers on my desk at home with a tiny little hot-pink sticky on the top of it. The sticky reads… “Deal with this shit.”  Guess where that pile is right now? Yep… in the overhead bin above me. That and all our meds… including a six-month supply of both Ambien and Xanax for me. I’ll either sleep through the occasional difficult moments, (we’re sure to face a few), or maybe not even be aware of them at all!

But this time tomorrow starts my new life. And that life includes, for now at least, very little structure or responsibility. So I’ll chip away at that pile, and anything else that I either blew off or it flat out didn’t occur to me to deal with, via the oft-spotty Chinese internet. What’s done is done and what is not will surely find it’s way to me even though I moved half-way around the world to escape it! Hopefully it will be on the slow boat to China! (Bam!)

But what I’d like to use the rest of this inaugural ‘Beijing Bakers’ blog post for, is to regurgitate some of those thoughts that have been rapid cycling in my brain these past few days. Hold on tight, get a glass of wine or a cup of Joe, depending on when you’re reading this; there is after all a 14-hour time difference between Beijing and Kansas City… I’m ahead!  Here goes!

Some of you have been long time readers of my blog, ChrissyCan. For those who are new to it, I began blogging in 2005 when most people didn’t even know what a blog was. I include myself in that group. I am self-taught, and a little rusty now, but I’ll get back up to speed. The short of it, (right… when do I ever give an abridged version of anything), is I was desperately looking for a way to cheat, on replying to emails, when we moved to Texas. I was just “one person”, who left a whole lot of friends and family behind when we moved down to Clear Lake, TX for Mike’s job. This collective group would email me frequently. Email has never been a strong suit of mine and I found it excruciating to reply to each and every one. So I started cutting and pasting my replies and just changing a few details to personalize it… lame I know. “There has to be a better way”, I thought. And damn if there wasn’t. And that folks, is how my blog began.  

I haven’t consistently blogged in a long time… I blame it on Facebook! I used to craft a story that sometimes took hours. All of a sudden we were living in a world of instant gratification. A mere thought could be regurgitated into a FB post in a few lines and bam it was over. I will still post there; don’t think I’ve gone completely off the deep end… but I am looking forward to getting back to my roots. Writing.

There are a few disclosures I’d like to make, especially for you newbies. I cuss. I cuss a fucking lot. Consider yourselves warned.

I also don’t get hung up on proper grammar or punctuation… although let it be known… I am a fan of the Oxford Comma AND 2 spaces at the end of a sentence… although I am working on that last one. Other than that… you purists are just going to have to get over it. I write like I speak… gasp! I was born in and raised by a New Yorker… I often drop my “G’s”. I’m not fuckin kiddin.

Sometimes I’m funny. Real fuckin funny. I know that. You know that. But if you’ve been with me for the long haul you also know that I lay it all out there too. When my heart is breaking, you will probably cry along with me. When I’m pissed… trust me you’ll know it. If every third post of mine is a hit, that’d be an incredible stat. Don’t expect it!

I don’t blog about Mikey. He’s off limits. But if you promise not to tell anyone I’ll let you in on a secret. Sometimes I do, but I back-date it so he doesn’t see it! Not that he would see it anyway… he doesn’t read my blog. Honest! Neither did my mom. I still can’t shake that… my own mutha didn’t read my blog. Guess I’m not all that after all! BTW… I do use categories on the blog, you’ll see them listed down the right-side margin. There’s no real science to it and quite frankly I’m only thrilled with a few of them but this thing will be 11 years old this year… there’s no going back now! (But if you are looking for good stuff on Mikey… there may or may not be a category for him listed there. But don’t tell him that!)

Most posts are not this long. But some are. Deal or move on.

Comments. Not gonna lie… I love your comments. But from what I remember, and it has something to do with the way I set up my privacy settings, I think you might have to jump through a couple of hoops your first time. But once you do… you’re golden. Quite frankly, I don’t remember what they are, register with Google or something… I’d check for you but I only decided to pay the $40 bucks for International Wi-Fi four hours into the flight and we lost it one hour after that! So check for yourselves. Or better yet… comment on this post, jump through said hoops, and make me a happy chick!

You can also “subscribe” to my blog. All that means is that you will get an email letting you know when I’ve posted. That’s important because we all know what I have to say is of the utmost importance in the world. Ok, ok… at least (hopefully) I’ll supply you with a morning giggle to go along with your coffee! Again… I’ve not really been active on my blog for a while so if that link to subscribe is working properly or not, I could not tell you right now. Again… I’m flying blind here, (Oh, how I love a good pun!) so check it out for yourself if you’d like. I think it’s, again, on the right side of the page but you’ll have to scroll down toward the bottom.

I’m happy to be back again writing; it’s my one true passion. And if you’ll humor me just a little bit longer I would like to write a few words about writing a personal blog in hopes that others will use this medium to find their inner voice and maybe share their experiences. 

Blogging, especially one with no real purpose other than to, let’s call it what it is… online journaling with a twist of voyeurism… is fucking hard. The writing part isn’t hard, words flow like water… sometimes hot lava… for some of us; I’m blessed to be one of those people. But it takes balls. Big balls. It doesn’t bother me as much as it used to, but the angst that builds right before you hit the “Publish” button is huge! First it’s the content… is it good enough? Did I fuck up my grammar and punctuation too badly? Did I cuss too much? And the biggest fear of all… did I expose myself… the good (entertaining), the bad (lame posts), and the ugly (exposing weakness and vulnerability) in a way that I can never get back? It’s scary; words written in truth are sometimes raw. But I have never once deleted a single post I’ve written; that’s a statistic I intend to keep. As much as, many of you tell me, you get from some of my writing, believe you me… I get ten-fold more.  Writing is sanity to me. It frees my rapid cycling brain and offers me, at least in the short term, a peaceful, quiet mind. So if you’ve ever thought about blogging but get tripped up by the very fears I just mentioned… power through and do it. For you!

I have no idea what this new chapter of ChrissyCan will look like. But I sure appreciate you coming along for the ride!

I’ll finish up now with one final thought. I really wanted to title this post, “I’m moving to FUCKING Beijing” but I hadn’t yet covered that whole “I cuss” thang. Now you know.