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...

  Good morning everyone!  Actually at the time you're reading this it could be any time of day so..."HI," instead. Your semi-fearless foodie folks down here in the Tennessee basin of Knoxville have been looking for ways to keep you informed about our 2 cent opinions on good eats and otherwise and as life has been busy I figured I'd give you my review on my attempts to get some fast-food breakfast outside my normal routine and give you my thoughts on the fare at Wendy's since they actually just in the past year or more started breakfast service. I figured I'd give them time to work out their kinks before putting my gut through a sampling of items but after a month and 4 weeks of trying one item per week here's my thoughts in ranking from meh to mmmmmmmm. #4 Sausage Gravy & Biscuit Okay, now being an admitted northerner in a southern world, I may not be the best person to tell you if this was a delicious dish or not. However, I've become accustomed o...

OUR FIRST MONTH OF BOXING IN THE KITCHEN: Boxed dinners that is provided by various great options and we have paid for our boxes so these responses and reviews are completely our own and not compensated by anyone; and with that - here we go! THE COOK'S EXPERIENCE (ERIK'S SIDE/HE SAID) When my significant other suggested that we try cooking at home, I was really excited. I was thinking to myself, now I can show off my culinary skills and introduce her to the cooking of my childhood. She suggested that we try the box subscription, Hello Fresh and immediately I could hear my mother in the background of my brain saying, "I taught you how to cook, you're better than that." From a cook's perspective, I really enjoyed cooking the Hello Fresh kits. They came neatly prepared and ready to go. The instructions were so simple, it didn't take a lot of time to prepare them. I get off of work at 5:30 pm so by the time I get home and take the fur kids out for a little bit...

  LOVE SOMETIMES SHOWS UP ON FOUR LEGS. Today is national puppy day and today I had to say goodbye to my first ever puppy. She was the first dog I had who came to Jim and I as a 2 month old little ball of fluff and joy. Easton was so slow to warm up to her but her tenacity won him over. She was our “perma-puppy” because she forever looked in the face like the little girl I first held almost 14 years ago. She loved chicken and steak and pizza crust. She loved to go for rides. She had a tail that had just a bit of hair on it after dealing with some health issues but you could always see how fast it wagged. Her smile was so big...and she could still catch treats like a pro. She was a dedicated advocate of lawns and would bark through the window at anyone who dared to tread on their own lawns....she would say “Get off your lawn, don’t you know you’re stepping on your lawn?!” She originated the “Uulbear Stare” which is the look she would make when she was tired of all the nonsense. She ...

I love bread. Carbs are, in fact, my favorite food group. Beyond that, I believe in body-positivity and health-at-any-size. I don't want anyone in this world to buy into weight loss/exercise obsessions because they feel pressure from any external sources including family, friends, media, society and beyond. So understand that my decision to make some personal changes in my life is in no way because I feel un-loved, under-valued or most of all un-desirable. I love myself most days and the days that I'm angry or sad with myself are built around mental health struggles with depression and anxiety and are actually in no-way related to my feelings about my appearance or my sense of self worth. Alas, I'm 46 as I type this. My mother passed away suddenly at the young age of 58 for reasons I cannot 100% confirm because we didn't have an autopsy (a decision I wish now we had pursued), for multiple reasons.  I'm making some decisions to just focus on reducing my body size a b...

On the third week of my Best Picture A-Z Challenge whereby I watch an Academy Award Best Picture Winner that I have NOT yet seen for each letter of the alphabet plus a numerical entry. This week's challenge features films starting with the letter B and so here were my choices: And after all the votes were in my challenge was to watch: In 1889, adventurous lawyer and newspaper editor Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) convinces his genteel wife, Sabra (Irene Dunne), to join him in the rush to populate Osage, Oklahoma. After they begin to settle into the community, Yancey leaves to go further west. Alone, Sabra inherits his editorial duti es and struggles to bring civilization to the rough frontier town. Over a tumultuous 40 years, the couple are repeatedly separated and reunited as Oklahoma makes its long journey to statehood. And let me tell you...this was a challenge...listen to our TWO CENTS here at:

It's a routine I've known for at least 30 years. I know it like I know the feel of each bump on my skin as I rub my arms. A familiar 8 count of part self-flagellation, part-curiosity it's a dance I do in the wee hours of the morning when my mind is still running around like a kid on pixie sticks at a birthday party rental at the dance studio. I point my toes and leap, deep diving into the familiar dance routine and steps...search google, look up "XYZ" and just tap dance through posts to see how life is treating them.  It's when you stumble trying to remember dance steps that you did when you were in your twenties that you realize you're getting too old. The bones hit the floor harder these days and when you come across a post dated 2015 where you are referenced as a "much-needed and much-desired divorce", you realize that the old wounds from your early years still throb a bit every now and then. Mind you, I wasn't completely floored by that ...

WOULD IT EVER BE THE SAME She wondered if it would ever be the same. The deep breaths that yielded oxygenated lungs, but no sweet scent of the things she longed for. The comfort of the kitchen, the nisus of her handmade dough,  her home-grown vegetables, the milkiness of the fresh mozzarella and the garlic and oregano which she always used abundantly. Which no longer smelled the same. No longer sparked her excitement. The loss of a culinary expectation. Because we had an communal expectation, we listened to the spark of excitement from news reporters who  believed we would care for one another and would do what was right so that the illness would no longer be an issue. As one of those who's symptoms abundantly lingered on the milky fog of her brain, dealing with symptoms no one could see. The illness that was not home-grown  but who's nisus ravaged the world we live in, leaving no one the comfort of connection, that robbed so many people of the sweetness of living and end...

It's the second week of my Best Picture A-Z Challenge whereby I watch an Academy Award Best Picture Winner for each letter of the alphabet plus a numerical entry. However with one additional rule...it has to be a film that I have NOT yet seen. So I build my list and then if there's more than one choice I offer up a vote to suggest which one to watch.  This challenge is the letter B and so here were my choices: R  1995 ‧ War/Drama ‧ 3h 2m [1]  https://www.google.com/search?q=braveheart&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS930US930&oq=brave&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j46i433j69i57j69i59j46i433i457j0i433j0i131i433j69i60.3407j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 AND after the votes were in, my "B" challenge became to watch: William Wallace is the medieval Scottish patriot who is spurred into revolt against the English when the love of his life is slaughtered. Leading his army into battles that become a war, his advance into England threatens King Edward I's throne before he is captured...

Today, the change of power took place in our great country of the United States of America. Listen, our country has been through a LOT over the past year, the past four years and honestly since we decided to declare our independence let alone step foot on this land we now claim as our own. So this post isn't about just the inauguration of Biden and Harris, it's actually about the shock and awe (in non-military terminology), that I have for this country I live in and love. I've always been proud to be an American and I still am. Does that mean that I'm blind to the atrocities that our forefathers have committed. No. From the pillaging of indigenous people's lands, to slavery, to our history of human and equal rights violations, interment camps for Japanese citizens and now those who crossed our border to the South and that's just a quick smattering of the blights on our conscience. I hold no illusions that we have made many mistakes. We are a country founded by h...