And now, a brief respite from the terrible

Nice things keep happening to me this week. I want to acknowledge them.

There’s rage-clickbait all around us at the moment, so I want you to take a respite from that with me. Inhale for four counts through your nose. Hold for four. Exhale out of your mouth to the same count. If that hasn’t calmed you yet, do it again.

Okay then.

I began this week with one of my usual rage-laments in between appearing on the Hal Sparks podcast (as I do every Monday, lucky me!) and my first-ever interview on SiriusXM (which I expect won’t be my last because it went SO well). I gave my usual gratitude to the Universe at the end of the day and asked for the goodness trend to continue.

Tuesday the Universe gave me the dual emotional gifts of group therapy and then a Meet and Greet with The Artist Formerly Known As Arthur Fonzarelli. The humblebrag from the photos alone will always and forever make me smile, even if Henry Winkler never reads The Sound of Settling thanks to his severe dyslexia. But hey, his son Max is also a producer, so maybe it’ll get passed along, who knows?

Wednesday—yesterday, as I’m writing this—my friend Alison came over and we finally got to watch the Taylor Swift Eras movie on International Taylor Swift Day, aka Tay’s 34th birthday.

Alison and I are both Swifties (although I’m a #SwiftieOver50 and she’s not quite there yet) and neither of us could afford to see her show in Seattle or the film in the theater. Few of our friends share this fandom with us, and we sang our hearts out on my couch for so long that my usually company-averse cats, Maxine and Duke, even came out from under the bed to hang with us. It was the folklore Era that finally did it for them, they just could not resist “the 1.”

Anyway, a little while after Alison left, my longtime friend Piney hit me up on Messenger to gently remind me that she’d sent me a crafty gift, and could I check my mail to see if it made it all the way across town?

I’ve been lax about checking my mail since moving to this building, mainly because I don’t subscribe to any magazines and I pay all my bills online. When I went downstairs to check my mailbox, Piney’s envelope was indeed in there, as were two smaller one from Amazon and a key to one of the larger package boxes.

Lucky number mailbox 18, it turns out. In Hebrew, 18 is a powerful number. I opened mailbox 18 and it was stuffed with Amazon packages.

And then I remembered: I’d created an Amazon WishList at the suggestion of my new webmaster (taradublinrocks.com currently just sends you to Amazon to buy The Sound Of Settling, but more will be added soon). I hadn’t done that in forever, and I made sure not to go insane, but lean into the more practical things.

I’d also clicked “Surprise Me,” not realizing it wouldn’t remove things from the list. So I didn’t think I was getting anything, WHICH IS FINE, things are rougher than ever and no one is ever under any obligation to help me.

Instead, I got A LOT OF THINGS. I made a TikTok because I was just overwhelmed.

Piney’s gift packs the biggest emotional punch for me, but all of it made want want to hug the world for a second.

@taradublinrocksI’m crying because there are so many good people in this world ❤️ #gratitude

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This week of great things will continue tomorrow and Saturday nights with my beloved Low Bar Chorale’s annual “Snow Bar Chorale” shows at Mississippi Studios. The playlists are amazing, my outfits are going to be ON POINT, and I’m in the Facebook picture for it. It really doesn’t take a lot to make me happy, my friends.

Finally, I hit another awesome milestone: over FOURTEEN THOUSAND PAGES of The Sound of Settling have now been read on Kindle, with 2500 in the last week alone, wow! I’ve also sold 383 copies and I’m still not signed by an agent or production company, so we’ll keep manifesting the Yes Person who I think has to be really close by at this point.

@taradublinrocks#thesoundofsettling #booktok #booktokers #bookclub #bookboost #indieauthor #rockstarromance #davegrohl #foofighters #writersoftiktok

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All I want for Christmas is never having to worry about the rent ever again, but if I can get that peace of mind on the last night of Chanukah, that would be even better, please please please.

Thank you thank you thank you, Universe!