He wrote about me.... :)

I just want to post this really fast and get to sleep. (Tiring afternoon, LOL)

The guidance counselor told me that Matt wrote about me in his writing assessment. :) (Her neice told her; apparently she's one of his admirers. LOL) She said their topic was something like a good role model, or someone you admire, something along those lines.

It made me cry when she said that.

Construction work finished :)

Yay! Finally finished, except for all the repainting I have to do. It looks really good. Of course, that side of the room is kinda dark now. But at least it isn't falling in on my head.

Only a couple of weeks of school before spring break, and I'm NOT teaching the remedial classes this time. Yeah, it's $700 I'm passing up, but I'm so burned out it isn't a good idea for me to do that to myself. At least, not with these kids. I think that I deserve a break, don't I?

I may just be spending 2 weeks playing Warcraft, but that's my prerogative. I do need to paint in here, now that I have the living room semi-rearranged.

More later... it's too late at night for me to be writing much.

Went a little nuts at Bath and Body Works again.... LOL

They've got a Presidents' Day sale going on - Body Butters for $8, and Valentine's Day stuff half price. Hey, there aren't many things that I actually indulge myself in. Enjoying my showers is very important to me! A smart man will remember that someday. :D Besides, B&BW stuff isn't that expensive (on sale) compared to some of the designer stuff from department stores. And it does make my wintertime dry skin stop hurting and itching. I'd say that's worth it.

I got body butters in Tropical Passionfruit (gotta have something fruity), Sensual Amber, and Japanese Cherry Blossom. I may still have skin that's too young for heavy moisturizers all over, but my feet, legs, and elbows sure appreciated the treatment. My feet still felt soft this morning when I woke up. :D

Plenty of products left in Moonlight Path still. I learned when they discontinued the Lavender Flowers that I enjoyed so much, that you'd better buy their products in bulk, while the gettin's good. I'm still ticked at them for not bringing back the Winter Candy Apple body wash this Christmas. They had room fragrance, lotions all over the place... but no body wash! Oh well, I think I'm learning my lesson about that now. I still wish I'd tried some of the Twisted Peppermint before it was all gone.

I also got the "Red Hot Love Story" 3-in-1 body wash / bubble bath / shampoo. I'll admit that I was a little bit skeptical about the shampoo. It was okay for a body wash - bubbles not quite as foamy as I was hoping, but it smelled wonderful - like red hots and powdered sugar. It also left the bathroom smelling yummy afterward. LOL

I haven't used it as a bubble bath yet. My tub is really gross right now, so there's no way I'm going to ... sit in it for a while. I can't get the rust stains out of it this time, and no matter how much bleach I spray on the caulk, the mildew just keeps spreading. I think I'm going to be better off if I just tear out the old caulk and redo it. Actually, I'd prefer to get a new tub with a modern built-in stopper, surround it with white subway tile (now there's a job I'd be thrilled to do myself), and put in a new floor. Okay, I realize that the entire bathroom needs to be redone, but the thought of what's behind the walls freaks me out.

Aside from the state of the tub, there's the problem with there not being enough hot water to actually fill the thing for an actual bath. I know there's a ton of sediment in the water heater, but I'm kinda scared to fool around with it, for fear that I'll do something wrong and flood my house. I would almost rather put in a new water heater at this point. Just call Lowe's and get them to install it.

You know, if I made a few changes here and there, the house would actually be tolerable until I was able to sell it. It wouldn't be so bad if I were making the changes to make me happy, and if it sells, so much the better. It would give me enough time to save up a healthy down payment on another house. Oh, a home with a nice master bath I could just relax in... *sigh*

I did try out the "Red Hot Love Story" as a shampoo today. Since it's Sunday and I have tomorrow off, I figured that if it did a number on my hair, I'd have a day to fix the problem. The bottle does list pro-v vitamins in it, so that might be why it didn't act so much like a body wash. Maybe it's really formulated to be a shampoo, and it can just be used the other ways additionally.

After I washed my hair, it felt kinda dry, but I had planned to use my regular conditioner anyway. My hair actually felt soft and looked nicer than usual after I dried it... Weird.... I guess it's a passable shampoo, but with my colored hair, of course I'll have to always smooth it back out with conditioner.

I have to admit to a very embarrassing moment, though I've got a serious urge to laugh my butt off about it. The other night, someone unexpectedly decided to kiss my soft and incredibly moisturized instep, which he has never done before... and I almost didn't stop him in time to keep him from getting a mouthful of soaked-in body butter. I'll admit that I was a bit distracted at the time. LOL Then he went for my calf, and I said, "No! My legs have lotion all over them too!" I did explain that I was really enjoying the attention, but I didn't want him to get the moisturizer all in his mouth.

Of course, if I hadn't thoroughly moisturized my legs and feet, they would have been horrendously untouchable and scary looking. But maybe it was the softness that prompted him to try to kiss the tenderest part of the bottom of my foot. Probably would have felt really nice, but I just couldn't do that to him. (His hands felt good on my feet... wonder if I could ever talk him into giving me a foot massage? Pre-softened, of course. LOL)

Well, are ya gonna pay me what you owe me??

I realized that one of the sites I sell my designs on hadn't paid me since the September pay period!! They owed me over $200, and it took about a week for the owner to even answer my email about it.

Well, finally tonight, she sent the money that she owed me. I think she was hoping that I would just forget about it and let her keep the money. Nope. I don't think so. Actually, I think I'm going to try to get warmed back up to designing again, and see if I can make a bunch of extra money at it this coming year. Maybe I can work at the coffee shop while I'm ignoring Mr. Full of Himself. :D

For the house I'm planning to buy when this one is prettied up, if I can get it to sell.

I'm having this compulsion to get back on my Gazelle and exercise, but with the construction zone in the living room, my workout space is g-o-n-e.

Spring Break is coming soon and I think mine will have to be spent painting the beam parts and responging the walls where the drywall mud had to be overlapped. Hey, I could go on and replace the blinds then, too. I think that I might leave the couch and loveseat perpendicular to the TV and see how I like that. The part that I really don't like, though, is the actual couch and loveseat. hehehe The longer I own them, the more I detest the green. I wish that the lighting had been better when I bought them, and I'd have seen that they were really, really green, and not the tan I thought they were. Oh well, they were great at the time, and I have had them for 5 years now.

I guess I could start looking now for what I'd like to get. Although... I have to say that I saw a very nice ultrasuede set with a chaise at Sam's Club. But it was beige, and I'm not the neatest person in the world. It would pretty much defeat the purpose of the ultrasuede to have to cover it with a slipcover immediately.

It's a shame that the current loveseat is in almost new condition and the couch is nearly worn out. I'll probably sell the couch, and take the loveseat to our workroom at the school. The question is... Do I need a loveseat here at home? Or should I just get a nice couch and a chair to go with it? It's about time for me to get rid of the recliner that only my dog liked to sit in. Now that she's gone, it's taking up a lot of space.

One thing I have my mind made up about, however, is my tables. I'm keeping my slate-topped coffee and end tables, because they ARE nice tables. They're very classy looking, even if they are the heaviest ones I've ever seen. LOL Keep the tables, keep the lamps, lose the couch, loveseat, and 20 year old recliner.

There's that possibility that I'll have to re-paint the living room to go with new furniture, but that's okay. The hard part in that room is long over with. (sanding away all traces of that horrid border glued directly to the flat finish paint and priming the walls... Painting all of the old, dark stained woodwork white for more neutrality. ) I think that if I could get that one room finished and NICE LOOKING, it would give me the strength to hit the other rooms as well.

Birthday was okay after all

Apparently several of the kids in my classes got to school early (much earlier than me) and decorated my classroom. :D They seemed really happy to see me and made me close my eyes while they walked me in and yelled "Surprise!!" All day long, they were wishing me a happy birthday. It was really nice.

D and her husband gave me a cake (we have all been enjoying the heck out of it. LOL) S gave me two great cards and some flowers. J was kinda upset because neither of them let her know ahead of time and let her join in. She kept saying, "I'm a terrible friend..." but I don't think that. I really wasn't expecting what the other two did (and I think that it was one of those "OMG, I have to go shopping on my planning period!" things, but that's okay with me).

In short, I was thrilled. G down the hall left a beautiful pot of red tulips on my desk... Gosh, I hope I don't kill them!!! One of the boys gave me a rose. :) (gave all of his teachers one - very nice fella) And my sister sent me a balloon with a very familiarly shaped box.... LOL By the time I got down the hall with it, I'd figured out it was a box of chocolate covered cherries. ROTFL. I think it was a joke, given that Mom kinda got into giving all of us those for Christmas for a while. Chocolate covered cherries were starting to acquire all the significance of the forever-recycled fruitcake in my family. Not that we have a fruitcake making the rounds, but you probably know what I mean.

I do like chocolate covered cherries. :) And I actually like fruitcake, when it's a good quality one, like mom and my aunt used to make. Maybe that's where I'm totally weird.

Got home, and Dad gave me the sweetest card that supposedly shows me how much I'm loved... you wind up opening the card into this absolutely huge page, and it says, "Is this big enough???" (He also gave me some money.) My brother said happy birthday and Mom called. As she often does, she said happy birthday and immediately got onto a subject I knew absolutely nothing about, and I was reduced to trying to squeeze in an "ok" every 5 minutes or so. That's okay, I knew it would happen. LOL

And that was it. I fell asleep early on my bed, and played Warcraft for a while. It wasn't disappointing because I didn't expect much. There was someone I was hoping would get all the hints I've been giving him and give me maybe just a card, but he didn't even wish me a happy birthday on that day. I guess he's afraid that if he shows the slightest bit of caring, that I'll misconstrue it for some kind of attachment to me. I expected as much...

Welcome to my ignore list

I told my friend C about what happened with the stalker guy. She says that he sounds like a jerk and I shouldn't stop going there. It's just downright rude to not finish the conversation with me.

I should just ignore the hell out of him and maybe he'll figure out that I'm not interested.

I stopped by there this morning because I thought it would be a nice valentine's day treat for all of us, and he wasn't there. But the place was full of people, and whenever it came my turn, they made me wait. I was there for about 20 minutes, when it should only have been about 5. I couldn't seem to catch a break... I found every red light (one I cycled through twice) and every crossing guard made the line I was in wait the longest.

Sometimes it would be really nice to have someone to talk to, other than typing in what I'm thinking in this blog. If you're reading this, and you're wondering why I put all this personal stuff here, it's really because I don't have anybody to talk to.

I think that people reach a limit on how much they want to "listen" to someone else, especially if it does anything to upset their perception that everyone is happy. Maybe they just feel safer if they avoid being around sad people.

I have a confession to make. Back in the fall I was really thinking about killing myself. I had set one of my kitchen knives on the desk next to my keyboard and I kept thinking about using it. I was a little scared, and I had this weird feeling that it was going to bite me or something. I know. Weird. Probably not a good sign for my mental health.

I hadn't been sleeping more than a couple of hours each night, so in my overly tired condition, I overslept one morning. It wasn't a simple 10 or 15 minutes... I woke up at 8:15 and I was already 45 minutes late for work. Not even my dog woke up, and she'd been making very sure that I let her out every monring.

I managed to get ready for work in 5 minuts and leave the house. I'd been trying to call the school the whole time and let them know I was on my way, but late, but as luck would have it NOBODY was answering the phones in the school office. (Heaven forbid that someone in the school had an emergency with nobody answering the phones!)

I raced in to find two very scared co-workers and one fairly indifferent one. (They said that when they told her I was nowhere to be found, that she just shut her door.) I don't remember telling anyone what I'd been thinking about doing with the knife, but I must have because they (the two) freaked out, called the office and everyone else they could think of, and the school sent two of the coaches over to my house to see if something had happened to me. (One of them said they were going to break in if I didn't answer the door and my car was here. He also said that at least I knew someone cared enough to worry about me.)

They actually missed me at my house by a couple of minutes. I think we must have circled around each other on different streets. The bad thing is that my friends told the office that they were afraid I'd committed suicide, and that's why they were so hysterical. I'm still really sorry that I worried them, but there's absolutely nothing I can do to make it up to them for worrying them like that. They said it's okay, that they were just worried about me, but I still feel so guilty for putting them through that.

I really felt bad every day for a long time, and I guess that's why J asked the guidance counselor to talk to me. Well, I came completely unraveled and told her everything. She offered to find out who I could go and talk to on a regular basis that would be covered by our insurance, so I took her up on it.

I made an appointment for that Sunday, (in a city an hour and a half away, because I was worried the locals would start talking about me) and when I called to say that I was running late, they said, "Oh don't worry, if you're an hour late, two hours late, we're here 24 hours. Just make sure you have dinner before you come because we'll stop serving dinner in a little while."

Now that worried me. Dinner? She made it sound like I was going to be there all night. I didn't like the sound of that at all, and I told my sister so. She said I was paranoid, and that they probably tell that to everyone. Maybe it just takes a long time to get the paperwork and interview over with.

When I got there, they sent us to what they said was the "waiting room" until they got ready to talk to me. I noticed that the name on the door said "Dayroom" which means that it's where they let the patients see their families in. I didn't like that either. I mentioned it to my sister. She said I worry too much. I told her that no matter what anybody said, do not let them keep me here. She laughed at my paranoia good-naturedly.

After the nurse finished interviewing me, and I figured it would be best to tell her everything that is bothering me, so that they could find the right kind of counseling for me, she said that they were going to go ahead and admit me to the hospital that night. I said, no, I'm not staying here. She said, you need to stay here because anyone who talks about suicide wouldn't be safe to leave alone at home. I repeated that I wasn't staying there. We went back and forth on this for a few minutes, and I finally made her believe me.

So I didn't even get to see a doctor, because the doctor there wouldn't help me unless I let them commit me indefinitely. The nurse was starting to sound contemptuous when she asked me just what I was there for anyway. And I told her that I just wanted to get some regular counseling. She gave me a few numbers to call and let me leave.

Now I've gotten no help, nobody to talk to, and a serious fear that if I'm anywhere near a psych ward, they're going to lock me up in a padded room. Not only did it completely defeat the purpose of my going there, it's made me slide backwards a few steps. Trust is becoming a serious issue.

Ewww... death by tanning bed

Final Destination 3 - completely grossing me out right now. This movie just addressed my worst fear about tanning beds. These two vain little teenyboppers just got absolutely fried. Yuck. I didn't want to see how good the special effects and makeup were under thoooose circumstances.

A little disappointed, but not surprised

Last night I asked the man that I've been seeing if he was going to do anything for my birthday. I've known him since I was 14, and he hasn't yet, so why would he now, of course.

I didn't really expect him to say that he was planning anything for me, not even a small token of affection for me. After all, I suspect that he's driven by no affection whatsoever, just the usual male motivations.

We were chatting online at the time, and you should have seen how he dodged the question. I knew he would, just as well as I knew he wouldn't bother with anything as insignificant to him as my birthday. That is not a whiny complaint; it's just a cold hard fact that doesn't even make me tearful.

First he changed the subject... then he just stopped talking, thinking I'd give it up. I just wanted him to admit that he didn't care enough to do anything... I'd feel surprised if he deigned to send me an email containing his "sentiments" when the day comes.

I wouldn't let him off the hook. I commented on his dodge. He pretended he didn't know anything about the question I'd asked. LOL So I asked it again. Then he gave me this stupid "huuuuuh?" act.

So I told him... "Just say no." I guess I wanted to show him that I knew he was being an absolute dog about the whole thing. He acts like the smallest gesture is too much to ask. Not even a birthday card.

I feel as if I should stop talking to him until he speaks first. I deserve to be treated better than this, or so people tell me. Do I?

Maybe it's just that the smallest gesture for me is too much to ask. I've been feeling that way for about 20 years now, so I might as well admit my suspicions, though I'm actually doing it so dispassionately that I'm quite proud of my ability to be so coldhearted to myself. Save everyone else the trouble and expect the worst, because that's always what I get anyway.

Oh, it's probably too late for me to find happiness with anyone anyway. Deep down I'd always be wondering how much time is left before he leaves.

Am I a silver-haired agoraphobic woman?

The thought of going out in public is really getting to me lately. I put off going to buy groceries until I've absolutely run out of food. I do need to work on that somehow. Going to a restaurant by myself... LOL I don't think I'll ever be able to do that. I guess I should just act like a grownup since I'll be unable to deny that I am one in a couple of days.

Oh ha ha, I know, the silver at my temples gives that away, but it seems to be the part of my hair that just doesn't hold on to color. What to do, what to do? :) Maybe try a darker color so that it at least looks natural when my roots start to show.

Having half of my hair silver is just a fact of my life at this point. I'm okay with it, really. I knew this was going to happen, and I'm just happy that it isn't plain old mousy grey.

I've been watching the silver take over since I was 16, and I only had to look at my brother and my father to see the future of my hair. LOL I guess technically I'm salt and pepper now. And... I'll bet that eventually my hair is going to be white, like Dad's is becoming.

Hmm.... I wonder how old I'm going to be when I stop feeling the compulsion to color my hair? I also wonder if I'm going to look all right with white hair.

Tony Hawk's Big Spin

Hey, 6 Flags has a new roller coaster called Tony Hawk's (the skateboarder) Big Spin. It looks like a pretty wild coaster track in and of itself, but the cars on it spin as they ride. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm reminded of Primeval Whirl at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Not that I've been to anything other than the Magic Kingdom. But of course I've researched the entire park system thoroughly. LOL That's just me, not wanting to miss anything. :D

What can I say?

I suppose that all I can do in light of the situation is to give him what he apparently wants and not contact him again. There is a small thought circling round and round in my mind. Maybe the problem isn't exactly with me, but with him. Telling him that I liked his book must have appealed to his sense of pride, but when the compliment was finished, and his sense of vanity wasn't appeased any further, he lost interest in talking to me.

Men like having their egos stroked, after all. I knew that. But if he even requires that as his price for friendship... well, I guess I'm not going to accomodate him. Is that what you have to do these days, to have friends?

For some, I suppose. I do know that my friends from work are not that kind of people. They've never really asked anything of me... maybe it is a primarily a male trait.

At least I know I'll never have to go through that stupid shaky hands thing. If I get an opportunity, I think I'd like to say something like this "I have to be careful how often I come in here, or ______ will think I'm stalking him." So much the better if he's not in earshot, then whoever I say it to can have a laugh before making him feel utterly stupid.

Lest you think I'm exaggerating...

The teacher next to me has now made it known that she won't be returning next year. She was going to, but she's about an internship away from a master's in counseling, and the school system won't even let her volunteer as a counselor to get her hours in.

Yeah, you heard me right. They won't even let her work for free to finish her internship.

She almost didn't come back after Christmas. And I had a bad feeling all through Christmas that I was going to have to help a new teacher get started from the beginning, with our not-too-well-behaved students. And I'm going to miss her, because she's a wonderful teacher and a terrific friend.

Just 14 years ago, this was a school system that you couldn't even kill for a position in it. Now people are leaving, retiring, and quitting (quitting teaching forever) faster than even I can keep up. Shouldn't that be a danger sign? Somehow I don't think this "3 year study of our school rules" is going to be aggressive enough, or fast enough. Why do we need to "evaluate" our school rules, when what's really called for is a massive crackdown on kids breaking what rules we already have, with their parents holding their hands, grinning evilly?

Valentine's Day

I think that on Wednesday, I'll get up earlier and go get us all some hot chocolate. To heck with what that guy there thinks. LOL If anybody there says anything odd to me, I'm gonna laugh and say that he should stop thinking I'm stalking him, because I'm not. I think that at this point, it would be better to just stop caring what he thinks of me. Somehow, I don't think that it's ever going to make a difference one way or the other.

I guess while I'm on the subject, I could say what I'd really like for my birthday.

I wish I could spend some time with my family, but I know they'll all have other things to do. Everyone else is either dating or married, so I can't expect them to spend any of that day with me.

I might get a brief phone call from most of them. My guess is that I won't hear from my mother, Dad will talk about as long as my brother, and my sister might invite me over for dinner, if they stay home.

I do wish that I had somebody nice to spend the evening with, or even just somebody friendly.

I wish that I didn't have to go to work and have everybody tell me how wonderfully happy I just have to be to have such a wonderful birthday.

I wish I wouldn't have to listen to yet another married-with-kids person tell me how lucky I am to be alone.

I wish I was going to have a happy birthday, but I never do. It's as if someone decided that I don't deserve any happy days.

Hannibal Rising - Loved It!

Of course, I've got to admit that I laughed through a lot of it. Not the part with the little kids, but when Hannibal is moving around, exacting revenge. Saying those witty things that he does. :D He even made a comment about rudeness being really bad....

Anyway, I've got to say that they all deserved what happened to them, and if you watch the movie, you'll probably agree with me.

Hopefully, you won't think that I'm on a level right there with him, in terms of sickness. ahahaha I was still totally grossed out by some things.... When he injects the heart with dye so that he can sketch it for his teacher, that was just too nasty. The man with the rope around his neck - I was pretty shocked when his eyes filled up with blood.

They did alter quite a few things to speed up the movie. They made it seem as though they were only at the lodge for a few minutes when the baddies came. And they also said that his uncle had been dead for a year already, instead of rescuing him from the orphanage.

I guess it says a lot about me that I was giggling crazily at some pretty twisted stuff. Maybe I'm just not the kind of monster Hannibal is... but I sometimes wish I were. hmmmm....

Just remember something about me... I'm warm and cuddly, and I don't make plans to go around hurting people. It bothers me to see people hurting, and it really bothers me when they hurt me. LOL I believe something karma-like deals with mean people. You reap what you sow.

But oh, that ending... so totally cheesy, with the children's song playing as he drives away after "picking up his head" LOL

Long Cool Woman in Thunder Bluff! LOL

Hahaha I'm listening to "Long Cool Woman" while I'm running around Thunder Bluff, trying to give the residents and guards "love tokens" for the Valentine's Day quest.... Currenly, I'm heartbroken and there's nobody around to cure it for me.

It's pretty weird listing to the song, running through a town full of cow-people. hehehe Sounds about right, though. Mooooo

However, it's really nice to be doing something positive in the name of the holiday. :D THAT feels kinda like an extended birthday party for me. :D

The jerk is gone, but the teddy bear remains

A couple of years ago I got a very soft teddy bear as a birthday present from my boyfriend. It says "Our first Valentine" on a heart he holds between his hands. This is the same night that not only would he not take me where I wanted to eat, when we drove around for 2 hours as he complained that all the restaurants in Jackson had waiting times, my blood sugar was going really low, and he wouldn't even stop and let me buy a soda or something to help.

When we finally got to a place he wanted to eat at, it was about 8:30 and of course, the waiting time was a lot shorter. He acted so freaking triumphant because that was where he wanted to eat anyway. (I can't believe he even asked me where I wanted to go - I'd said Olive Garden, but he barely entertained the notion. I guess asking was just a formality.)

He proceeded to order drinks for both of us (Amaretto Sours) and then an appetizer, and then this really expensive steak for himself. I don't remember what I ordered, but I decided to just get what I wanted and not worry about what he'd say. My dinner was a lot less expensive than his, anyway.

When he got the check, he had the nerve to start complaining about how much our dinner had cost him. I was getting a little bit embarrassed at this point. He made some offhand remark about not taking me to expensive restaurants on my birthday again.

Let's review:
He overrode my choice of a much less expensive restaurant in favor his.
He ordered everything except my entree, and I was allowed to order that for myself.

Well, at that point I mentally agreed that he wouldn't be taking me to any expensive restaurants again. In fact, I had no intention of being in his life by the time my next birthday came around. :)

When I came home from work yesterday, there the teddy bear was, looking very inviting for a cuddle. I was feeling pretty lost, so I put my arms around him and lay down on my bed. There's a huge air compressor in the living room (right next to my bedroom) that kept starting up and going off because they were up in the attic power-nailing some supports.

Even with all that noise going on, I managed to fall asleep and I didn't wake up for a few hours.

Still had the bear in my arms. He hadn't run off and left me, and he wasn't complaining about anything. He was just being soft and cuddly for me.

Match.com

I still don't regret cancelling my subscription and deleting my profile. The only men that ever contacted me presented so badly in their profiles that I didn't want to get to know them.

I would think that in 3 years, just random chance would have found me a couple of nice guys, but nothing like that ever happened. I don't want to get started on yet another site, and find out 3 years later that still nothing has happened.

You know, it doesn't feel like I'm rapidly approaching 40.

My Hug Me! T-shirt

Cute & happy, huh? It says Hug Me! I'm absolutely wonderful! LOL Well, you know... somebody will believe it about herself, and I might someday believe that other people can see that about me.

Here's the link to all the other stuff

New Order - True Faith

Just came on the XM 80s station... :)
I still love that song. It's a good thing there's nobody here to hear me sing.... Such a sad song though. Of course, I'm probably getting something totally different from the song than anybody else. I think they're really talking about drugs, but never having done that stuff myself, I heard something else.

I feel so extraordinary
Something's got a hold on me
I get this feeling I'm in motion
A sudden sense of liberty
I don't care cause I'm not there
And I don't care if I'm here tomorrow
Again and again Ive taken too much
Of the things that cost you too much

I used to think that the day would never come
Id see delight in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun...

When I was a very small boy,
Very small boys talked to me
Now that we've grown up together
They're afraid of what they see
That's the price that we all pay
Our valued destiny comes to nothing
I cant tell you where were going
I guess there was just no way of knowing

I used to think that the day would never come
Id see delight in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun...

I feel so extraordinary
Somethings got a hold on me
I get this feeling
I'm in motion
A sudden sense of liberty
The chances are we've gone too far
You took my time and you took my money
Now I fear you've left me standing
In a world that's so demanding

I used to think that the day would never come
Id see delight in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun...

I'd tell you what it means to me, but then I'd have to kill you. :)
And I might get some ideas, since I'm going to see Hannibal Rising tomorrow night.

*sigh* Week 3 of construction dawns with no end in sight

Yes, week 3. What's going on? They're putting a beam in my living room ceiling (with support posts) to correct the mistake of a stupid previous owner.

Said previous owner bumped out the living room, removing a load-bearing wall from the front wall of the house and not only NOT putting something in to support it all, but also tied in a whole new section of roof into the now-weakened ceiling section.

When I bought the house, the realtor was told to tell me that the crack in the living room ceiling was just a cosmetic issue, and it had never gotten any worse. Well, it's been getting worse at an accelerated pace since I moved in 5 1/2 years ago, and lately it had started to perceptibly sag downward.

So I freaked and called my brother the contractor. He and Dad are still working... Seems like they were getting as far as putting in one piece of new sheetrock a day, and some days, not working their two hours at all. I hope that means that my brother was using the rest of those daytime hours on a paying job. I don't want to be preventing him from getting gainful employment. But at the same time, I'm getting tired of having my entire living room used as their large tool storage area. I have a freaking shed!!!! Why aren't they putting their saws and stuff in there? I have to live in this house. And I've been quarantined to my bedroom for the past 3 weeks.

Reminds me of the movie "The Agony and the Ecstasy" (Michelangeo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel). Years are going by while he's painting and the Pope is always coming in and yelling, "When will you make an end???"

Michaelangelo's answer is always, "When I'm finished!" LOL Even when the Pope is walking underneath during a Mass, he looks up and mouths his usual question. Michaelangelo, of course, responds in kind by mouthing back his usual answer. hehehe Supposed to be such a serious moment, being Mass and all, and there I'm cracking up. I guess the filmmakers meant for that part to be funny though. Just a testament to perfectionism. But not everybody can afford to completely put their life (and respiratory health, in my case) on the back burner while someone takes their sweet time on what was supposed to be a weekend job.

*Sigh* At least they're finally working up in the attic, putting in the supports for the roof to make sure that the weight is distributed evenly and stops cracking the roof joists.

Having a creative day, sort of

I woke up this morning with a thought in my head for a cool t-shirt design. It's sweet and friendly, and has a positive little message to it.

Hopefully, nobody will wear it and get mad at me because people start hugging them. (The message invites people to hug the wearer.) I guess in the description I should make a statement that the designer is not responsible for unwelcome hugs - wear at your own risk. LOL

I'm sure nobody is surprised about the trivial things that people sue over these days, so it wouldn't surprise me to hear this was brought up in a lawsuit, "I wore a shirt that said 'Hug me' and people I didn't even know were hugging me. I want a million dollars from the designer for emotional stress!"

Now would I wear a shirt like that in public? Heck no. LOL I don't want a bunch of strange people hugging me.

The "sort of" comes in here. I've got the message stated the way I want it, and the layout is just right, but I'm a little stuck on how to color the letters. I was wanting to fill in with one of my airbrushed designs, but it was pretty weak and pale looking when I tried it on there. I want it to be really vibrant - lots of bright colors. Maybe I'll try some free-hand airbrushing on the letters with some really obnoxious colors instead. :)

The only real problem is that it's been 3/4 of a year since I designed anything new, really. I'm having a hard time remembering how the controls in Paint Shop Pro work (and it's an easy program!). I plugged in my graphics tablet and that's helping some, but it's kinda hard sitting in my bed, propped up with pillows, my lapdesk across my lap, with the laptop and tablet balanced across it. The problem is that I need to have the tablet centered for my own ease of use, and the laptop is, of course, in the center of my lap. Maybe if I scooted the laptop backwards, I could fit the tablet on here in front of me.

However, I won't be able to see the screen very well unless I go put in my contacts. LOL

Yay - figured out how to do the letters. I used the brown leaves texture, then set it for a diagonal rainbow gradient at 155 degrees, with 3 repeats. But since I didn't want every letter to be obviously from the same pattern, every other letter I inverted the pattern, so that the edges wouldn't all line up perfectly, color to color. This way they'll look like they were independently created. I was coloring in this way with the airbrush, but that really made things uneven, so I just floodfilled with my textured pattern. I put black backing behind the letters (because it made the colors pop a lot more than white did), and then I duplicated the rainbow layers until I got the right intensity without losing the texture. The 3D effect was an inner bevel setting called "rubber covered" that I tweaked until it was puffy enough without losing the color of the original swatch of color.

HA HA HA! I just discovered the reason I've been unable to save png files with their full transparency on this laptop!!! In PSP, file format preferences, PNG tab, the box for "load and save transparency to/from alpha channel" should NOT be checked!! Everyone was telling me to leave it checked. Well, at least I hope that fixed it. LOL I just opened up a png that did actually save with transparent areas. (And you know I love my tranparent areas. hehehe)

What is it with the "you're too old for me" attitude of most men these days?

I was actually told that once by someone my own age. It doesn't really matter whether they're 25 or 50, they all want to date someone who's around 18-21. (And some of them younger, but that's another disgusting topic.)

Personally, I don't get it. I've always thought that it's not a good idea to date someone that you can't carry on an intelligent conversation with. I know I've matured a lot since then, and I wasn't that bad then either. Still, I don't see what someone over the age of 29 would find truly interesting about someone who doesn't have the attitude of an adult.

Maybe that's the key?

I once dated a guy who was cute, but as I found out pretty quickly, dumb as the proverbial rock. He was about 5 years younger than me, and I kinda worried that he was fairly immature even for his age. (I was 29 and he was 24) If you know me, you know that I set a high value on intelligence. We pulled up at Sonic (me driving because I guess he wanted to save the gas money) and after he decided what he wanted to order, rolled down the window and started calling out to a carhop. He said, "Miss, we're ready for you to come take our order..."

My mind was saying, "Whaaaaaaat?" What person who's been living in Dyersburg for a couple of years (even if he was from Illinois) doesn't understand how Sonic ordering works? I kind of waved her away because she looked like she was about to tell him how stupid he really was. Then I explained about the button and the speaker, and how you use them to order. I didn't say anything about it, and I tried to be as bland in the explanation as possible, but those warning buzzers were starting to go off.

Of course, it didn't take long to figure out why he was reluctant to move out of his mother's house, and why he wouldn't get a phone. All the while, he was telling me to move back here from the town where I was working an hour away. (Silly me, I thought that he wanted to be closer to me.) He wanted me to move into his crummy little apartment with him. I say crummy not because of where it was, or what condition the apartment actually was in (both just fine, actually) , but because he wouldn't even get a refrigerator. Maybe he was too broke or something, but I think a fridge is kinda important to have - he could have gotten one out of the Shopper's Guide used for probably $25.

There was a girl who kept calling him when he was at home, and who kept writing him letters and sending him pictures of... their baby. I guess he was trying to hide from her, and dodge his responsibility. I think she finally got hold of him though, because within a couple of weeks, he broke up with me with the most nebulous excuse I'd ever heard, and about 6 months after that, I saw him pushing a shopping cart at Wal-Mart, with a baby strapped into it.

Now, he didn't have to mislead me like that.... then again, maybe he thought he could hold her off and sponge off me at the same time. In any case, I never even entertained the notion of moving in with him.

I do have to say this for him... he really was cute. Though he was fairly short - about an inch shorter than me, and I'm only 5'5". I just have a preference for tall men. It's probably some "I want to feel protected by the big man" psychological thing, which is fairly funny. And I'd like to have kids who are taller than me, for sure, but that's always a toss-up anyway.

There is a shortage of intelligent men around this part of the state. Moving is not an option. I tried that. And when you find that tiny pool (really more like a puddle), there are fewer still men in it who are nice. "They're just trying to get in your pants." Indeed.

If I tell them that there's no way I'm having sex with them in the immediate future, because I'm not comfortable with that and they're still pretty much strangers to me at that point, you'd better believe their interest cools fast and there's rarely a second date. Sure, I'm better off not having jerks like that in my life, but the nice guys aren't single at this point because.... they're already married.

I'm really sure I was right...

He still hasn't said anything....

I'm tempted to send him an email saying, "Don't worry, I'm not some weirdo stalker who's going to start bothering you." And then explain that there really wasn't a better place to get hot chocolate for my coworkers after the Sonic fiasco.

My brain is telling me to just let it go; it's pretty obvious he doesn't want to be friends.
My heart is asking once again, what is so wrong with me that I can't even make new friends, much less anything else?

My brain is also telling me I should admit defeat and delete my match.com profile, and close the account. After 3 years, I've lost hope that it will help me anyway.

Okay, that's taken care of. Membership cancelled and profile deleted.

:(

I found out today that someone I've known since I was really little has colon cancer. I spent most of my first class trying to hide that I was crying. A 5 cm tumor and some "spots" on her liver. Who knows what else they'll find?

I've been thinking about it all day, and I've known 2 people who survived cancer (I work with them) and the other two people died, one of whom was my favorite aunt. She went downhill in months. I got to talk to her one last time, and I'm not sure that she knew exactly who I was. Dad wouldn't let me go to her funeral, because he said that she would have wanted me to remember her how she was, and not see her like that.

I think I was right....

The one that I embarrassed myself in front of this morning.... He hasn't really answered a couple of emails that I sent him days ago (and he said he would). I guess figuring out who I am really wasn't a good thing.

I believe this is officially the proverbial cold shoulder.

Oh well. I'm used to it. Years of exposure to it, so there's no reason to think it's ever going to change now. :(

Birthday on the way.....

Well, I'm turning 36 next Wednesday (yes, Valentine's Day and I hate it more and more every year). I'm finding myself wishing that it would snow and keep us out of school so that I can avoid everyone who wants to wish me a happy birthday, and also all the people who won't.

What can I say? I'll be 36 and still forever-single, and I really get tired of all the people telling me how great it is that it's my birthday. They think it means tons of presents from guys, my family, etc... And I'm thinking... what guys? I don't date anymore, and absolutely nobody is expressing an interest in me. (And how many times have members of my family forgotten my birthday.) There's also that time that they called to invite me to go with them to Boyettes', knowing I hate the food there. I thought maybe they might say they'd go somewhere else, but they didn't. It was kind of a "we'll see you later then" and the entire rest of the family (except Mom, of course) went out to dinner without me on my birthday. I kid you not. LOL

It's okay though. There's been nothing about my birthday that I've enjoyed for several years. It isn't that I have excessively high expectations. I truly expect absolutely nothing cheery to happen on that day, therefore I won't be disappointed.

XM Satellite Radio

Okay, I've known for a while now that with my AOL membership I get a ton of XM radio stations. Lately I've been listening to the 80s station, since my stereo mysteriously went beserk and ate my Asia CD.

I definitely enjoy hearing the songs from my teen years, but it's 9:00, and they're actually playing old American Top 40 countdowns from the 80s.

:D

Tent Camping Memory

I was just looking through one of my books on "easy" camping (neat stuff in it - and I'm a nut for gadgets and stuff like that) and I remembered one of the first times our family went tent camping about 7 years ago.

Well, actually the first time we went tent camping that year, it was the coldest Memorial Day weekend I remember. My middle nephew and I were in one tent (he was 4 and just wouldn't stop playing with my flashlight) and I was a little agitated about the fact that they'd brought along the fleece sleeping bag our mother had made him.

Here I was in my single sleeping bag, rated for temps down to about 20 degrees, and he's next to me in this pitifully thin indoor sleeping bag. My sister and her husband said he'd be fine, but tossed in an extra blanket with us just to shut me up.

By the middle of the night, it was only 40 degrees outside. I was perfectly warm and comfortable, but I was really worried about him. He'd burrowed into his fleece as far down as he could get, desperately trying to keep warm in his sleep. I wound up doubling up his blanket and getting it tucked in around him, but I still didn't think he was going to be warm enough. So I unzipped the side of my sleeping bag and pulled him into it with me as much as I could.

By morning, he'd wiggled away some, but he was still wrapped up in his blanket pretty tightly. After he woke up, I asked him how he'd slept.... was he warm enough?

Well, he said, "I got cold...." :( See? The poor little fella was freezing! I don't know if what I did helped him be warmer or not, but at some point in his sleep he was aware of being "the coldest he'd ever been."

I think it was on a subsequent camping trip when it was actually summertime and warm, that I decided to try making ball-toss ice cream. Okay, stop right there. Basically you put all the ingredients for the ice cream into a plastic ziploc bag, pack ice and salt around it, wrap that in layers of plastic, and tape a million layers of newspaper around it until you have a basketball-sized... um... well, it was sorta ball shaped. heheh

Then you toss it back and forth (as if it were really a ball) for about 30 minutes, and you magically have ice cream. The middle nephew had already gone to bed. He said he was sleepy and didn't care about the ice cream. (And here I was, thinking that the novelty would be so neat for the kids. Not! LOL)

My brother, sister, and I were tossing this ice cold rock back and forth, and then the game started to get kinda ugly... Dear brother was hurling the ball as hard as he could at his sisters. So... we had to hurl back. hahaha It was like we were trying to kill each other with a medicine ball, throwing it from waist level at the other person.

Then when I decided that the ice cream had to be ready, the three of us, her husband, and my oldest nephew had some.

And darn it, it tasted salty. :(

I guess the salt passed through the plastic via osmosis. It wasn't like the bag came open. So I was disappointed. Not enough novelty in it for me to be happy with the results.

absent from World of Warcraft

My poor level 60 Alliance mage is languishing in the Outland because I haven't been playing lately. I know I want her to level up to 70 and get that flying mount, but hey, I DON'T have the 5000 gold it's probably gonna cost. She's an alchemist / herbalist, so I know I can sell some high level potions in the Auction House and make some decent money. But first I have to find those herbs in Outland, and it's really tough to do by myself with all those high level creatures lurking around.

I tried to go fishing in Zangarmarsh (in the Cenarion Refuge, no less) and a freaking Hydra attacked and nearly killed me. Kill the Hydra, fish for 3 minutes, kill the Hydra that has now respawned and is spitting poison on you that wears down the mana shield almost as fast as you can put it up. My only hope against those is to turn on combustion and start by hitting those things with a pyroblast... and they take such a long time to launch. Definitely kills all my mana.

Sorry Dari, I just haven't felt much like playing alone. Just exploring and hooking up all my hippogryph flight paths. (I can't believe that after they said all the flying mounts would be nether drakes - dragons - that now we only get to buy hippogryphs. :( We've been riding hippogryph taxis all along - dang it.)

My playmate has been playing his Horde Orc for oh, about the past week, and since I don't have any level 60+ characters on the Horde yet, I can't play with him anyway. *pout* And I hate having to wait around for him to get to play.

Oh, I know this is the first time I've mentioned playing Warcraft (okay, I know I'm playing World of Warcraft with 8 million other players, but it's quicker and easier for me to say Warcraft. Besides, typing WoW takes me a while to do. LOL)

Here's what I have on the Runetotem realm:

Horde side
Level 23 Undead priest - I don't know how to group with - sucks when you're in charge of all the healing and resurrections... and because all the casters wear cloth, this chick is a real weakling and soloing pretty much sucks too because she's too fragile
level 20 Blood Elf warlock - she's definitely a hottie, but I deliberately gave her a mean scowl. Ya better take her seriously, I'm going to make her a killer!
level 10 Undead mage - I don't play her much... just wanted to see if making a frost mage plays better than a fire mage, which is what Dari is.
level 1 Troll Rogue - aw, she's just a bank character anyway.

Alliance side
Level 60 Human mage - she's still a fire mage. Can I help it if I'm a pyromaniac? LOL
Level 32 Human warlock - it's good to have a friend who'll kill for you. LOL this one has several.
Level 22 Night Elf druid - I wanted to see what it would be like to shapeshift. :D
Level 11 Dranei priest - had to try out a Dranei, and I'm not supposed to play her unless my playmate is on playing his Dranei warrior. I wound up getting way too far ahead of his Dwarf hunter before. LOL
Level 10 Human warrior - she's just a bank now. I didn't like playing a warrior, hunter, rogue, or paladin. I guess I really just like the casters best.

Sunshine

You know... when I saw the little bit of information for this movie, I was thinking I'd watch it just because Cillian Murphy is in it (and I just love him). Thinking that it didn't sound like too great of a movie. (Although he is talking with an American accent... what's up with that?? The director didn't have him do that before in the other movie.)

Well, now I've seen the preview for it, and I'm thinking WOW!!!! That looks like an awesome sci-fi movie!!!! Here's the synopsis - the sun is dying and a team of astronauts is going to reignite it with a bomb the size of Kansas. LOL Now doesn't that sound fun?

I don't keep up with directors, but this is a giant leap ahead from 28 Days Later, and it looks very high tech.

IMDB page - Sunshine

The fact that Cillian Murphy makes me absolutely swoon, even in Red Eye, is totally beside the point. :D He was definitely a bad guy, but hey, it didn't matter to me.

Yay, more Hannibal Lecter!

Hannibal Rising is supposed to be opening in theaters tomorrow. Having read the book and enjoyed it a lot, I definitely want to see it. I might even go by myself to see it.

What bugs me is that it's being proclaimed as a "horrifyingly scary" movie....

I didn't see anything scary in the book... and I understand that the movie is pretty much exactly the book brought to life. Are they talking about the guy playing young Hannibal? I've seen him do that creepy grin, but by the time I finished reading the book, I was so firmly on Hannibal's side that I admire the way he was able to scare certain people for what they'd done to him. I won't say any more than that, just in case somebody stumbles across my blog. I don't want to spoil it for them if they didn't read Hannibal and figure out for themselves what this book & movie would be about. Come on, it's a thought he just keeps coming back to repeatedly.

Very transparent, if you ask me. But a great story. IMDB page - Hannibal Rising

And I'm pleased to see that they included the scene with the man he puts in the Formalin tank... In the trailer you can see him in there screaming half under, and beating on the window with his open hand. HAHAHA Well, when you know the story, you understand why that treatment is well-deserved.

Maybe it's that scary person inside of me that wants justifiable revenge, but refuses to do more than sit back and wait for the wheel to spin around on those people. I know it isn't my place to exact revenge, and if I'm just patient, I know it will all come back around and they'll get what's coming to them.

Besides, hurting people (even bad people) is just the wrong thing to do. I'm not that person, but sometimes she does start looking out through my eyes when I'm hurt.

I have now truly embarrassed myself

This morning I was awake at 4 am and couldn't go back to sleep. So I wound up getting ready for work earlier than usual. I thought about all the times that D's husband was so nice and brought us cappuccino or hot chocolate, and decided to do that myself.

After that fiasco in the fall when I went to Sonic and brought my sister, her friend, and myself large hot chocolates, there's no way I'm gonna get them there again. We figured that they used one packet of instant cocoa... in a 20 oz cup. (and most of those packets say to use only 6 oz of water with them) It didn't even taste like vaguely chocolatey water, and it had the consistency of plain old water. Never again.

Now I had called to make sure they were open (okay, I know it's innately stupid of me to not realize that a place which caters to the coffee crowd would be open REALLY early in the morning...). A woman answered, and I honestly thought, okay, he's not there, it's safe to go in. LOL (Remember, I'm not trying to stalk this guy....) I was thinking that if he was there I'd pay with cash and nobody would know who I am. Didn't have anything but the $100 that Dad gave me for Christmas, and I was kind of embarrassed at what other people might thing I'm trying to say by paying with such a large bill. So I thought I'd go ahead and pay with my credit card that I pay off in full every month (rewards card, and I'm thinking about using that money to buy my oldest nephew a laptop as a graduation present before he heads off to college.) and it wouldn't matter, because that's a common thing now. Still a lot of anonymity with those.

I walk in thinking, "Okay, I can handle this... not a lot of cars out front, so there can't be very many people in there." Well, I was right, there were only two people there. Both worked there and one was him. Eek.

Okay, he doesn't know me from Adam, so what do I have to worry about? I just won't make any reference to teaching, no problem. Besides, he was over in the corner doing something on his computer. Well, he got up and went behind the counter and fixed the drinks while she was ringing them up. (Oops, I forgot about the credit card slip having my name on it.) He seemed like he really wanted to stay turned around backward, and I was thinking that I didn't remember him being so shy before and it seemed kind of strange. Then I thought maybe he was wondering if I was the one he'd been getting the (probably annoying) emails from, and his reaction was that he definitely did NOT want to get to know me.

I made the mistake of commenting about her cough, and she started talking about how many schools are full of sick kids, and I accidentally mentioned "the kids on our team". Then she asked what school I teach at, and what was I going to do, lie??? And there he is standing and talking right along with us about 20% absences required before they close the schools, because of funding, and so on... She said something about the superintendent and funding's importance to him, and because she said she used to work for him, I laughed and said, "Oh, well you already know him then. I ain't saying a word."

The rest was just me picking up the drinks and trying to walk out to my car as if I wasn't incredibly embarrassed that he possibly suspected that I'm the fruitcake. Well, at least I didn't get all tonguetied or trip or something like that.

Got to work, and in my first class one of the girls pipes up with the fact that somebody she knows was asking about me yesterday. I started having this feeling of dread when I realized that she's the one who loves hanging around there. I tried to be casual and asked her who it was, and sure enough, it was him. I acted confused (in reality I was mortified) and got her to explain what it was about. A former student of mine with a very similar last name was there with her and he actually asked her if we were related, (no, she has no S on the end of her name) and the girl said no, but she was in my class last year. (And she absolutely hated me.) The other girl said that she spoke up and that she was in my class now. Since we're getting along really well, I hope she didn't say awful things about me.

All I can think is that my emails have that internet header that most likely shows my first and last name. I guess he just wanted to know so he could fill out a complaint with the police that this strange woman is bothering him. LOL Well, I'm laughing at the moment, but deep down, I suspect that nothing good is going to come of it, and it's likely to be something really, really bad. *sigh* At least I don't have to wonder if he'll figure out who I am... I guess I underestimated him there.

The good news of the day is that I'd forgotten it was D's birthday, and she said she'd take the hot chocolate as a birthday gift. :) And they were all really thrilled to get the surprise hot chocolate (we all had a HORRIBLE day yesterday), which was my whole point in bringing it.

Seems like I can't do something nice for someone without humiliating myself, making tons of people mad at me, or getting officially reprimanded at work (for stuff that never even happened...).

What's hurting him?

If it's true that people who hurt others do it because they've been hurt, what was it that hurt Dad? Did it start with my brother dying, and then progress to their divorce? He's never really said so, but in the few conversations we've had since he and my stepmother split up, I've gotten the impression that he is carrying around a really deep hurt about Mom.

I think he was honestly trying to make her happy, and then she suddenly showed him a side of her he didn't know existed. It seems her desire suddenly became one to have somebody pay for her to have the adult single lifestyle that she felt she'd been denied.

Dad says now that he thinks she only married him so that she could get away from home. Maybe he's right about that, but it's more a reflection on her than on him.

I have to say I recognize some of the attitude he has about her and my stepmother, because they're the same ones I've had myself after yet another failed attempt at a relationship. If I were an outsider, I'd do anything I could to make him feel better. (I've always been the one to champion the underdog and soothe hurt puppies.) As his daughter, I don't know how to make him feel better. He seems to be thinking that he did everything he could to make them happy and it still wasn't enough. Therefore he doesn't deserve to have anyone, because he didn't make the cut the other times. However, it seems to me he doesn't want to admit that they are flawed human beings. (Maybe he still loves them and can't bring himself to truly hate them for how they've hurt him.)

I mean, nobody is perfect, and some people do the most idiotic things to hurt other people in the acquisition of things that they want.

It could be the reason that I catch myself thinking that he hates me, is that I remind him too much of my mother, who really did break his heart. Maybe it's easier to take it out on me as her proxy and still keep her up on that pedestal.

Ah, well, he's dating a very nice lady now, and has been for a few years. He says he'll never marry her because he doesn't ever want to be married again, though.

Grandfather playing favorites?

I have 3 nephews. One 14 and one 10, my sister's boys. One who's 6, and he's my brother's son. It turns out that when he called to tell my sister he had won the car race, my brother bragged to her about how our father attended it and was right there beside him the whole time. She hasn't even been able to convince him to keep his word to her boys about attending grandfather / grandson dinners at church.

I don't think this is her imagination. I even noticed it this summer when her boys had birthday parties. I don't believe he even showed up for the 14 year old's birthday dinner, which was just for family. For the 10 year old's birthday a few days later, he drove up in the driveway, handed him $10, and left without even coming inside. I was shocked - I hadn't even known he'd been there.

But for the 6 year old's birthday, he was there for the whole thing. He even goes to church with him and school programs for him. He never, and I repeat, NEVER went to church with the two of us when we were little, and he never attended a single church service with the two older boys.

They've noticed. They wonder why their grandfather only attended a couple of the older boy's ballgames (and he quit ... didn't have much encouragement to continue) and never attended any of the younger boy's ballgames that I know of. He didn't even come to watch him play football this year.

I don't understand. I'm sure his excuse will the that he's the court-appointed supervisor when my brother has his son for a visit. But does that mean that he can't, and could never, be allowed to attend his other grandsons' special events?

Well, I remember one time my dad and stepmother came to see me in anything. When I was in the Drama Club play in the 8th grade. And i remember being surprised and thrilled that they came, because I didn't expect them to show up. They never saw me in a Choir concert, and were actually pretty aggravated that I'd signed up for a class that had a few after school performances at the school (and with no special clothing purchase required, might I add). I wasn't allowed to participate in any school sports, band, and I had to commit an act of rebellion to sign up for Drama Club without their permission. They just didn't want to be *bothered* with me for anything. It seemed like it was enough of an imposition on their time for me to need a ride to school and home again.

I guess it would only be fair to say that my mother never came to anything I did either, except my high school and college graduations. How fitting is it that my parents never wanted to be involved with my education, and would only show any support for it when it was over?

Have I really been that troublesome and unloveable?

Could be. But I don't know how to make people love me, or believe me when I say that I'd have several people wrapped around my finger right now, and making me feel loved and happy.

Let's review a list of my school-related shortcomings:

• I made As and Bs - graduated 24th in my class of 243.
• I never was suspended or expelled.
• I never was sent to the office for bad behavior. (Or even fussed at by my teachers for it.)
• My parents were never asked to come to the school for a meeting with any teacher.
• I never got into any fights at school.
• I rarely missed a day of school - I went to school sick from 6th grade on and didn't miss any days in high school for being sick.
• I started babysitting most weekends in the 8th grade and have worked ever since.
• I got my first "real" job 2 months past my 16th birthday. (And I was nagged to hurry up and get a job the second I turned 16, even though I didn't have a vehicle to drive.)
• I wasn't allowed to attend any kind of social activities other than school dances, and it was rare that I got to go to a dance. I think I actually got to attend a total of three in my 4 years of high school. (That's why I don't know how to dance.... the time for learning with all the other kids is long gone.)
• I never drank, smoked, or experimented with any drugs. I wanted to be the good kid, and I was.
• I didn't have a bad reputation at school or around town. In fact, I barely dated because I had to work every weekend and they wouldn't extend my curfew past 10 even when I had to work until 9:15. (And you better believe that on any school night, my curfew was 9:30.)

Put my name on the back of their vehicle on a decal? I doubt they would have done that, even if someone gave them the decal ready-made. For some reason, I just couldn't manage to make them notice me, and I know that I sure couldn't make them proud of me.

The only time I can ever recall my father saying that he was proud of me was long after I received my Master's Degree. It stood out for me that much, that I remembered the moment. And I can tell you that my mother has never said she's proud of me.

I know, I'm supposed to be an adult about it and not let it matter. But it does. It's the most important thing in the world to me. If your own parents give you the feeling that you're more of an inconvenience to them than their child, how can you ever believe that anyone else out there in the world is going to value your existence?

And once you've been soundly reminded that you don't even matter to them, how do you "forget all of it and just go in with your life, and put it out of your mind"? I'd have to say that this is about 50% of my cause for feeling worthless.

The other half is now divided up equally between my job, my complete failure at having a love life, and having been abused when I was little.

I dream about the undead when I'm sick

Other than dreaming the other night that the snow outside was the perfect consistency for snowballs and snowmen.... springy and marshmallow like. LOL

I also dreamed that I was trapped in some kind of continuation of Phantasm II. I didn't like that movie, because the creepy factor was just too much for me. Most zombie movies BOTHER me. I guess because there's just no way to stop them.

Which might be why I dream about zombies when I'm feverish. I guess if you're gonna have nightmares, it's likely to be about something you feel you can't stop from happening.

Any other kind of scary dream for me is more like an entertaining horror movie, but I just can't deal with the zombies.... Well, there's also that dream where I turned into a werewolf. I'd have to agree that transformation is one of the most painful things I've felt in my life. It's just not cool to see yourself become furry and try to scream, with it only coming out as an anguished howl...

Just not cool at all.

If it glitters, and it's gold, that doesn't mean you should eat (or drink) it

The $1000 Brownie - I don't know about that.... If you go to Brulee: The Dessert Experience in Atlantic City, you can get such a thing. The description:

At Brulee, the dessert is a brownie with hazelnuts imported from Italy, topped with gold dust, served with a vintage port wine in a $750 Baccarat crystal atomizer that the dessert-eater gets to keep as a souvenir. Like the other offerings at the restaurant, it's served along with two other courses of dessert.

"Here's the idea," pastry chef Jemal Edwards told The Press of Atlantic City for Thursday's newspapers. "You have this beautiful atomizer (that's a perfume atomizer, BTW) filled with the finest port known to man. You take a bite of the brownie, and as the flavors are coating your palate, your partner squirts the port onto your tongue. The acidity and sweetness from the port are hitting your mouth at the same time."

What I found from watching the news clip on it was that the "partner" mentioned is actually an employee of the restaurant. Sorry, but I just don't want some stranger having that intimate a connection with my tongue while I'm in the middle of a bite of brownie. (I do believe that this restaurant has an intimate connection with the Baccarat Crystal Company. They have two more desserts served on expensive Baccarat crystal that you get to keep. What's up with that?)

The ABC News clip with John Pollock was pretty humorous, though it seems to me he bears a creepy resemblance to another John more famous on videotapes in the 80s.

My first thought was port wine with a brownie? EW WWWW!!! I knew it had to have some kind of gold applied to it, but turns out it's the wine and the souvenir atomizer that raise the price to a grand. I suppose here again, I'm showing my lack of sophistocation. The only knowledge I have of port is in O. Henry's story "The Last Leaf" - one of my all-time favorites, (I can't tell it without crying) and the port wine & cheddar cheese spread I like with crackers. LOL

"Just gimme some a dem dare cheeze n crackers, mmmmhmm."

Adding gold to any kind of edible is NOT going to entice me, after the Goldschlager incident. Yes, I drank too much in Atlanta, which is not something I've truly ever done until that point in my life, when I was darn well old enough to know better. I think sometimes God gives us those little lessons so that we'll keep ourselves on the straight and narrow.

The problem with that night wasn't that *I* chose to drink too much. (Although I'm not trying to throw off my 100% responsibility for my condition. It was definitely my fault.) The problem was that after a couple of drinks (which I was not used to) I lost sight of those stop signs which should have made me pause. I was getting nagged into drinking, and because I was drunk by this time, I didn't realize that I'd already gone waaaaay too far. I was just going to nurse a beer, if I remember correctly. Then somebody bought me a margarita, and then a shot of Goldschlager and nagged me into drinking it, and that was where the problem started.

The margarita was more than enough to finish me off, and I didn't realize it at the time (not exactly beer goggles, were they now?) but the shot was a double. I knew even at the time that those guys were trying to get me to leave with one of them, and in the back of my mind I was thinking "Am I so pathetic looking that I'm supposed to fall for such a shallow kind of flattery?" and I absolutely refused any attempts to get me to leave with anyone.

I remember that I drank 3 shots of Goldschlager (doubles, as I realize now) during this time, and at some point I remember kinda waking up with my head in my arms on the bar. I know that L and especially P wouldn't have let me leave with anyone even if I had vaguely acted like I wanted to, but I look back now and wonder why my usual good sense didn't tell me to just stop and drink some soda instead. I was so sloshed that someone could have walked off with my purse and I'd have been clueless.

Well, getting L back to the room was a nightmare for me and P. By then, I'd cleared my head quite a bit, but she was still rearing to go, and we practically had a fight on our hands with her. The next morning I had bruises all over my arms and on the tops of both of my feet (where she'd clumsily - and accidentally - stomped them, and I hadn't felt it quite so much at the time).

And I was so sick. I never got to feeling better all the way home and I threw up in the van (yay, heavy plastic shopping bag handy to catch the mess) and on the side of the road in northern Georgia. I also wound up changing clothes on the side of the highway, and though I wasn't paying attention, they told me that semi nearly ran off the road after passing us. LOL

I still feel really stupid about that. And there's the lesson. If you're going to drink, never drink more than you can hold in your mouth. Because there's always a price to pay, and it might not be as pleasant as the horrible sickness I went through.

Hmm... wasn't there a story in the Bible about some folks that made a golden calf to worship, and then when Moses came back down from the mountain and discovered them dancing around it, he had it ground down into little bits, and made them eat it on their food as a punishment?

Merthiolate - Hellish punishment on earth

Thinking back to the previously mentioned book about someone's life, it got me thinking about childhood illnesses and injuries. Something I've never understood, is the use of Merthiolate on children who have serious open cuts.

The one thing I know of that would make me flat-out LIE about being gashed open and bleeding was that little bottle of purple pain made liquid. If you wanted to bring terror into my soul and make a preschooler of my small size fight her father so hard that even that a normal-sized (and strong) grown man could barely stop me from struggling out of his grip, all you had to do was let me hear my grandmother say, "I'm gonna go get the Merthiolate."

I don't know what time of year it happened, though I want to say that it was summertime. I have a vague memory of wearing shorts when it happened.

My brother was riding me down the street on the back of his bike back toward our grandmother's house on the corner of the street, and all the while he was telling me "Keep your feet out of the spokes." I know I kept telling him,"Okay, I will" and at the same time, I was wondering what spokes were.

Just at the time I had that thought once more, it happened. My left heel went into the spokes, which promptly tore the skin from the back of my foot. I don't remember what happened immediately after that - probably because it felt like my entire foot had just been forcibly peeled. I think I screamed.

The next thing I do remember was lying on the porch, my father holding me down on that grey painted floor, and my grandmother uttering those feared words:

"Hold on to her. I'm gonna get the Merthiolate."

Now I know my grandmother wasn't trying to scare me (I know she loved me, despite my being "a little imp" as my father puts it) , and I know it wasn't her intention to deliberately cause me more pain, but when they put that evil purple iodine on me, I realized that having my heel ripped apart was virtually painless in comparison.

I always had the same reaction to that stuff, no matter what small amount it was applied to an open wound. Gut-wrenching, white-hot, aching, burning pain that went all the way through my flesh and makes me think of how it felt every time I broke a bone as being preferable. Not stinging... more like I was being tortured with hot irons by the Spanish Inquisition.

"I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition...."
"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Gotta love Monty Python's Flying Circus for bringing classical history back to life, huh?

I've had eye surgery and plastic surgery (with about 120 stitches and 5 pounds of flesh removed) and though people tell me that for them the same surgeries were incredibly painful, they really didn't hurt me that much at all. A little stinging with my eyes, and some discomfort (I have a whole bottle of mepergan to prove I didn't hurt after my plastic surgery) were all. Could it be that a childhood of Merthiolate desensitized me to other kinds of pain? I give blood and get shots regularly without batting an eye, and I was the little girl who ran from the nurses, and then screamed when they stuck me. Hmm.

I was checking to see if this stuff is the same as Mercurochrome (I guess it isn't, though I think they're both evil) and I found this article: Eli Lilly and Thimerosal - heck, no wonder it hurt so much - it's nearly 50% ethylmercury. As in mercury - poisonous to humans, don't break open thermometers and play with it.... Maybe that's what's wrong with my head - Mercury poisoning. LOL

I've done it again... yet another cookbook

I actually forgot that I got Taste of Home 5-Ingredient Cookbook until tonight, though I brought it home from work on Wednesday. (I was sick, remember, so sue me. Normally I have new books read before I get them home. I guess there's the proof that I've been REALLY sick, for real. I was sleeping / in bed all that time.

I'm in loooove with this cookbook, though I realize it's the part of me that wants to cook for other people, such as maybe kids and a husband. Heck, I'd settle for an appreciative boyfriend at this point. Maybe I could used some of the kids in my class as taste testers, just as an excuse to try the recipes out.

I know people at work are absolutely amazed that I can do more than just boil water for my cappuccino and hot chocolate, but the truth is, I'm a really good cook. I mean, I've been cooking since I was like 8, but I don't have any chance to really do any of it. Pampered Chef shows were probably the only time I got to do any showing off there, and of course, I always wanted to do the prettiest, most elaborate recipes there were. (My coworkers didn't mind me trying out that fancy bridal shower cake on them either. LOL)

Actually, what I'm seeing is a whooole lot of veggie dishes that I need to try, since I won't cook for just me, and I know I don't eat enough vegetables.

But do you know how hard it is to cook one normal sized meal, and then eat the same thing for 2 weeks straight until it's all gone? It gets to the point where you absolutely hate the dish you just tried... and loved. Back before I lost Terra, she was the happy recipient of lots of extra leftovers. I miss her so much. :(

I'm finding myself wishing that we'd take another family camping trip, so that I could do some cooking. :(

In any case, that recipe for Beef Noodle Soup on page 109 is just calling to me. It reminds me of the soup we had at the workshop the other day. The strangest thought popped into my head when I took my first bite: "This is what it feels like to be loved." No idea why I thought that. Was it a mini-flashback to lunch in kindergarten that didn't even register?

I want to go to Atlantis...

No, not the mythological city, but the resort in the Bahamas. LOL I could say that it's so preeeeetttty,and that's why I want to go,but the truth is, the waterslides and ocean critters have my attention. Yeah, it's really pretty. The place looks like a giant sand castle, really.

I guess that just means I need a long vacation far from here. The sad part is that I could afford to go but I just don't want to go by myself. That wouldn't be any fun at all. *sigh*.

www.atlantis.com

Winning the Pinewood Derby

No, *I* didn't win it. LOL But my youngest nephew did. He was so thrilled that when he called to tell me about his trophies (and one of them is huge, because it's the overall one) he asked where his 10 year old cousin was. :)

Bless his heart, he thought he was talking to his other aunt. LOL IE - the one that actually has a life, and children, and so forth.

I think he's a little unhappy that they're keeping his car until the district race is over with. He beat all the other boy scouts in town. Cool, huh? I think he's the happiest first grader in town today.

Keep-Your-Distance Emailing

I recently started emailing someone whose book I'd just finished reading. Not anyone famous, just local. He actually seems like he'd be interesting to talk to, and he's only about a year older than me, so we couldn't be too out of touch, socially speaking.

Maybe I scared the poor guy by not just sending him a gushy "I loved your book!!" type fanletter thing, but that's really not my intent anyway. I did enjoy it and it made me feel better about some things, but then again, I've been having a sort of argument with God the last few years anyway. The kind where I think one thing, and he pats me on the head (with progressively harder pats, LOL) for such silly thoughts, though the pats have turned more into smacks to shut me up. LOL Sure He listens. It's just that I can't see myself as anything but an annoyance to Him.

I don't know - I hope he doesn't think I'm stalking him or something. That would be just too creepy. But, it wouldn't be the first time I just wanted to be friends and some guy assumed that I just had to have him. Not that it would be a bad thing to honestly believe someone was interested in you. I've wished for that myself....

But I've been fooled on that before, and I realize I'm better off assuming that absolutely nobody is going to be interested in me ever again. Oh yeah, sure, I wish it was possible, but I'm halfway through my 30s and I seriously doubt that there is a half-decent guy destined to show up in my life and be nice to me. It's time to be practical - when even your boss calls you a spinster - how can the rest of the world think being alone is good? I don't even believe that.

So anyway, back to the book man. He does seem really interesting, but I don't think he thought I was interesting enough to merit return emails. It actually wasn't the first time I'd emailed him. LOL I'm not going to go into the match.com disaster - all I was doing was saying thank you for speaking to my class, and he didn't reply. Once again I became aware that I don't look enough like a Barbie doll for the average male. But being 5' 5" is a fact of biology that I just can't do anything about. I really don't think they're ever going to cut people's legs and set them 2 inches farther apart...Would 2 inches more of height be enough to make me less me and more someone else that's attractive?

He still seems like a nice guy. I'm probably just being overly sensitive because that's yet another person who doesn't want to know me. I just wanted to be friends.

I always believed that by this point in my life, I'd have even more friends than I use to. But the friends I had don't keep in touch, and my world is slowly collapsing in on me. It reminds me of when I was a kid and would stick my arm out of the car window to wave in the wind. Inevitably, one of my parents would tell me to pull it back in before I got it knocked plum off by somebody's mailbox or a street sign. I can't enjoy the wind anymore and I can't reach out anymore for fear of something out there ready to amputate a limb without warning.

I do feel fortunate that for the past 2 days, we've been out for snow. This morning when I woke up and checked the WASL website for the closings, I remember groggily saying thank you when I saw that we were out again, and then I went back to sleep.

It used to be that when I had a snow day from work, it was like a huge gift, and I could play around in my house or apartment doing whatever I wanted all day long. This time it seemed more like an act of mercy. I haven't been of bed much at all since i left work Wednesday morning, and now it's Friday night. Not that I've had anything to do on a Friday night in about 2 years now, since I don't date anymore. There really aren't any single men in my decade left in West Tennessee. They're all well over 40, and don't want children, which I do. Oh well, too bad, and too late. (Though I was searching all these years for the right someone.)