I am always grateful for my family, having a home to live in, being in relatively good health and the ability to pay my bills.

But in addition to all of that, right now, I am and will always be grateful to all those tireless people who have been on the front lines.

Besides being one who believes in doing things for the common good of all, I have followed the rules as much as humanly possible to not contribute to the hard work of these people who are courageous enough to do what they have been doing.

What are you most grateful for, right now, in this moment?

I’ve got one urgent priority that I will begin tackling shortly after this March challenge is over.

My priority is to concentrate on getting to a healthier place physically and mentally.

Every time I’ve said this in the past, my efforts started off strong and then took a back seat to renovations, annual submissions and impromptu visits to emergency rooms.

It always seems that whenever I start making progress on these fronts, the devil steps in and messes with me.

But I am no longer a spring chicken, my body feels it and it is now or never to get things under control.

And when I do, I’ll take a hiatus from this blog.

Deep down, I know that if I focus on getting to a healthier place, the “writing” part of me result get to where I would like it to be.

What’s your most urgent priority for the rest of the year?

I found myself with a unique choice to either take the high road or teach a former backstabbing high school ex-friend a lesson.

I did not choose the high road.

Let’s just say that I had always been there for this “friend” – a listening ear when her family was having issues or having her back when she was the object of unfairness. However, this “friend” never reciprocated and even let me fall through the trapdoor of racism as she quietly stood idly by. What was truly unforgivable to me was how easily this “Brown” friend turned a blind eye when I was suffering from blatant anti-Black racism at school. She was very quick to forget all the times I had supported her so right after high school, I washed my hands of her.

Long story short, that ex-friend and I ended up working at the same establishment a summer or two later. It was obvious that she was totally smitten with one of the guys on staff and unfortunately for her, it didn’t take much to innocently distract him.

Yes, I totally distracted him.

He never ever gave her a second look for the entire summer.

Yeah, there wasn’t even any need to overdo it like…

The guy was never hers so it wasn’t like I stole him, right?

Funny enough, by the end of that summer, she apologized for how she had acted years before (which showed that she knew exactly what she was doing at the time) and wanted to rekindle our friendship. If you know me at all, you’ll know that I politely declined…

What’s the most out-of-character choice you’ve ever made?

Unfortunately the only morning ritual I have right now is to wake up about 1 hour before work, handle the morning necessities, make a coffee and open my laptop to start responding to emails before my start time, knowing that urgent items would likely roll in and distract me.

Kind of sad, no?

But my goal is to become one of those Mircle Morning people because, to be honest, I am slightly obsessed with the MM method.

I know that it works because I committed to doing it for 6 weeks and it was AMAZING. The only issue was that by 9:00PM, I would have no choice but to go to bed because this is how I would feel…

I got soooo much done towards my personal goals that it was almost magical. It was going to be a part of my 2020 plan but I just don’t have the mental energy right now for it. I’ll blame the stress of the pandemic for my lack of action.

I would love to find others who want to do the same and have some sort of accountability group but that’s not for right now.

Do you have a morning ritual?

How is this even a question???

If I had a live-in massage therapist, I would rarely get off the massage table.

And if that massage therapist looked like this…

…I would never get off the table.

Never.

Would you rather have a live-in massage therapist, or a live-in chef?

I will never truly know if I was born an introvert, if my introvert-ness was due to my upbringing or if it was a combination of both but regardless, I am an introvert.

I’ve wrote about this in a past post here.

One of the good things about being an introvert was that when the pandemic hit, my day-to-day life didn’t drastically change. I was already working from home a lot and since I don’t like shopping, I used to do my best to do all my errands on the same day to limit having to step foot in the mall or grocery stores. I enjoy the peacefulness of my cocoon and have never felt stir crazy being within my own four walls.

Don’t get me wrong, I can function well enough in a crowd of people or even strangers but not if I don’t have to.

Unless the people I am around are truly authentic, I find them to be exhausting.

Would you consider yourself an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert?

The treadmill has always been the place where I have gotten the best ideas. Ideas that have made me jump off multiple times to jot down specific dialogue and scenes that pop into my head.

I used to think that I was “special” but no.

I came across a few writers who said the exact same thing and even took things up a notch by using dictation equipment to dictate out stories during their sessions.

*sigh*

My treadmill has been sitting unused for at least 6 months but I’m slowly preparing myself to getting back to it now that walking outside is less tempting.

The last thing I want to end up doing is this…

Where and when do you get your best ideas?