does this mean I'm growing up?

A sure sign that I'm getting smarter as I get older:


This past week was an interesting one on the health front.


A. I was sick.


B. I only ran three times - and just nine miles total.


C. The last seven days have been food laden. A nachos and beer after-work get together. A mexican potluck at work today. A tray of baklava in the break room. Chipotle cheese mashed potatoes for dinner last night. The list goes on.


D. A scale that hasn't budged.


Used to be these things would throw me into a tizzy and I'd just say the heck with it and throw in the towel. I'm a pro at this type of rationalization - "Oh, well, I blew that week, so why even bother anymore?" But I'm not going that route this time. Yes, it's been an off week. Yes, it's hard to run when you can't breathe. Yes, I ate my first ice cream sandwich of the entire year today - and dang, was it good.


And yes, life goes on and I intend to live it. There's no point in being skinny and healthy if you don't live a little. There's always next week. (Or not, since my Mom and Stu get here Tuesday for a visit and I always seem to eat like a cow whenever they're here.) Okay then, I'll try something really radical. I'll go with moderation...and having a good time.


I couldn't do that in my twenties, or even my thirties. I was strictly an all or nothing kind of gal. But now it's finally sunk in that you really can inch your way to what you want...


...and actually have fun on the trip.

the Ah-Hah moment strikes again

I'm sick. I never get sick. And on the scale of positively rotten patients, I'm very near the top. Luckily I got one of the docs at work to write me a scrip for some antibiotics before it got too bad, so I think I'm on the downhill side of it. I hope so anyway. I'd forgotten how much I like being able to breathe. It's the small things in life that make it worthwhile.


I slept a fair amount today, which I think helped. I do some of my best thinking in those floaty moments in between being awake and asleep, and today was no exception. Then when I woke up I got to test out some of my thinking on my buddy Laurie, in a marathon country drive/bilateral vent session. Actually, to be fair I completely forgot to bring up the first one, so caught up were we in the other, but here you go anyway...


#1. I've finally realized (and totally seen the humor of) the irony of my being suddenly obsessed with running at the same time that my hormones have seemingly woken up with a vengeance from a twenty year siesta. Gee. You think there might be a connection? Can you spell S-U-B-L-I-M-A-T-E?? I guess until I feel ready to do something about it I'll just keep on running. I may need to invest in a sturdy pair of shoes.


#2. The one that completely negates #1. I can't do this and I've finally realized it. As you may have all guessed, something happened that kind of rocked my world...and not in a good way. This had nothing to do with me directly, but the nuances and big picture cut me to the core. So I'm reverting back to my long held theory about me and romantic love. I'm just not cut out for it. As much as I want desperately to have that deep connection with another human being, I'm too scared to give it a shot. I'm too scared to open myself up enough to even think about giving it a shot. It seems to me that very bad things happen when people love too much, so I am now officially removing myself from the game. Checkmate. The Queen has left the board.


I guess it's just as well that hot tax guy never called after all.

well, I DO live in a college town

This has been the first weekend I've had in a long time that actually felt like a "real" weekend. And, since I'm writing this late on a Sunday evening, the past tense makes me a little sad. On top of that is the fact that I hate this particular time change, which all adds up to a grumpy end of the weekend mood. (I love the fact that it stays light so much later. I just hate the idea that when my alarm goes off at zero dark thirty it feels even earlier than it should. I am not a morning person, and yet I have a job that expects me to be wide awake and competent at 6:45 am. This is either funny or tragic, depending on how little sleep I've gotten.)


I think the theme this weekend was friends and beer. Seriously. Friday night saw me hanging with a friend I don't get to hang with much, which is too bad because I love him to bits. We sat and chatted for hours while the kids ran around crazy and we drank his beer. (Not too much, since the run was the next morning.) Saturday found me on two different sets of friend's porches while we soaked up the sunshine (and later a violent thunderstorm), dissected the behavior of errant tax men and drank beer. (The younger boys were with their dad, and Sasquatch was off being sixteen, so I could.) And Sunday ended with a three family impromptu dinner out where the kids played pool and the adults gossiped and...drank beer. I do like beer. But I like hanging with my friends even more.


My stress inclination has always been to hide out, and I feel like I spent most of last year hiding out. By the time I felt ready to emerge this year I'd kind of backed myself into a corner with my solitude. So I've really been trying to make an effort to engage lately. I know my friends love me. I know I love them. Now it's time to get off my butt and get back into circulation. I'm ready.


Bloated, but ready.

why don't you say what you're REALLY thinking??

It has been brought to my attention that I'm a Type A personality.


I was shocked, to tell the truth, since I've always considered myself firmly in the laid back, go with the flow, Type B crowd. Oh, alright, maybe I wasn't exactly shocked, since I have recognized in the past that I could possibly be a little Type A from time to time. Okay, okay, perhaps I have noticed that from time to time I can be a little anal, a little compulsive...a little rigid. But the thing that - in my mind at least - kept me from tipping into the Type A column was a complete lack of any kind of competitive nature. To my way of thinking Type A equals a competitive drive and the need to somehow do better than the other guy, whoever that poor shmuck may be. And since I never felt that way I was able to rationalize the rest of it away.


But when my friend Stacey pointed out today that the only thing I'm missing is a scarlet A emblazoned on my forehead, I took notice. I wasn't happy about it, but I took notice. Good lord. Could this be true?


I'll have to think this through a little more, but I can't do it now. This 5K race is starting in ten hours, as I write this, and I need my sleep. The inclination to psych myself out is huge, but I'm trying to resist it. It's a 5K for the love of god. It's not a marathon. I run more than 3.2 miles on a regular basis. I just don't do it in a crowd, with a stop clock going, or surrounded by a whole bunch of Type A people from work who all think they're going to kick some serious co-worker butt.


It's a good thing I don't think like that, because that would make me Type A. Right?

T-H-A-N-K- Y-O-U

Before I get on to the rant of the day, I have two things to say.


Number One - I heard you all loud and clear on yesterday's post. And to pull out my oft-used When Harry Met Sally line


You're right. You're right. I know you're right.


So now I've revised my New Year's Resolutions to these:


Don't worry.

Be Happy.

Practice Reciprocal Commenting.

Find out what the hell a Show Pony is.


I don't promise that you'll all notice the difference overnight, but you will notice it. I love the give and take aspect of blogging, and I think that I'm ready to stop using my last year's upheaval as an excuse to not take part in both.


Oh, and also? Thank you. I appreciate the honesty, even when it was a little rough to read. I'm being absolutely truthful when I say that there are days lately where I feel like a big, huge, grumpy whiner. And I need to know that if I do it too often here, someone will slap me. I guess I can take it if people think I'm a comment whore. But I sure would hate to be boring.



And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...



I hesitate to start throwing the F-word around, but I'm going to have to. Facebook. There. I've done it. One of the (far too many) things I'm really enjoying about Facebook is the word games that you can play. I like the solo ones well enough, but the best games are the Scrabble games I play on-line with people. I love Scrabble, you see. And, if I do say so myself, I'm not a bad Scrabble player. At least I never have been before. I can't seem to beat my mother, but I hold my own with everyone else.



But something very strange has been happening. One of my co-workers challenged me to a game and then proceeded to hand me my shorts. I mean he destroyed me. At the same time, he and I were involved in a three person game with yet another co-worker. He killed both of us. (I finished second - I lost by a lot - but I beat out the person in the number three slot by a nice spread). At the same time still, this third person and I were involved in a two person game and I beat her quite handily. Still with me?


When all three games were over, we started rematches. And before I knew it, after just two moves, this damn guy had me down 100 points. In two moves. To add insult to injury, the third person all of a sudden had a dramatic improvement in her game and was beating me as well.


WTF?


Today at work I cattily asked him if he played the game with a dictionary on his lap. He said, "Here. I'm going to show you a little secret." Then he pulled up some website called something like wineverygame.com (or close. I blocked it out on principle). Well, you put in the letters you have tiles for and it makes words for you. IT MAKES THE WORDS FOR YOU. Then he tried to tell me that it was still a skill game because you still had to find a place to put the words. Evidently, the third player in our trio had been filled in on his little secret right before our rematch, which explained why she was all of a sudden stomping on me. And then he said


"I thought everybody played that way."


Not me, brother. I'm a purist. So then I challenged him to play me with no dictionary and no website - the old-fashioned way. Think of it as Missionary Scrabble, I suggested. And to prove he could beat me anyway, he took me up on it.


We'll just see about that.

confessions of a confused correspondent

I have just two things to say today.


Number One - This is my 600th post.


Number Two - I'm pretty sure I've lost my mojo.


Do you suppose there's any connection?


The honest truth is that lately I feel like I'm struggling with this blog. It isn't that I don't have ideas on what to write about. Oh, god, do I have ideas. I'm blessed (cursed?) with the ability to run at the mouth on most any subject. It's just that I worry that it's too insular, too whiny, too self-absorbed recently. Yes, I'm aware that blogs are, virtually by definition, self-absorbed. I get that, but still can't help worrying that I'm becoming a little stale.


Certainly, there are other factors as well. Time is always an issue, and lately it seems even more so. I've held onto the blogging because, in a life that seems to always be taking care of other people, this is something that's for me. Something I love, and receive enormous satisfaction from. I may begrudge the time I spend cleaning, or driving to and fro, or hounding kids to take showers, but I never ever begrudge the time I spend blogging. It's a pleasure. I climb into bed, wrap up in a fleecy blanket and type away. It's for me, and it's something I genuinely look forward to. Better than late night television and cheaper than therapy.


But I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that I didn't love all the reader feedback. And this is where the waters get murky. I fully understand that you must make comments on other blogs to receive comments on your own. It's like the cardinal blogging commenting rule. This past year or so I've been really bad about doing it. (Hint: Notice title of blog. Did you think I was kidding?). And even though I know you have to write a blog for yourself first, it's still been a little humbling to see my comment count fall by two thirds - and still dropping.


So I've been pondering the chicken and egg dilemma. Is this happening because I'm a rotten commenter or because I've run out of interesting things to say? This is not a plea for more comments on a daily basis. I know I have to earn those. It's more a request for some honest feedback. I really want to keep doing this blog, but there's a part of me that is afraid it may have run its course. I'd like to think that one of you would tell me if I was full of crap, self-centered or worse yet, boring.


You would, wouldn't you?

#1. Look like Heidi Klum by Monday...

It's that time of year again when a lot of people are talking about resolutions. I've always been big on them myself, since I'm a huge sucker for fresh starts. I love a clean slate, a blank calendar, a second chance...a new beginning. One of the things I'm slowly coming to understand about myself is that when my brain frantically careens from one topic to another (all day long, thank you very much), it's often because I love the process of sorting out and untangling all the thought threads. There's so much possibility there, and what are resolutions about if they're not about possibility?


I've given thought to resolutions for this year. I really have. And my list basically boils down to this:


Don't worry.


Be happy.


God knows both of those are open to interpretation. Would I be happier if I weighed thirty pounds less and won the lottery? Well, duh. But do I need those things to be happy in the first place? No. No, I don't. The worrying thing is going to be tricky, and I'm well aware of that. I'm hard wired to worry, and sometimes it seems like I've spent my entire life fretting about things that were never really even factors. There's also the fact that I'm damned good at it. It's hard to give up something that comes so effortlessly, but it's time to put this particular trait to bed. If I've learned nothing else this year (oh, but I have), it's this:


Control really is an illusion. It's all smoke and mirrors.


Take this past year, for example. My house hasn't burnt down, my kids never got salmonella (rabies, arrested, pierced or expelled), my loved ones and dogs are well, at the end of each month I have a (+) in my bank balance rather than a (-), and, in spite of formidable roadblocks thrown in my way, I still managed to sort of stay with the goals I set myself in 2008. (But not for the reasons I originally intended. #1 became about surviving the present, #2 became about challenging the future, and #3 proved to me that you don't need a perfectly manicured lawn to cultivate your inner garden).


And as much as I worried about money and food poisoning and faulty wiring, I was still completely and utterly blindsided by the loss of something that I never expected to lose, and in a way I certainly never expected to lose it. I lost more than my marriage last year. I lost my feeling of being in control of my life. If someone can look you in the eye and tell you that they love you and want to spend the rest of their life with you, and then walk out the door without giving either of you a chance to make it better...well, if that doesn't shatter your illusion of control you're a better person than I am. And to not only survive that, but to, well, kind of thrive, makes the notion of being in control all the time even less appealing.



Because with the loss of the illusion of control comes freedom. Control what you can. Trust the heavens with what you can't. Let go of what you couldn't. And above all, enjoy the ride.


Don't worry.


Be happy.


Makes sense to me.

the weakest link

When I was younger, and life was simpler, I often gauged how well things were going by the following three criteria: my grades, my weight and money. When I got a real job, I took my grades out of the equation and started worrying about the job, my weight and money. Over the years, as I've picked up a husband, kids, dogs, a mortgage, a second career, a divorce and a house that's trying to kill me, I've often looked back nostalgically at my simple little trio. The fact that I still worry about both my weight and money doesn't escape me, it's just that there's too much else going on to care. As I've gotten older, I've realized that something usually has to give, that it's almost impossible for all the cards to fall your way simultaneously. There's always going to be one area of your life that refuses to play nice. I think it's nature's way of making sure you don't get too full of yourself.


This pattern applies to other areas of my life, too. For example, if I'm looking relatively put together when I leave the house, and am managing to put healthy, home-cooked meals on the table most nights, then it stands to reason that my house will look like a landfill. If the house looks clean and inviting, and I'm still managing to put healthy, home-cooked meals on the table most nights, then I'm guaranteed to look like ass every time I set foot out the door. Look okay, clean house? Frozen pizza for dinner. It never fails. I can keep two balls in the air, but the third one comes straight down and knocks me half unconscious.


Right now, it's my house that's trying to do me in. Partly because of this self-improvement crap I've been doing, I look alright - some of the time, anyway. My weight is okay, I have fingernails and my roots aren't showing. I've just finished week three of my eight week running program, and am amazed at how well it's going - so far. Money is not as bad as it could be. My job is going fine. So obviously, my house is going to be the problem.


The talk with the boys went quite well today. I sat them down and said This Is The Way It Is, and it's really not open for discussion. I did not argue, I did not get angry - I simply said Times are a'changin' and it's time to get with the program. We'll see how it goes, but it was a promising start. With any luck my house will be able to get off of the condemned list sometime soon.


Which kind of worries me. Because then what would be the weak link?

little miss nosy

One of the cool things about the internet is that it often makes the habits we consider so quirky to look pretty darn normal in comparison. I'm not talking about those really creepy or bizarre websites that gross you out for days. I'm primarily talking about blogging and the blogging community. Chat rooms would do the same thing, as would discussion boards. They're all a wonderful opportunity to throw whatever you want to out into cyberspace and then realize that, for the most part, we're all in the same boat.


I was gratified to find that I'm not the only person who peeks into houses on Halloween to check out the paint colors and architectural details. I'm relieved that other people deliberately put something they've already done onto their To Do list so they have something to cross off immediately. I'm happily surprised to know that other people are just as interested in the mundane details of other people's lives as I am. There's normalcy in numbers - or at least I'd like to think so.


Today I was trying to download a master grocery list on-line. You know, one of those lists that you customize with your own grocery needs and take to the store with you, all in the name of being an organizational freak and shaving a few minutes a week off of your chore list? (I'm not being judgmental. Honest. It takes one to know one). And what did I stumble upon but this? It's a website that people send their grocery lists to and they post them. The basic premise is that a huge number of people are just as nosy as I am, and I am here to tell you that these lists are fascinating. They've even turned this site into a book, believe it or not, sort of a gastronomic Post Secret.


Don't worry. I'm not going to post my grocery list. I've got it written and ready to go, though, because I've already had to plan meals for next week, since it's going to be wicked busy. But as I looked at my menus, that old nosiness crept back in. I write a lot about what we eat, partly because I'm a food junkie. But I always wonder about other people and what they put on their table. Obviously I'm not alone, if a grocery list website can spawn a book.


So, lets trade. I'll tell you one meal we're having either this week or next, and then you do the same. I'm really curious about this.


Our sample meal is salmon teriyaki, jasmine rice and steamed broccoli. I don't normally plan desserts - if I do make something, the kids eat it and if I don't, they either go without or have some ice cream or something. (I'd love to say they eat fruit for dessert every night, but I'd be a big time liar).


Okay. Your turn.

work, work, politics

My plan all along has been to write something special for Election Day. I'm well aware that I never followed up on my threat to wade into the political fray, and figured that this would certainly be the day for it.


But I've also just come off a twelve hour shift that has kicked my ass from here to Washington, D.C. and am feeling an overwhelming need to write about that, too.


And, in coming home and reading comments from today's post, I guess I didn't really make myself clear, so there's that topic that should be covered as well.


Man. I'm tired and I haven't even started.


Let's work backwards.


My shame from today's post is, I guess, hard to describe. It was the fact that I was bored and looking at a code as a kind of faux entertainment. It was the glee in the student's eyes at getting to be in on it and knowing that every single one of us in that room - doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists - all feel that initial kick start of adrenaline as "oh, my god, I would rather be here than anywhere else in the world". Because, really, isn't that just the tiniest bit sick? It was my impatience with the doctor who I thought should have called it long before he did. It was so many things all rolled into one. Most people who work take pride in what they do. But sometimes I feel that it's a little twisted to take pride in what I do. Because what I do can be awful. How can you be proud of that?


Today I was the trauma room nurse. And I had an attempted suicide come in -a woman who had overdosed because her husband had told her he didn't love her anymore and didn't want to be married to her. She fought and kicked and screamed as we put the tube into her stomach to pour the charcoal into, until suddenly she just stopped and laid limp. My eyes shot to the monitor, fearful that something really bad was going on. She looked at me for a long time, and then sadly said, "It's easy for you. You don't know what it's like to hear someone say those things to you."


And I, who holds it together at work no matter what, walked out to the desk and cried in front of both the day and night charge nurse. (It was shift change, thank god, which meant I was ten minutes away from leaving). Now we all know how I feel about this whole female suicide thing, but it wasn't just that. It was the idea that someone could actually think that suicide is a solution. That someone with children could actually contemplate this as a viable option. Because unless I've been with the wrong men all my life, I just don't see it. At all.


This brings us neatly to election day, this concept of wrong men. Okay, here's my political agenda in a nutshell. I have very strong ideas, and, like most people, I vote the issues that matter to me the most. I'm not particularly bright in a political sense, a trait that I fear drives my very astute mother to distraction. My mom, my eldest, my ex...all very up to date and aware. Me...not so much. It's not that I don't care. I do. I just don't follow it passionately. I find that you have to ration passion, and there are other things in my life lately that suck up a lot of my energy.


I also have a lot of trouble with the whole process. I'm not really big on shoving my ideas down other people's throats, even when I'm sure I'm right. I certainly don't like being the shoveee, when people want to foist their ideas off on me. Then there's that whole Gemini thing, which can really foul things up. Because on virtually any point I can see where the opposing side is coming from . I may not agree, but I can see their logic. Usually. Not always. But on the big things I can. All the loaded "hot topics"? I have very firm opinions, but I understand the other side's perspective, and this can be really tricky.


Then there's the conflict issue. I don't like it. Some people love to argue and debate - I'm not one of them. There are people I genuinely like - and even love - who have political views that are diametrically opposed to mine, but I like - and even love - them anyway. I don't even think of them as being "wrong". I just look at it as "different". A lot of people I deal with on a daily basis are voting against my guy, and seem to be in genuine pain at the thought that their guy might not win. I'm sorry for their pain, I'm certainly not going to get into it with them...but I still think my guy is the better choice.


And as we go into the final day of Election 2008, as my fear and paranoia reach a fever pitch, all we can do now is wait. And vote. I care more about this election than I have any election in my life. I have a sixteen year old son whom I don't want to send to war. A war I don't believe we should be involved in to start with. There is finally a candidate who I can feel fired up and optimistic about. For the last several weeks I've been afraid to even say it out loud, and I still am. I'm so terribly scared that it could all fall through in the blink of an eye, no matter what the damned polls say. It is still very much anyone's game.


But damn. Doesn't President Obama have a great ring to it?


And if not...I'll rename the blog. Confessions of a Rotten Correspondent:Abroad.

that's MISS fix-it, thank you

Let the wind blow and the ground freeze.


I'm ready.


In spite of the fact that all I wanted to do today was curl up with


A. a book

B. a DVD, preferably of the chick flick variety

C. my knitting

D. a warm, gassy dog

E. Any combination of the above


I didn't give in to the feeling. I couldn't, really. This morning as my children followed the steam their breath was making through the house, I promised that I'd finish shrink wrapping the windows so I could turn the heat on. And I did. Nine big windows in three rooms - done. One of them twice, because it looked like the poster child of Home Maintenance: Don't Let This Happen To You. I even did one of the stained glass windows on the stairs, and I think I'm going to zap the other one while I'm at it.


It wasn't as hard as I thought, once I got going, but you'd honestly think I've discovered a cure for cellulite as excited as I am. Best of all, between the front storm door, the thermal curtains over my kitchen slider and the saran wrap...it's warm in my house. And the heat isn't even up high. My kids are smiling and I can almost feel my toes. It got below freezing last night, and I swear it was warmer outside than it was in the house.


In a bit of movie timing, my final installment notice on last year's gas bill came in the mail today. I pitched it in the fireplace and watched it burn.


I feel warmer already.


(Even the wireless is doing its part. It has been going out for no reason all night, and every time it does, I get just a little bit hotter. I guess I should be grateful. Every little bit helps).

humor me...

I'm going to be lucky to get a coherent sentence or two going here, so I'm not going to push my luck.


I have a request.


I'm so confused with bloglines and google reader and bookmarks and all that crap. I have x number of readers on one and y on another, and yet I know that a lot of readers are on neither. So today, just this once, I'm trying to get a head count. If you read this blog, could you just leave a simple little comment, even if you normally don't? It doesn't need to be fancy. Honest. I'm just curious.


It's De-Lurking time. And since I know most people don't read every day, I'll keep checking back.


Thank you.


I'm going back to my Chardonnay now.

bail now...

If you are reading this blog on a regular basis (or even if this is the first time you're slogging through it), you should know that I love you dearly for it. I love you for your loyalty, your good will, your fabulous hearts and minds. Most of all, I love you for putting up with me and my BS. So few people are willing to take that load on.


In light of this, in fairness, I have something I have to say.


Get out.


Get out while you can.


Because the cloud over my head is growing and I can't guarantee that it won't reach its little tentacly fingers out to those I associate with. Or those who associate with me. Or anyone in my zip code, tax bracket, gene pool, blog carrier or time zone. I'm well aware that it really isn't all about me...but I'm going for caution anyway.


On top of the mice invasion, we now have a wasp influx in Gumby's room. You're not seeing things. I said wasps. When my mom and I went in to deal with them last night, I ended up with one crawling up the leg of my pants and stinging me on my leg. I never even saw it. Oh, alright. I saw it. I tried like hell to kill it dead and then it slunk away unseen and crawled up my pant leg. And frickin' stung me. There I stood, ripping my pants off and yelling...kind of makes you wish you were me, doesn't it?


Get out while you can.


I'm pretty sure the locusts are next.

the sick sense

It's the auditory overload that really gets to me.


Smells don't bother me, I almost never max out on visuals, I'm fine with touching and being touched (except for fingers in my ears after sexual assault training), and one look at the size of my butt proves that there's no holding me back on taste. But sound is a real stumbling block.


My house is never quiet. Never. At any given point, there is at least one television going full blast, one computer at top volume, and a gaming system playing the same music loop over and over until I feel like I'm trapped in a fun house. My kids all talk loud, my dogs bark even louder, and every single noise bounces off hard wood floors and ten foot ceilings until you could go mad.


It was an oft visited theme in my marriage that I didn't get family dynamics in multi-child households. As an only child, I never had to shout louder or talk faster to get my voice heard. Well, that isn't the case here. If the TV is set at max volume, so is the kid's voice talking. The only thing louder is the kid trying to talk over them. They will then each get louder and louder, but it doesn't really matter because I couldn't hear them over the TV to start with. I smile and nod and look agreeable, but I can't hear a damned thing they're saying. Maybe it's a good thing.


Tonight was a perfect example. Project Runway - a show I legitimately love - was (of course) blasting on the TV in the living room. So was a laptop. Two kids were "watching" the show, but at the same time arguing about the computer game, asking me about my day, telling me about theirs, popping bubble gum bubbles, calling the dogs, reading me the (seemingly four hundred page long) specs on a superhero in their computer game, telling me all about who they did (and didn't) want to go home on PR...all at top decibel levels.In the meantime I was failing miserably at filtering out what I didn't need and hearing what I wanted to. There was too much going on. And it wasn't just tonight. It's every day. We have a house full of big windows in an area where everyone walks their dogs. My dogs bounce off the walls all day and night. All three of my kids feel they can't fall asleep unless the TV is on, which kills me. I like it dark and I like it quiet when I sleep. I don't get it.


During my Psych rotation at the Big Bad Scary Psych Hospital, they made us do an exercise devised to give us empathy for schizophrenics having hallucinations. They fitted us with these devices that simulated auditory hallucinations and sent us about a bunch of mundane, everyday activities. For hours. You would be writing a check to the electric company and all of a sudden someone would start screaming in your ear about how worthless you were or just laugh uncontrollably or hiss or howl. Did I mention this went on for hours? It was horrendous. And it just reiterated my feeling that, for me at least, sound is the weak link. Auditory overload can make me nuts.


With my life this is not a good thing. Am I the only one who gets bothered by stuff like this??

a girl's best friend

My ah-hah moments during this whole divorce process have come at odd times. I never got feelings of independence from the "usual" places. I've always pretty much run the house and dealt with most of the kid stuff. I know which plumber to call when the basement backs up and the due dates of all the monthly bills. None of these things are real stretches in terms of preparing me for the single life. They're already part of my schtick.


No, my feelings of euphoria have come from more offbeat places.


Take the lawn. This may be really hard to believe, but until recently I'd never mowed a lawn in my life. In LA we rented and had landlord provided gardeners. When we moved here and bought our first house, the FX took over the job. There was plenty of griping about the mowing even before we got this house, which is on half an acre. It got really ugly then. From my perception, it was a job that took the better part of a day and always ended up with a bad mood. It was not something I felt like taking over.


But eventually the day came last Summer where I had to pull out the mower and go for it. Sasquatch had to show me how to turn it on and how it worked. He offered to do it for me, but I told him that, this time at least, I had to do it myself. I had to know that I could. And I did. And it wasn't hard at all. I put on my iPod, minded my toes and zoned out.


One down.


The second thing was an upstairs toilet that had been running forever. All it took was a trip to Home Depot and $2.99 plus tax.


That's two.


The feeling of empowerment I got from those two really tiny things was huge. It wasn't about the job itself, it was about the knowledge that I could do something I needed to do all by myself. I'm not talking re-wiring the house or cleaning the chimney. Just nice, basic things that I'd never had to deal with before. It felt really good.


The last thing happened just this past Saturday. A lot of people have noticed that I never post any pictures that I've actually taken. And here's why. We've never had a real digital camera that was "mine" to use. Oh, there were work cameras and old garage sale cameras and so on. If I ever did take a picture, someone had to show me how to get it onto the computer or where the memory card was kept or the USB cable or something equally frustrating. This all became moot in June when all the digital cameras (such as they were) moved out. I have three growing kids. I wanted a camera.


So I went out and bought one. It's an idiot point and shoot, but it has all the parts. I took it out and set it up. I shot some pictures and videos of the kids. And I transferred it onto the computer. All by myself. I realize that this is a skill that 99% of the population has had for years, but I don't care.


For some reason, I feel very self-sufficient.

a lost day

I feel like crap. I went to bed last night feeling great and woke up at 3 am going "uh oh". Lets just call it stomach issues and leave it at that. And a fever. And chills. My angel and my devil duked it out in the wee hours, but at 5 am I finally gave in to the inevitable and called in sick. That makes me feel even more like crap, because we've been short-handed lately and I know I just gave my co-workers an even harder day than usual.


But it was a good thing I did. I slept until almost 2 pm, woke up briefly and went back to sleep. And that's been the pattern for the rest of the day. I have a permanent pillow crease on my left cheek. My mental sharpness is about equal to putting ice cubes in a glass, so thinking fast on my feet at work would have presented some problems.


The kids have been great. Surfer Dude even set a can of soup and a can opener next to a pan on the stove for me before he headed out to school. Gumby came right home after school and sat on my bed, all while telling me how I didn't look quite as dreadful as I had in the morning. And Sasquatch took the trash out like he had promised - the first time I mentioned it.


Wow. I think I'm going to go back to sleep and ponder that. And hope that tomorrow starts off a lot better than today did.

middle aged teenagers

It's not easy being female. At any age.


When I was a teenager, I combed lemon juice through my hair, slathered coconut oil all over myself and sunbathed to within an inch of my life. The more tan I was, the less my acne showed, which was always a plus. And any lemon juice prompted blonde highlights in my Roseanne Rosannadanna hair at least attempted to hide the frizz. At five feet ten inches tall, I weighed 120 pounds and was constantly trying to "get" skinny.


I don't try so hard anymore, but I still make kind of an effort. Just last week, I spent an hour or so trying. My hair was piled on my head with a deep conditioner slathered on, I had a biore pore patch on my nose to rip out blackheads, a jar of moisturizer next to me to put on my dry skin after my acne treatment was over...and I was plucking dark hairs out of my chin. Am I in adolescence or menopause? And is there a significant difference?


This is just so unfair. No one should have to buy both wrinkle lotion and zit cream. Long, luxurious tresses should be on your head, not on your legs. You can't even go out and get a tan to cover your wrinkles, since now they tell us that this is how we got the wrinkles to start with. This is not the way it's supposed to be. I try to not fall into the pop culture trap of "needing" to be a size two, or that "blondes have more fun", or that no one over thirty can be as interesting as a twenty year old. I'm comfortable with myself, flaws and all, but even I have limits.


On the other hand, at least my mustache covers up my acne.

homecoming

He's home.


Doesn't even have a lampshade collar, either, and he's leaving his bandaged leg completely alone. He's been supplied with a chew toy so large he's afraid of it, and a pound of steak all cubed up just for him. Add in the pain pills, and he's a pretty happy hound dog.


I'm not bad, either. I have a fire going in the fireplace, it's been raining off and on all day, and Surfer Dude's team won their first soccer game of the season today. (The rain started as soon as we stood up at the end of the game.) I'm sitting on my sofa wrapped up in my favorite quilt, with a well-medicated dog laying next to me, I've just fired up my second Hugh Grant DVD of the night, I'm starting to knit a new hat for myself...and I'm off for the next three days.


Can I tell you how badly I needed this night?

in the dumps

Some days, no matter what you do...


you're still blue.


And rather than just chalk it up to the fact that everyone is blue from time to time, you have to analyze to death why you feel so rotten. Does this help? Hell, no it doesn't. It simply allows you to wallow in your blueness rather than letting it takes its course and eventually go away on its own.


Then, to make it even better, you make mental lists. Lists of why you could be blue. Does this help? Hell, no it doesn't. See above. But it does at least serve the purpose of luring you into not attempting anything productive to snap you out of your blueness, which ensures that your mood will just hang on and on.


RC - ridiculously convoluted. Or revolting complainer. How about really childish? Feel free to chime in.


There are several good reasons why I could be feeling blue. Yet another argument with Sasquatch. The worry about getting Gumby's lab results tomorrow. His ebbing and flowing anxiety issues. The fear of dog surgery - and what they'll find. The prospect of three straight days of work, since I changed my schedule around so I'd be able to schlep said dog to and from the vets Friday. Not to mention holding his paw when his canine sisters get a load of his lampshade collar and laugh themselves silly. The fact that due to construction at work, the Diet Coke fountain dispenser will be out of commission for a week. The realization that Bunco is at my house next week for my yearly turn...and my house looks grim and unloved. The further realization that the day after Bunco I start an intensive five day certification class for work, a certification that I thought I really wanted to get, but is starting to scare the crap out of me. I'm afraid it may be more pressure than I can handle right now, but it's too late to back out.


Then again, it could be that feeling blue from time to time is what normal human beings do. It's not like there's anything really wrong with it. Some days you're up, some days you're down, and the next day you wake up and it's all better. If not the next day, then maybe the day after that. The blues are temporary, right?


Right?

wallflower

I went to my first really big gathering post-split last night, and man, was it weird. Not the gathering itself. That was not weird in the slightest, in fact it was perfectly lovely. It was everything else that was weird.


I've never been one for big parties anyway. This may be very hard to believe, but I'm really, really shy. I feel totally awkward surrounded by a bunch of people I don't know, no matter how nice and friendly they are. And the fact that there were also a ton of people I knew didn't help much. If anything it almost made it harder, because I'm not entirely sure of my place anymore. I'm not married, although not technically divorced. (Soon. Very soon). I'm not even remotely in the market for a guy, but am suddenly ill at ease talking to men - something that has always come very easily for me. I'm aware that I can come across as a little flirty, which has always been a perfectly safe thing in the past. But not anymore. Have to keep an eye on that. Someone might take it the wrong way and think I actually mean something by it. God forbid.


Even the way I look makes it worse. Yeah, I've amped up the hair. Yeah, I've bought some really cute new clothes. Yeah, I'm actually putting on make-up most days when I go out of the house. (Believe me when I tell you that Vogue will not be calling anytime soon in spite of all of the above). But I'm doing it for me - kind of a little pick me up. I don't actually want anyone to notice. That would mess with my preference for flying under the radar. Well, people did notice. And they were pretty sweet about it. But that made me worry more. Am I trying too hard? Do I look...desperate...or something? Like I'm trying to prove that I'm not damaged goods? I feel awfully comfortable in my own skin most of the time, but it's been tricky lately. When I'm in big crowds of people it's even worse, and I just feel like a wallflower.


But if I wanted to totally fly under the radar, the whole wallflower thing would be perfect. I could fade into the background. I'd walk around schlumpy like I've always done and life would be good. Kind of. But by making an effort to not look like ass most of the time, it's kind of putting me out there in a way I'm not used to. It's very un-wallflower like. So? Which one is it?


Or in short...what the hell am I doing here, people?