THE AMUSED LIFE BLOG

THE  TV COMPLETIST: POSE I am an avid pop-culture junkie, having grown up in the television age that ushered in MTV (the real original concept); I love good small-screen programming and I get very excited when I realize that I have completed an entire series. That means that series got to me and I would recommend it to anyone. That being said, this past month I completed (on time I'll add watching the final show live);   Pose FX . I am not sure a series and it's characters captured me so much as this show's characters. I dare you not to fall in love with every single character (and trust me I was dubious about my love for Elektra but she's one of my favorite characters in the end). Every character has depth, is beautiful and is flawed. To have been alive and aware of the AIDS crisis having some family members who had lived through it; but not having an awareness of the gorgeously vibrant ballroom scene, watching this series was like going back home and talking to a frie

If you've read any of my blog posts or have been through my dips in depression via my Facebook feed, you'll know that I think a LOT about what other people think. I'm trying hard to reverse that tendency but honestly the deprogramming to want to be liked by everyone (or most people); is a harder knot to unravel than I had previously thought. In many ways, I believe I have what is called a polarizing personality. It wasn't something I intended in any way, shape or form to have but as I do an inventory of my life and relationships I find that either people like me a lot or basically just hate me or want nothing really to do with me. I suppose I have a large brushstroke of people who are lukewarm but I have come over the years to realize that the toxic traits in myself that I continue to work towards uncovering or better yet evolving past really do tend to alienate people that I once honestly would have gone the distance for. I think it's my tendency to over commit the

HE WAS A WORDSMITH Poem by Anna Maria Terlinden Rogers He was a wordsmith. I hold him in a memory. I am beautifully resilient. I have always been. I am blessed by that.  You were my Achilles' heel, the wax I built my wings out of as I tried to fly towards the sun, the shine on those 30 pieces of silver that I betrayed a Messiah for. You were the chink in my armor,  the fruit that I wanted to taste just because I wanted knowledge, the person I would have let cut my hair, allowing you to leave me weak. I am blessed to have survived.  I always do. I am beautifully resilient. I hold him in a memory. He was a wordsmith.

OMG ya'll for the first time in over a year I sat in a movie theater! A real life movie theater!!!! When the pandemic swept in one of the many casualties of the year (and some change), was the ability to go to anything "live" - theater, movies, concerts, etc. Too many people, too close quarters, breathing contained and recirculated air while a virus stalked us all.  BUT... Today, being fully vaxxed and having been through my own personal ordeal with Covid, I sat in a movie theater! To be honest, it was wonderful. Plus, I used my "back to the theater" excursion to basically do two things: 1) Support movie magic and 2) To see a Broadway Musical on the Big Screen.  It's no secret that Lin-Manuel Miranda is the current King of Broadway. He loves musical theater and is pretty darn good at it (no duh right?). When the pandemic threatened the release of everyone's hard-to-get ticket, Hamilton, last year from being released as a theatrical debut movie-wise, he s

I'm not sure I understand why we do this to each other...as adults. In so many ways, it feels like we are just grown ups who never outgrew high school.  I have been jealous of others and that jealousy has lead me at times to make moves to guard my own heart because I definitely have fomo (fear of missing out), anxiety, depression, abandonment issues and the feeling that no matter what I do, I will NEVER ever be good enough and in full honesty, I have been guilty of blocking people who have hurt me and people involved in certain things that trigger me because at times I have to look at certain parts of my life like they were addictions or toxic relationships.  I have to accept that no matter what, there are going to be a large and sometimes very visible/vocal group of people who rather than work through things with me person to person and come to an understanding or workable position would rather just make me out to be a bad person. Maybe I'm delusional thinking that I'm act

  05/03/21 This week's Musical Monday is dedicated to something I think is beneficial for everyone at least once in their lives. Therapy. I am actively trying to figure out what my brain needs right now as either the after effects of covid or the year of self-isolating or the years of self-sabotaging are just wearing me down to where the happy pills aren't as effective as they once were. So back to the drawing board...sometimes you have to keep working at the work in progress you are. Here's a curated sampling of music that is meaningful to those needing to seek that support. Enjoy! https://music.amazon.com/user-playlists/380e808000714d60af964ca4378e16f2sune?ref=dm_sh_8e3a-9204-fdfa-c8ba-5f4f2

My name is Anna and I live with and manage anxiety based depression. I have probably dealt with symptoms of it since I was 16 years old or from what I can remember. Sadly my memory is often spotty throughout my life. I find that a lot of that spottiness is around traumatic events that I have experienced. Sometimes it's related to increased symptoms of my illness or a "flare up" of the kind that causes the anxiety or depression or both to get to a level that I can manage. At this time in my life I find myself in a few existential quandries that make me feel like I am a huge ball of yarn completely tangled up so perhaps this year is where I begin trying to unravel the tangled mess that is me.  I've struggled my entire life with never feeling "good enough" and sometimes I'm unsure if that feeling is tied in tightly to my illness or just an additional learned script I have running through my brain. I've tied that feeling frequently to people's