Shit, Shit, Shit!

Whoops!  I totally forgot to post anything on here last week.

Sorry.

I've been busy?  Is that a valid excuse?

No.  Years ago I decided to stop making excuses.  I still make them, but I am more aware of it now when I do and I (usually) stop and make myself take responsibility for whatever it is I'm making excuses for.  The honest answer here is that I forgot.

I have been busy though.  We just finished training the seasonal staff and getting things underway; I've been putting in longer days just to try to get everything done.  It seems like I just get caught up and then new things need doing.  Isn't that how life is though?  I guess I shouldn't have expected to 'catch up'.  And then I'm in rehearsals (which started the same weekend as seasonal training...yeah, didn't think that one through).  And then Diablo III came out.  So yeah.  I've been busy.

I've also been doing The Artist's Way.  I've owned the book for years and now I'm finally reading it.  And doing most of the exercises.  I didn't do morning pages every day though.  I think I need to do afternoon pages, because morning is busy and there is really no way I'm getting up an extra half-hour early to write gibberish on three pages a day.  Not long hand.  Not with my cramping wrists.  So I think I'll wind up doing mine in the afternoon, which I hope is allowed because it just fits my schedule better.

If it isn't I guess I'll never know, unless Julia Cameron notices this post and informs me in the comments that it just isn't kosher to do them in the afternoon.

Oh, I also got a working spinning wheel.  I'm still figuring it out - it's amazing how much you can forget in 10 years.

Gah.

I'm going to stop now...and probably go play Diablo III.  Priorities, you know.

Bring on the Wonder

So it appears that I forgot to post last week.  Whoops.

I am forgetting things this week, so at least it fits in with the theme of my life.

It's been very busy at work - we're in orientation and training, leading up to the grand summer opening.  Tourist season is upon us, folks.  Let the tourons begin massing.  Tourons is a real word, invented by someone who obviously worked in tourism.  Tourist + Moron = Touron.  I (at least partially) jest.  They aren't all morons.

(Which I just hilariously misspelt as Mormons.)

Yeah.  I crack myself most consistently up.

I've been watching a lot of Bones and wishing I was an anthropologist.  My two most recent television addictions involve anthropologists - Lie To Me and Bones.  I think I'd do better as a Lie To Me kind of person rather than a Bones kind of person.  Dead bodies do ick me out a bit.  Live bodies intrigue me.

But I'm not an anthropologist.  At least not right now.  So I watch Bones instead.

The last episode I watched had a lovely song at the end.  It made me cry and then I bought it - actually bought it off of iTunes, people, this is a big deal - and listened to it multiple times on repeat.  I am turning into my mother.

Here's the song.  I can't find an official video, so this is what you get.  There is one of her playing the song accoustically in a shed, which is neat, but I like the non-accoustic version better.

That's where I'm at right now.  Another short post, but it's better than not posting at all.

Oh My God, What Does It Mean?

We got our first real spring shower today (that I count, anyway, since it didn't turn to snow).  I saw a rainbow over our house afterward - a full rainbow, all the colours.

It wasn't double but I smiled as I thought of the guy from the video who was so overwhelmed by his rainbow that he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and sounded like he did both at once.

Rainbows are kind of overwhelming.  They're beautiful and ethereal and while I understand the science behind them they kind of defy logic to me as well.

That's kind of all I have to say.  Not a long post, but it wasn't a terribly deep thought.

I Spoke Too Soon

Remember when I wrote about sugar a few weeks ago?  And I said that while I definitely had physical reactions to sugar (congestion, sore throat, etc.) I appeared not to react emotionally?

Yeah.

I spoke too soon.

I’ve since discovered that sugar gives me a flash of a good mood and then, the next day, turns me into an irritable bitch.

Dammit.

I told my mother this, and she laughed.  It’s bizarre to be able to relate about an addiction.

Yes, I said it.

I’m addicted to sugar.

I drink pop like an alcoholic drinks booze.  I crave chocolate to the point of distraction.  I sneak candy like a boozer would sneak a gulp of vodka.

I would say I hate it, but I’m still getting used to the fact that it’s even true.

I’d say that it’s different from alcoholism in that it’s a biochemical addiction, not an emotional addiction, but I don’t know enough about it to know if that’s true or not.  Talking to my mom, it sounds like once you get the biochemistry balanced the rest falls into place.  As she put it - “I just forgot to eat sugar.”  I can hardly believe it - forgot to eat sugar?  Seriously?

Wow.

The upside is that if my mom - who is a recovering alcoholic and a recovering sugar addict - can kick two addictions, I sure as hell can kick one.

The sugar addicts program only has 7 steps too.

My problem is that I want to do all 7 steps at once.  I asked my mom how long it took her to do all 7.  She said, “About a year and a half.”

Dammit.

She said I’m not the first one to look at the list and say, “I can do all that starting next week!”

She also said not to cut sugar cold turkey; to start by reading The Sugar Addict’s Total Recovery Plan; and to be gentle with myself.  Heaping judgement on my head won’t help me heal my body.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Starting today.

Unpleasant Revelations

Last September I went to an Arbonne training conference known as CNTC.  One of the speakers there was a man named John C. Maxwell.  He's a leadership expert and does a lot of speaking engagements where he teaches people how to become better leaders.

What he had to say intrigued me enough to ask for a few of his books for Christmas.  It's taken me ages to actually start reading them but I am reading "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" now and I'm both encouraged and disheartened by what I'm learning.

The encouraging part?  I see that I have a lot of innate leadership potential.

The disheartening part is to see how clearly I have not used it.  Any of it.  At all.  Ever.

That's a bit of an exaggeration.  I do use some of it - my ability to read people, for example, which is a strength of mine.  However, I have not trained myself to think like a leader.  I've been very unaware of areas in which I could grow personally to become a better leader.

For example, my character is not nearly as strong as I thought it was; at least not when you measure it by integrity, authenticity, and discipline (especially discipline); and respect, potential and consistency (especially consistency).

And let's be honest - who wants to read a book where they are continually learning things about themselves such as:

I have no concrete plan for personal growth.
I haven't learnt how to analyze failures and then learn from them (I analyze well enough if brooding counts...).
I don't know what all of the people closest to me value most.
I don't feel like I live in a way that builds trustworthiness, nor do I feel that I help create an environment of trust around me.
I have not been aware of my need to be a leader, even when I owned my own business.
I have been unaware of what to look for in a leader and what to emulate.
I have been expecting results on inspiration, not on practice and process.
I can create the dream and plan the course but I do not take action on either so what's the point?
So this quote cuts from Jerry West me to the core: "You can't get too much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good."  Goddammit.

I have found reading this book to be a constant struggle between facing my stark reality and being absolutely discouraged and trapped in despair, and seeing my own potential for improvement and being completely reenergized and encouraged - and I'm only on Law 9.  The good news is that I can see growth in myself from a year ago - a year ago I would have stopped at discouraged and quit reading.  I would have placed myself in a downward spiral of despair that I would have had to fight out of over the course of weeks or months, and I probably would have never gone back to the book.  Today I'm recognizing that feeling of unhappiness, of disappointment in myself, taking a deep breath and getting over it.  Learning from it.  Allowing it to be the wound that spurs healing, the wound of the spirit that makes me notice where I have to grow.  Then I pick the book up and keep reading.

As John says in the part about developing leadership skills, there are three types of people: those who naturally understand leadership, those who can be nurtured to understand leadership, and those who will never understand leadership.  I know the last one isn't me, "because these people never pick up a leadership book."

So there is encouragement to be found, and part of that is the fact that I can see these unpleasant revelations about myself and instead of stagnating in them I'm being intentional about improving myself in those specific areas.

But it's not easy to face down.

I shared some of this with S. yesterday and he just nodded.  It made sense to him and he could see it in my life.  That sucked too - when the person you love most, who loves you most, who knows you best, nods when you say that you can create a dream, plan out a course of action, but then you stop and so what does it matter really? and they nod because that's not a surprise to them because they've said so, in essence, to you many times over the last two years...argh.  That cuts like a knife.  Like a knife of truth that you just want to shut your eyes and ignore, but I can't do that if I actually want to change, and I do.

So I'll keep reading, learning the other 12 Laws of Leadership, and then I'll go on and ingest more stuff that makes me think, that challenges my status quo, that forces me to see the good, the bad, and the downright ugly truths about myself.

As long as I can see both the unpleasant and the pleasant revelations, I think I'll be able to keep doing that until I die.

Lend Me Some Sugar

A few years ago my mother's health took a dive.  Doctors told her she had a couple years at the most and they had no idea what was wrong with her.  She did a lot of hard work, both emotional through rehab and therapy/counselling and physical with diet and lifestyle changes, and has brought herself back to a place of health.  She's also outlived the doctor's best guess and shows no signs of stopping now.

Part of her journey was food related.  When your heart won't allow you to exercise your only option for improved health is to change how, and what, you eat.  As part of her journey she discovered that she has several food sensitivities and that one of those foods is sugar.  She discovered that her body responds to sugar the way it responds to alcohol (she's a recovering alcoholic), thanks in no small part to the work Kathleen DesMaisons has done.  I'm not entirely certain what part of her physical recovery is due to cutting sugar from her diet, but she found that without sugar she enjoys more emotional stability.  A diet that stabilizes blood sugars and beta-endorphin release makes for a happier life.

Who woulda thunk it.

For the last few months I've been on my own food journey.  My mom gave me one of her food journals, a neatly laid out book where I can track what I eat, when I eat it, and how it makes me feel physically and emotionally.  I can also track physical exercise and include that in the equation - naturally occurring beta-endorphins are highly encouraged.  I haven't noticed a close relationship between food and my emotional state.  I'm sure my mom would be happy to hear that - I know she has worried about how her own relationship with food and weight may have influenced me growing up.

I have however noticed a direct relationship between what I eat and my physical health.  What are the odds?  What you eat directly impacts how your body feels.  I know, it's not rocket science, but it has been extremely eye opening.

It hasn't been what I expected, either.  I thought perhaps I'd find that bread and cheese had a negative impact - gluten and dairy sensitivities are common, after all - but I can eat gluten and dairy all I want and nothing happens, nothing I'm aware of anyway.  I thought I might find I was sensitive to tomatoes or oranges, like my mom.  But I can eat pasta sauces and eat citrus and again, I have no noticeable reaction.

Sugar, on the other hand…

I eat one Rocket candy and my throat gets sore.  I drink a can of cola and I can feel the fluids being retained in my ear (weird, huh?  But soda pop gives me an almost instant earache).  Down a double chocolate muffin, and my sinuses clog up.  Swollen glands and sniffles, you'd think I had a cold.  All of my chronic health complaints - except joint pain - are directly tied to the sugar in my diet.

I've done a bit of research apart from Dr. DesMaison's work, and I've found that (according to some sources anyway) sugar causes inflammation, which reduces the effectiveness of your immune system.  That certainly matches what I've experienced.

I have to be honest.  I have mixed feelings about this.  On one hand I'm glad that sugar doesn't seem to affect my emotions, at least not like it could.  As long as I eat protein with every meal I seem to be pretty stable, emotionally.  On the other hand, I fricken love chocolate and if, as my body seems to be requesting, I give up sugar, all sugar, forever and ever, I will really miss that silky sensation of chocolate melting on my tongue.  (I have also noticed that I do get PMS, contrary to what I thought, and I crave chocolate with I'm PMSing...badly.  Like, stereotype badly.  Giving that up could be dangerous to the survival of those around me, never mind their health, at least for a few days a month.)

All that being said, I'm also glad to find a possible solution to my health.  My immune system has never bounced back to what it was before I got mononucleosis four years ago, and I'm tired of having constant low-level congestion, low energy, post-nasal drip, and a lingering cough as a result of that.  I'm tired of always being on the edge of getting sick.  If giving up sugar means that I'm healthy again, I'll do it.

It won't be easy but I'll do it.


Something else that has been interesting to me as I've been learning this has been what I've been being shown in my meditations.  I use tarot cards as a meditation, which may sound weird but it helps me to locate and hear that little voice, telling me things that I already knew.  And in some cases I have had cards turn up that indicated things that I didn't see coming, that wound up actually happening.  So who knows, maybe there's an element of truth to the whole 'tarot cards tell the future' thing.  All I know is that I find them a helpful element to meditation, and they usually show me things that I already knew but didn't want to admit.  I don't meditate every day, but when I do the tarot is a part of my process.  My deck is bizarre too, but that's another blog post.

So while I've been sorting out this whole sugar thing - and it's been crystallizing mostly in the last few weeks - I've had these cards show up, and in this order:

Death
Temperance
A card I can't remember
Three of Swords

Keep in mind that I pick one card a day, so this isn't a spread where the cards influence each other.

This is what I got out of them.  Death indicates change is coming, change you can accept or change that is forced.  If I don't make the change in my health, it'll be made for me.  I'm not willing to have it taken to that extreme edge before I do what's best for my body.  Now I have to find out if I'm willing to make the hard decisions to make that change while I'm still in control of the options.

Temperance brings balance, moderation and an element of being tempered.  So this change, which I know will not be easy, will bring balance to my relationship between food and health.  I also have no problem seeing that I'll be 'tempered' into a (hopefully) better person by the experience.

There was another one in there that I didn't write down the name of, just what I saw in it; but it brought a reminder of the strength and focus required to overcome obstacles.  It was an absolutely necessary reminder to renew my focus.  That would be the day I realized I don't like strawberry wafers - although it took me 7 wafers to really figure that out.  :P

The three of swords reminded me that I have a support group to help me, a tightly knit group of people who will root for me, provide accountability and extend mercy when I can't do that for myself, encouraging me as I go along this path.  I need to be reminded that I need that as I bring harmony to my relationship with food.

Not every meditation I do has to do with my health but since that's what 've been thinking about it's an easy direction to meditate in.  And it's been kind of encouraging to be reminded of what it'll take to actually see this through.

There have been other reminders - an article on fear.less about cake, a word from Anne Lamott about the difference between food eaten in happiness and food eaten in misery - reminders that what I'm seeking is worth the struggle I'm going through to find it.

I'm not dumping sugar cold-turkey but I'm working down to nothing.  That in itself has been surprisingly challenging.  Sugar is everywhere.

So be a good neighbour.  Don't lend me some sugar, even if I beg and scream for it.  I'll thank you...

...in the long run, anyway.

Forgetfulness

I realized yesterday afternoon that I completely forgot to write on Monday like I had promised.  Apologies.

Forgetting things is something I am sadly very good at.  I forget where I put my phone, my keys, my purse, the lip balm, gift cards, you name it and I can forget where it was last put down.  I also forget to do things I said I'd do - laundry, dishes, or pretty much any other kind of household task or errand will slip my mind as though it had never been.

S. groans over my apparent sieve of a brain and the fact that I put everything into my phone but quite frankly, I can't afford to forget everything that I would forget if I didn't have little reminders for myself.

Reminders aren't always available and what do you think happens?  I'll tell you.  Yesterday I spent 40 minutes looking for an allen wrench key at work and never did find it.  We use it to unlock the bars on the doors so they can just be pushed open instead of requiring effort.  The door can be unlocked without the allen wrench, and even then we have a spare but it still niggles at my brain.  Where the hell did it go?

I might never remember.

Or I might remember out of the blue in three days, like I remembered to write here.  In three days it'll be my weekend so there will be precious little I can do about it but at least I'll know where the damn thing went.

So you can see why, for me, better late than never is a really, really apt saying.

Next stop, Procrastination Station

Why is it that every time I have a day where I could write, uninterrupted, I don't?  Instead I spend the day doing things like the following:

Having a long shower.

Doing my hair and makeup.  Gotta look pretty for the computer.

Laundry.

Taking Z. for a long, long walk.

Planning the supper menu.

Paying bills.

Doing banking/books.

Playing XBox games.

Phoning XBox because of a stupid clerical error that indicated that I wanted to renew my Gold Membership when, in fact, I did not (that error is locking me out of any games that require downloadable content - so far, all of them).

Checking the mail.

Checking my email, Facebook and Twitter.

Playing with Z.

Daydreaming.

And then...

Doing a little wee bit of writing.

And S. will be home soon and there will go my uninterrupted writing time.

At least I'm feeling better today.  I had a wicked ear infection over the weekend and now understand why babies cry so badly when they have one.  Ear infections hurt!  There is no way to hold your head that doesn't include pain of some kind.  Thank God for antibiotics.  Of course it never occurred to me that I could also take pain killers because that's just not how my brain works.  I'll remember for next time, although I really hope there isn't a next time.

It's a lovely day in my part of the world.  The Balcony Babies are out on their balconies, playing in the sun and screaming at each other.  They come and go as they please, the doors left open for them, going up to the bars that separate them and screaming some more.  They're both wearing clothes which is unusual.  Typically one is in a diaper and the other in a shirt and diaper combo.  Today they both have shirts and pants.  It's a miracle.

I've got a busy week of work ahead of me.  We're launching our annual spring family event and my project for it isn't quite done.  This year has been flying by - I didn't actually realize we were a week away from launching until we were a week away from launching.  It feels like I've been finishing things in a last-minute rush but I'm not the only one so that's reassuring.  Either I'm still on schedule or the time got away from everyone.

Of course when you procrastinate, it's amazing how often that will happen to you.

That Time of Year

I'm doing taxes today.

I'm not feeling particularly creative or wordy.  Numbers are running around my head in loops, screaming their importance to an uncaring world.  Z. keeps wanting to sniff and disrupt my piles of receipts, taking keen interest in the milage record book.

Now that she spent 40 minutes running at the dog park she'll be less intrusive.  It's hard to eat paper when you're sleeping in the sunny patch on the floor.

Taking a break was good for me too.  A mild refreshment for my brain so it doesn't get overloaded and shut down.

But now the break is over and it's time to get back to the screaming, racing numbers.

Hello Again

Well, I haven't posted since November.

I've been working on other projects, which is poor comfort for anyone who has come here looking for fresh new words.  But I have been writing which is much comfort for my soul, as well as for anyone who has to spend any time with me.

I am planning on being more regular with my posts - as in, once a week instead of once every six months.  I might start with one a month, or every couple of weeks, but I promise I'll work up to once a week.

Once a day just isn't going to happen though.

I just sorted through a year's worth of paper on my desk (fortunately for me, it was this year's worth so only a few months, haha) and found all kinds of journals scribbled on yellow legal paper, journals I write while at work.  Most of them are about the various parents I'm watching and judging.  Some of the regular parents who come by are jewels, and so are their children.  I don't mean they behave all the time - but when they do misbehave, their parents actually follow through on whatever consequence has been promised.

The parents I judge harshly can't get their progeny's attention even after (or probably because of) repeating their name twenty times.  They say they're leaving in five minutes and wind up staying two hours (with five minute warnings throughout).  The kid throws a tantrum and the parent threatens, and the kid gets their way.  I really don't like those parents, but on the plus side they are showing me what not to do in the event that I ever have children.

I want to be a jewel parent, not a "dear Lord in Heaven, here come those people again" parent.

If I look at Z. I'm afraid I'm somewhere in the middle.  But at least right now she's being quiet...because we gave her a pizzle, aka dog candy.  Sigh.  We totally bribe her to be good.  At least we're aware of what we're doing.

Fear vs. Hope

I realized the day after I wrote about aliens that it was a post generated by and promoting fear.  At least that's how I feel about it, and that's not really what I intended to do.


Do the alien dreams I have genuinely worry at me?  Yes.  Do videos like the one I posted freak me out?  Yes.  Do I think there is a rational reason to be afraid, and that the phone call in that video is genuine?  At the risk of sounding like a lunatic, yes.


After all that, do I think our future is bleak and hopeless?  No.  A thousand times no.


I'm not always entirely sure where the hope lies.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed by how big and out of my hands it all seems, how little there appears to be that I can do.  This is true of life in general, and at times I've allowed myself to sit and stagnate.


That, I've learned, doesn't help.


I'm not always sure what action I can take to make myself feel better, and the idea of being in control of something I know precious little about other than how deeply troubled I feel about it is ludicrous, really.  I think the best I can do is try my hardest to make day to day decisions about life that I can live with, and be prepared to put up a fight against Darkness and Evil wherever I see them.  Hopefully then, if the shit hits the fan in a way that I've dreamt about, I'll be ready to do something about it instead of being frozen in fear.


And if it never happens, well, then I'll have lived a life that I hope I can look back on and say, yes, I did the best I could with what I had, and I strove to improve on that every day, and promote Light instead of Darkness, and Hope instead of Fear.

Alien Encounter

As far back as I can remember I have had strange dreams.  I say strange but what I really mean is other people find them strange, disturbing even, while I find them perfectly normal.  To wake up after having been run through with a spear held by Mel Gibson's William Wallace intrigues me.  I find it simple to go about my day after running from former friends by escaping through a secret door into a snow maze in a town suddenly filled with enemies at every bend...as long as it happened in a dream.

Every so often I'll have a dream that for no rational reason disturbs me.  Sometimes it'll be a dream about demons, but those don't always bother me upon waking.  A dream about Oliver Twist, or being an orphan, or being chased by a clown who wanted to drug me with cough syrup.  It's usually because of whatever the dream was telling me, and I know to pay attention to those ones, the ones that last with me all day.


There are only two categories of dreams that I always awaken from in a cold sweat.  Dreams about Ecthroi - and dreams about aliens.  I've only had Ecthroi dreams in the past few years.  I've had alien dreams almost as long as I can remember.  They've always left me deeply terrified, the kind of fear you'd get if someone really truly was out to harm you and there was nothing you could do about it.


The dreams all have similar points in common.  They always start innocuously, with me looking up at the night sky and enjoying, or at the least indifferent to, the stars.  Every time I notice that some of the stars are different colours than normal - faintly green or red.  And every time, once I notice that, I see that these stars are moving, and creating formations, and coming down out of the sky.  They are not stars at all.  They're ships, filled with aliens.


This is where the variations come in.  The aliens either kidnap me and send me to another world to work as a slave, a world that I have no chance of ever escaping, so that I will never get to come back home to my family where I belong.  Or they pretend to be friends of mankind but the moment that anyone expresses doubt (or even thinks doubtful thoughts) they begin their hostile takeover.  Or they don't bother with the facade and just begin killing and enslaving mankind.


I always have the urge to hide, every time.  You know that urge you got when you were a kid (and maybe still get now although you'll never admit it), that crazy sudden need to hide as fast as possible from what, you never really knew?  And there was a hint of exhilaration, like how a kitten must feel when they're going through their midnight crazies?  Well, it's like that but instead of excitement it's terror, sheer terror, and I know to my bones that if I don't hide, if I can't get away, that my life is going to be complete hell.  It'll probably be a really short life, but what's left of it will be hell on earth.


So when I see videos like this...well, it gets to me.  Because this is what I see - and I've seen it since before I knew about the internet.  When I didn't have a TV.  When there was no way that I know of that I could have gotten this information from anywhere but my own subconscious mind.  And I don't know how to reconcile that without freaking myself the hell out.


http://youtu.be/RjGYSGbAEUM

Yeah.  That phone call at the end?  FREAKS ME OUT.  Genuinely.  Because it sounds absolutely real and if it is, what does that mean?

What does that mean for all of us?

I've recently heard an idea that what we perceive as UFOs are not extraterrestrial in origin, but supernatural.  That resonates with me, and not in a good way.  If you think about it, almost all UFOs and aliens behave in ways that defy the laws of physics...but they follow all of our understood rules for the supernatural.  Plus, they've been lying to us on a regular basis about where they come from.  Anything that shows up and lies to us can't be trusted - I'd go further and say that they're probably our enemies.

What if aliens aren't from another world at all?  What if they're just another, modern disguise for demons?

I know some people who read this will write me off as a kook.  And some of you will think it's endearing, how I believe this is all true.  But I don't really care.

Because I'm the one having the dreams.

I'm Not Dead

Hi! I'm not dead.

Just in case you were wondering.

I've just been busy, and then forgot that I had a blog until I read the super-awesomeness that is www.hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com which you should all go read. And read the archives too.

I do feel like I'm putting some of the pieces of my life back together, which is good. In case I forgot to mention here, I felt like I'd lost direction and purpose and had no idea what I was supposed to do with myself.

I've finally stopped fighting the fact that I want to be a writer, and that's about all I want to do. Ever.

So I'm figuring out what to do with that, other than writing obviously, and we'll see where I go next.

But I won't wait so long in between posts next time.

The Darkness

I've been watching a lot of Dexter recently. He talks about the Darkness he has living inside him, that darkness he has to feed else it take over his life.

I can't relate. Not entirely.

Lately I've been struggling. Isn't that how all my posts go? Struggle should be a tag for my posts. Oh wait, it already is.

Last summer I was depressed. It felt like the world was one big dark hole and I was being sucked into it against my will and there was nothing I could do to stop the world around me from falling apart.

If we hadn't gotten Z. I don't know what would have happened. Z. made me get up in the morning. I had to do things because she needed me to.

I feel that dark vacuum sneaking up on me again and I'm panicking a bit. I think I'm aware enough to stop it - to reach out and socialize and keep myself from falling apart - but what if I'm deluding myself? What if there's nothing I can do to keep it from grabbing me again?

I can't stomach another summer like that.

S. and I can't survive another summer like that.

So I'm writing about it. It seems like a slightly futile effort but it's all I have right now.

I'm currently fighting the pull of the black hole, and today I'm winning.

Yesterday I lost. But today I'm winning.

Perhaps that all I can do, go one day at a time and hope that I win more often than I lose.

Life

Not much to say.

I've been in a strange head space since Wednesday. Not a bad one. Just a different one, and unexpected.

Z. is growling at a pit bull outside. The fur along her spine is all standing on end. It looks hilarious but I probably shouldn't be encouraging this.

We had hail today. My flowers survived. Huzzah for the balcony.

They cut down the trees in the neighbours' back yard. I am unhappy about this. The trunks lie bucked up in the alley, useless to everyone unless they let them dry out to be used for firewood. Another neighbour has a wood burning stove. Perhaps the loss won't be a complete one.

And other than that I have not much to say.

Smiling at Strangers

I've been in rehearsals because - tada! - I'm in a show coming up! Which is great. Which also means I've been taking the bus to the rehearsal hall because S. is working at Heritage Park again and he is using the car. Why am I not also at a typical job? That's another blog post.

This blog post is about smiling. Or strangers. Or random encounters with strangers. I'm not sure yet.

I was waiting for the bus and a man walked down the sidewalk with a huge smile on his face. That isn't necessarily strange, although it isn't often that you see someone smiling that broadly in public. Which is really sad when you think about it. But what made it odd was that he was actively seeking out eye contact with the people he met. And he was well dressed - not a homeless bum whom you could assume was hopped up on something, but a business man or some sort of professional. And most people looked away! And his smile didn't dim! I smiled back. I almost didn't. But then I did and it made me feel better.

So then I began to actively people watch. I don't think I was smiling but I was actively alert, watching, interested in the world around me. I usually car watch while I wait for the bus - you know, check out the various vehicles and wonder what it's like to drive that Jag or Beamer or Benz or beat up Oldsmobile. Now I switched my attention to the drivers. Most of whom were wearing sunglasses and either frowning or chatting on cell phones and frowning. People in the city are grumpy looking drivers. Or perhaps that's the 'I'm occupied' expression of humanity. I don't know. I continued once I got on the bus, looking down at the drivers around me.

I made eye contact with a woman who was driving a shiny grey-green car, don't remember what kind. She smiled at me, a real genuine smile! A smile that said, I see you people watching! I do that too! And I smiled back. Later I saw her join the cell phone chatting masses but for a moment she was a real person, with a real smile, someone I wouldn't trip if zombies were chasing me.

The next day I was waiting for the bus again. On my way down the street a somewhat disheveled gent asked me for a light. I don't smoke, so I don't carry a lighter. Which is what I said as I continued to walk. He kept going also. He ended up at the same bus stop. Asked me again for a light. Once again I said no. He asked someone else and then settled down at the bus stop and looked me up and down and asked if he could help me out. I never know what to do when random disheveled strangers start talking to me. I said I didn't need any help (as I said it I smiled to myself - you never know what kind of help you need until someone offers help flashed through my head) and then he asked me if I wanted to buy a bus transfer. I said I had a ticket, and as my mouth moved my heart sank as I realized I had left my book of tickets at home. And the bus was too close for me to run home, grab them, and get back in time. He offered them for a dollar. For fifty cents. I didn't have any money on me so I had to decline, even though I needed one. And then he got grumpy, asking me what kind of world was this where nobody had a light or carried any money.

I got a bit alarmed at this point. Not going to lie. I said, Sorry, I don't smoke and I don't carry cash, now will you please leave me alone.

He gave me a transfer anyway and then walked off and promptly vanished. I don't mean I saw him dematerialize, but I have no idea where he went so quickly.

I was very grateful for the transfer even though I felt like I was defrauding the system. And I mentally apologized multiple times for panicking and being rude.

I found the bus tickets in my backpack once I arrived at the rehearsal hall. I had them all along but didn't know it.

I hope he found his light.

Magnetic Attraction

When I was a little kid I discovered the concept of divining answers from a magnet on a string. I can't remember where I heard about it first; some book about divining for water and minerals, I think. I can't remember how I learned about it. I do remember that I immediately went out, made a magnet-string tool, and discovered that it worked. In my test run it told me one of our lambs was a girl. I already knew that but that's why it was a test. I thought it was wrong when it said bunny Patty was a boy and bunny Clover was a girl, but later that turned out to be true as well. (Patty became Patrick. It was a simple transition.)

I told my brothers about it. We were all able to do it, me and my youngest brother with a little more skill than my middle sibling. My youngest brother could make the magnet swing in different directions by thinking at it, even when someone else was holding the string.

My mom was squibby about the whole thing. "You don't know what you're opening yourself up to," she said. "Satan appears as an angel of light, you know."

I was puzzled at first. The whole concept of not recognizing darkness in disguise didn't make sense to me then. It makes a little more sense to me now but I still think that God gives us a pretty good feel for when we're being deceived and when we aren't. If we can't trust that instinct then we can't trust any of it, I think, since that's all we really have to go on.

That and evidence of behaviour I guess.

It does suck that we're so good at deceiving ourselves, but that's where self-awareness comes into things.

Dad seemed to think that divining gender was a simple electro-magnetic thing. Scientific. He had little to say about asking questions and getting yes/no answers. Probably because I didn't ask him about it.

I haven't used the magnet on a string for a long time. For a while when I lived in Rosebud I lost my ability to use it. Along with my ability to make clouds dissipate. I ran into a skeptic who had more power over me than I realized; more power over me still I think than I would like but now I'm aware of that and I keep my walls politely up to protect myself. Before I realized that though, my faith was tested and my connection to the other side was a struggle and nothing that couldn't be explained rationally worked for me. I lost the magnet. It slipped from my mind altogether.

A few weeks ago I am cleaning the office and I find my magnet from all those years ago. Still on the green braided yarn string I made to keep it safe. It falls out of a box into my hand like it had never left. I try to see what it would say about Z. but she keeps trying to bite it, so I put it on the dresser and forget about it again.

Until this morning. It is stuck to my glasses case so I pick it up and began to play around with it like I used to. What gender of baby will my friends have next? A boy. Will I be an RVP within the next 5 years? Yes. Will I be an Area Manager in a year from now? No. By next GTC? Yes. Will S. and I get married? No, but when I ask if we'll be together for the rest of our lives it swings yes. Will I live past 60? Yes. Will Scott? No. Hmm. Will we have children? This confuses the magnet. First it says yes; on further questioning it says one boy and one girl; then two boys; then one boy; then no children at all. We will, however, have a theatre company together. That it seems pretty sure about.

A friend of ours read S.'s palm and said he'll live to be an old man and he'll have three daughters, with me. Who is right? I guess only time will tell.

I notice that sometimes when it swings yes it swings clockwise, and sometimes counter-clockwise. So I ask if those directions meant different things. Clockwise it swings. Does clockwise mean yes for certain? Clockwise. Does counter-clockwise mean a likely yes but not a certain one? It stays counter-clockwise. I test it by asking something I knew the answer to - clockwise it swings. Again I ask if I'll be an Area Manager by the next GTC. Counter-clockwise - likely but not certain.

Huh.

Spoiler alert - if you haven't read The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, skip this next paragraph.

I recently re-read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. In that series the main character, Lyra, uses a form of divination to determine the truth of things past, present and future. She learns that a substance called Dust is on the 'other side' as it were, answering the questions. The Dust also answers questions through the I Ching. Presumably it uses all forms of divination, but those were the only two mentioned in the books. The Dust is later revealed to be fallen angels. If I hadn't read the series it probably never would have occurred to me to ask who was answering my questions. It certainly had never occurred to me before.

Are you what Lyra refers to as Dust?

Definite yes.

Am I dealing with a spirit?

Certain yes.

Is that spirit neutral?

No.

Is that spirit good?

No.

Is that spirit evil?

Certain yes.

Hmm. Interesting.

Was my mother right about this?

Yes, she definitely was.

Was my father right about this?

Nope.

I continue to ask questions. Are you accurate? Mostly. Is your aim to harm me? No. Is your aim to hurt me? Yes. Can you hurt me? Yes. Can you harm me? No.

The distinction is important - hurt is temporary. You can recover from hurt. Hurt is a burn. Harm though. Harm is a bigger deal. Harm is something that takes a lot of time and potential therapy to recover from. Abuse is harm. And hurt. Anyway. The magnet clearly understands the difference.

Should I as a Christian stop messing around with this?

Definite yes.

I put the magnet back on the dresser and go upstairs.

I wonder how honest the spirit on the other side is but I'm not sure if I'll go ask.

I might just use that magnet to find stray needles from now on.

Patron Saint for a Year

This is a break away from Reverb10.

I got this from the blog of a woman I greatly respect and admire.

Her patron saint for the year is St. Florian. I'd never heard of him before.

Mine is St. Patrick. Yes, the St. Patrick, patron saint of engineers, Ireland and Nigeria. Against the fear of snakes and snake related incidents. And apparently also the patron saint of excluded people according to the brief blurb I read when I got him here.

I read that to include those who are isolated or alienated.

Interesting, no?

I thought so.

I'll be back with the rest of the Reverb10 posts but I wanted to share this first.

Now, when you are least suspecting it -

I know you probably thought I'd forgotten, or given up on, Reverb10.

Surprise! I was writing them, but forgetting to post them.

There is a subtle difference.

So here's the next one. It's practically a bullet point list, but I did write it early in the morning - or maybe late at night - I don't know. Don't judge me.

What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

I want to try to make a sundress. I also want to try to build a business so I can work from home. I also want to try to finish a novel I started a year ago; and try to get another novel sent to a publisher.

All of the above are things I wanted to try in 2010. What happened when I tried all those things this year - the sundress got put on hold when I had no iron and I had a bent needle on my sewing machine; building a business proved harder than anticipated and I gave up and restarted and gave up and restarted and then felt like God was telling me to slow down and wait for my time - not yet, not yet; I got too involved in the novel and then sank into depression and had to leave it alone; and I lost my other novel in my office which was/is a disaster area and only recently found it again.

What happened to me with all of this is that I felt worthless and like I couldn’t finish anything.

I know that isn’t true though. So I’m going to try again and this time I’m going to succeed.

Lessons

The best thing I learned about myself this year is that I have endless reserves of anger and rage. This may not sound like a good thing to learn about oneself but I find a strange pleasure in that, alongside the disturbing nature of the discovery. It means that when I need to be angry, when I need to rage to stay alive or to protect that which I value, or when I need that anger to be there to fight for what I believe in, it will be.

I also learned that I can let go of things like resentment. And that I can be patient and loving even when I don't feel like it. I am capable of a lot more than I realized.

I will carry this on with me. Knowledge is power; and self-knowledge even more so. Now that I know that I can let go of resentment, for instance, it's a lot harder for me to hang onto it in the first place. I see the endless pools of rage and anger resentment brings (and even if I think I can utilize that anger, I don't want to live there), and I'm not willing to have that be my default setting.