Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

We spent a quiet after Thanksgiving weekend. For the first time ever, I put up holiday decorations this weekend. This is the first year I can remember since having grown up where I feel good about the holidays. It’s funny because I have no money, and will have a really hard time buying presents for even the kids, but somehow things just seem right. I feel good. I am happy. My house is cozy and we had a fun time decorating. Things weren’t stressful, and didn’t have to be perfect.

I was talking to a friend tonight and I think it really has mostly to do with things finally feeling normal in my life. This is the first season that I have felt the joy of having my family more than the loss of not having it. Meaning, I love and appreciate my children so much. I feel so grateful to have them in my life. And regardless of the problems we all face, I love them so much and my life feels rich right now.

Tonight after Mark took a bath and we played a couple different games, we just snuggled on the couch for a little while and watched TV. I keep marveling over the fact that really for the first time in my life I am present in the moment. I’m not thinking about what has to be done, or how things should be different, or that I need to do more. In some ways I feel sad that it has taken me this long to get here. I wish I could have had this with the other kids. I do with Spence, and in the brief moments Aaron spends, but Katie rarely sees me and so we’ve really moved to a different phase of relationship and I won’t get this type of thing with her. At least not in the same way.

Also talking with Sally put some other things in perspective. The divorce has really relaxed me. I didn’t feel it consciously but the truth is that I have relaxed in quite a few ways. And I realized as we spoke that part of the relaxation was letting go of a lot of guilt. I mean, I was totally prepared to walk into court and defend my wishes to have full custody of Mark. I had the stuff I needed to document my case, and was willing to do so. I even half expected him to turn up without letting me know. But none of that happened. I wasn’t allowed to present anything good or bad. It was simply a matter of him not having responded in any way and not being present that cut him out of the equation period. The judge simply said he wasn’t in her jurisdiction and therefore had no relevance in the preceedings. Just like that. All of the blame he wanted to put on me (and still does of course) is just not there. The whole reason why he has no say in Mark’s life is because he made no effort to participate in the divorce. He didn’t file a response, he didn’t show up, he didn’t call, etc etc. This even though he knew the date/time. He did nothing to try to have a place in Mark’s life.

When I tried to tell him that the day we were divorced he of course didn’t believe me. And there was a single exchange of very nasty emails. I didn’t consider mine to be nasty, I simply told him what happened in court. His however, was extremely ugly. And not surprisingly, it was of course, all my fault. The thing is, I went to reply to his email, and then I realized it was over. I didn’t have to anymore. I am done needing to justify, or make things better. And with an extremely clear conscience when Mark grows up and asks the reason why his Dad isn’t in his life more, I can say exactly what happened at the divorce. That doesn’t mean I won’t in some way share my opinion of why that may have been the best thing, but I had nothing to do with the decisions about custody and visitation, and parental rights period. That was all his dad. I guess the court feels that if the father doesn’t make the effort to participate then they don’t particularly want to have any say in the outcome.

And all of that said, I guess in the last week it is starting to sink in that it’s done, over, finite. And maybe that is why I am so peaceful and grateful this holiday. I may even have a Solstice celebration this year. Open house. Have people over, play games, have a nice holiday. Be with people I care about and who care about me.

As I was driving home tonight from Melissa’s I was again struck by the beauty of the lights spread out against the mountains and the sheer size of the city. But as it does every time I drive in the dark and see those lights it makes me remember California and San Diego. I don’t know why it made such an impression on me for the 3 short months I was there (not even that really) but it’s as if my home is really there. I can remember the feel of the canyon breeze, the beauty of the sunset on a beach, the taste of the white wine that I enjoyed for the first time with my brother. The whole experience of being in the moment and truly living. I know that I want to go back, it’s just a matter of time.

Thanksgiving at the church today. I had a few nice surprises. And it was definitely nice not doing all the cooking and cleaning afterwards. The first surprise was that Aaron decided to go with me and hang out for a while. It was really nice having him there with Spence and Mark. I missed Katie so much too, but I was glad at least Aaron decided to come with me. He made a lot of people laugh and smile doing his magic tricks. And he’s so good. He really enjoys doing it for kids, and I enjoy watching him so much. I didn’t want to miss a minute, even to go get my camera. Spence hung out with some girls his age, and Mark was off playing with a new friend. All in all it was a nice Thanksgiving.

Afterwards in the kitchen I worked with some women to clean up. Learned secrets of the church kitchen - like where things live (anywhere they can find space) how to drain the dishwasher, and that the garbage disposal is lethal! But it was nice and I enjoyed that time too. And the boys were having so much fun that I didn’t see them until almost the very end.

One more thing happened that was really kind of cool. A guy was at the kitchen window where the dishwasher/sink are and was talking to Phylis when I walked up. I really haven’t been too interested in men or dating at all, but he was really cute and didn’t seem too young. He’s an artist, and we started to talk. We both do photography, he does it well enough to live off of. It was a fun talk, and he told me about his gallery opening, making sure that I knew when and where at least a couple times. I thought about going, but then kind of let go of it, but then I walked out of the kitchen and he was standing and talking to some other people and as I was looking there was this long sort of stare between us. He didn’t really want to stop any more than I did. Or maybe it’s all in my head and he was staring at me wondering what on earth I was staring at him for…

I don’t know but I think I’m going to go to the gallery.

Finally, I woke up this morning with money on my mind. I don’t know what I’m going to do about Christmas, or even getting us through everything next month. It hasn’t helped at all that all that is on TV is all the big sales tomorrow. It really sucks. With everything I have to pay, I just don’t see how I’m going to be able to buy anything for anyone. I keep thinking things will work out… but it really sucks. All I want for Christmas is the ability to buy my children at least a couple nice things they want….

Christmas lists and thoughts of presents. There is such magic in the air for children at this time of year. I looked down at my son this morning as we were talking about going to see Santa Claus. This year there is a really cool thing going on at the zoo with lights and hot cocoa and cider, and all the animals, and other special things for the kids to do. It made me remember going to the festival of lights in City Park in New Orleans every year when the kids were little. We’d visit Santa in Story Land right behind all the teenie kid rides, ride some of the rides, walk through the botanical gardens and drive through the park. It seems now like such a wonderful time. And somehow it was. We would sometimes go with Lee and Fred, and Katie and Aaron loved having mama and papa there with all of us.

I was looking through the photo albums today and reminiscing about those holidays. I’ve always dreaded the holidays a bit. I tried to find the joy by looking at it through my children’s eyes. The wonder is something that goes away just all too quickly.

And that is where I started this p0st. Talking about the wonder and awe on my little one’s face. Yule is a magical time for kids where wonders are supposed to take place. Mark doesn’t want to go to see Santa this year. I don’t know why. It may be something that is left over with sadness/anger/pain about the divorce. We talked about Santa and he only stops coming once you stop believing in him. But as we talked about what he wants, they are such simple things. And truth be told this year I am grateful for the people in my life and the fact that we have a roof over our heads, our utilities are all on (well I lost my cell phone but I can live without it for a while) and that we have food to eat. It’s hard to imagine where I will find money to pay for any gifts this year. But I know things will work out. Though we seem to walk the fine edge of a knife we have done ok so far. I think we will continue to do so.

But this year I’m concentrating on the simple things. Making cookies with the boys (if Spence wants to). Decorating the house. Putting up the tree. Listening to music. Watching all the old shows. And just soaking up being together. I guess those are my Christmas wishes. Along with having Katie and Aaron want to spend some time with me.

Spent much of my time working today which means I’m stuck at the computer for hours on end. It’s hard because even in a desk job you can get up and walk around occasionally, but with AA I have to stay physically connected to me phone and desk. Uggg.

Before hand though I did some house work which made the house feel better although it’s not pristine by any means (when is it ever?). I also worked to get more of my postings into my online blog here, now that I finally recovered them from the mySQL database on my old server. The collection is growing. As I posted them some of the words caught my eyes. It’s been an amazing journey, and to think I’ve collected almost 4 years of my life in writing. Now that it’s possible to write online, it makes me do it so much more regularly. Which is a good thing. I wish I could encourage the kids to do more of it.

I continued to work on the whole name change thing. Yesterday when I went to pick up Mark from school, I signed in as my old name. Just bizarre in some ways. After not having my maiden name for 18 years, here I am using it again. It’s going to take a lot of getting used to.

I was also amazed to see what the whole syndication thing has done for my blog. I looked at referrers to my blog and found that I’m actually published in some other places via RSS pick ups. Kind of cool if you ask me. It certainly hiked up the traffic to the site. Guess I’ll have to get political regularly and piss some people off - seems to draw them in.

I’ve been working on what I feel about the holidays over the last week. Thanksgiving is planned. We’re going to the church for a large “church family” gathering. I don’t have Katie or Aaron, so even “just us” would feel very lonely and certainly too small for a turkey. It’s always been hard at holidays anyway without extended family. I am hoping that my increasing involvement in the church will allow me to have people there Thursday that I feel happy and comfortable around, and that there are kids for my kids to hang out with. It is sad to me that I’ve never been able to give my kids the whole extended family thing at holidays. It’s always just been us. I guess I’m sad about me too. I have lots of fond memories about growing up and having all my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and even sometimes great aunts and uncles all around me. The house was always alive with so many people, crowded into every corner, kids dashing around from room to room. And the smells of the wonderful cooking and good food. And it just felt right. I always felt safe and happy then.

One particular Thanksgiving, when I was 5 or 6 my older cousins played a trick on us younger ones (there were kind of two sets - the older teens and then a group of us that were pretty young). My grandmother had a bear rug in her house, it was old and ratty and lived on the floor in one of the upstairs bedrooms of her and Grandpa’s farmhouse. The story was that Grandpa had shot it when he was young. It certainly looked that old. The nose was mostly gone, and it was a very small brown bear. It had glass eyes and kind of creeped most of us out. It always was sort of looking at you. And as a little kid, you are never really sure whether it’s going to wake up and eat you anyway.

This particular Thanksgiving one of the older kids picked up the bear and wrapped it around himself. Suddenly all of my older cousins came screaming out of one of the bedrooms with the bear careening towards us behind them. They of course, promptly disappeared down the steps leaving us to the bear. All I remember is a terrified stampede of all of us screaming and running downstairs and scattering around parents legs and hiding behind tables and overturned chairs.

They got a pretty good scolding as I recall, but I also remember the secret smiles on all their faces even after the stern looks and angry words from their parents and aunts and uncles and even Grandma. And trust me, once you’d felt the back side of my grandmother’s tongue you weren’t likely to forget it again for a while.

Anyway, I don’t have those big gatherings for myself and can’t give them to my kids and never have been able to. I suppose more and more people have that problem, thus why people gather together at churches, or like I heard on the radio, friends arranging parties for friends. It is particularly hard this year without having Katie and Aaron at all. Of course, I’ve invited them to spend part of the day with me. I doubt they will. They are very comfortable at their Dad’s. It makes me wonder how Christmas will go.

I know that we (who ever we turns out to be) are going to Melissa’s for Christmas afternoon. I know that I will still make my traditional breakfast of butterscotch rolls and fruit cups. It is likely however, that it will be simply me and Mark waking up on Christmas morning together. So who will I serve breakfast to? I don’t know. Right now I’m not worrying about it. We will see what happens when it happens.

First Turkey Day.

Coming to a location close to you soon! It’s creeping up on us, sneaking up from behind. The fact that congress apparently just stated that “if the networks won’t clean the airwaves up, then they would!”. Scary thought that. Not that I’m any fan of television. I have netflix for worthwhile viewing. Occasionally a show will capture my interest, but not very often. But the thought of government controlled media just sends shivers down my spine. But I don’t know why I’m surprised (well in truth I’m not). It’s been coming slowly. First the lovely connection between Clear Channel and the fundies see .

Then of course there are all the insidious infringements on our personal liberties, such as the fact that the president feels compelled to make a poor woman stay connected to life support forever in the claim of the “sanctity of life” but really just as a overt political statement to his supporters rather than any real concern about the well being or quality of life. If he really cared anything for human life, he would clean up the mess he’s left in Afganistan, and get our folks out of Iraq. So much for concern for life. Then there is the fact that the patriot act lets us all be monitored, without any consent on our computers, our telephones, in any public areas, and of course, let’s not forget the wonderful court case of even being monitored in our private homes (the bedroom no less).

I’m not sure which scares me more. The fact that the present administration is reversing civil rights at an alarming rate never before achieved, or that in general the sheep of common man in our country is bowing down to the altar of safety first. I don’t believe that our forefathers intended us to be penned sheep afraid of practicing what we believe. Yes, I do agree that they could never have envisioned what life is like today, but I do believe that they would never have thought it possible that they government they created would become the bloated, money grubbing, censor happy organism it is today. I believe they felt that it was immoral to tell each other what to do. That they believe in respect for at least land owning men. Yes, they had their issues. Women had no voice, children had even less, and slaves were not even people to most of them. But the spirit of what they believed about our country was a vision of wonder, and it is crumbling in the culture of fear being constantly shoved down our throats by people so far away from the reality of the every day world that most people think duct tape will save them in a terrorist attack.

I think the bottom line is the fact that maybe, just maybe, when the sheep get the scent of the wolf (when they do something like cancel “Desperate Housewives” for example) they will finally stand up and have had enough. However, if I was a betting woman, I’d place my money on the wolf.

Well it’s done. Over. After 13 years, started by a hurricane, ended by one (sort of) a marriage is done. That is a long period of a life to have spent with another. Looking back while I detest a lot of what happened, I see too that there were good periods. We never really communicated. We never really worked together and there were lots of conflicts. I think it was not a good healthy relationship at any point. We were each too needy with our own issues. But one of the most wonderful things in my life occurred because of that relationship and much of it I wouldn’t take back if it meant losing him.

My son Mark is a beautiful loving intelligent son, as are the rest of my children. He has presented some problems along the way, none of which are his fault. But he’s gradually making progress away from them. His school work has dramatically improving and he doesn’t even need an IEP for science, math and social studies. He does well and participates in class. Actively engages in class activities and discussions and even loves reading! Not only that he is so thoughtful and caring that it is amazing to me.

But back to the subject at hand. A 13 year history, wiped clean in a 10 minute hearing. Six or seven questions later and all is done, sealed and delivered. That is in itself is sort of mind bending. The other thing that I had to deal with was the whole clarification of jurisdiction and what that meant. Since I had thought the divorce would deal with all aspects, particularly of child pieces (visitation, custody, decision making) I had brought documentation to present to the court to support what I wanted to happen. However, the judge cut me off saying it was all irrelevant. That nothing of that was applicable since my ex was not present and hadn’t filed. He was therefore, out of her jurisdiction and had no place in the preceedings. Sole custody and decision making were given to me, and visitation was not even an issue. Since A had done nothing to present his case, he’d made no response, etc, he was decided to be without relevance.

Yesterday, when I told him that he was furious. Always believing that I paint him to be a monster, he couldn’t believe and wouldn’t accept that I had nothing to do with the decision. That is pure and simple a matter of the fact that he had made no actions to take any part of the preceedings. And the court judged that to be that he had no interest in the final decisions. It didn’t matter. I was still the demoness out to destroy his life. However, now one nice things is that I really do not have to deal with him at all. Not his drama, his threats, his antics. It’s all done. In that 10 minutes that I’ve waited for, it made my life so much more simple.

Weirdness.

I read an article on outsourcing our call centers to India and the stress it’s having on the Indian workers. USA culture has always had the image of being brassy and rude already (I’m thinking of the Fawlty Towers episode “The American” here) and it certainly hasn’t improved with the Bush cowboy method of politics (when he’s coherent enough to even get close to an image of anything). We have a lousy reputation overseas, and the people calling India for tech support, or help or ordering are not helping the situation.

Even in my own virtual office I have seen true bigotry at work, as one of our clients is GE, and maintains its own helpdesk for GE related issues that we cannot delve into since it’s GE’s servers etc. And I will admit that I do complain about not being able to understand them, but that is particular to me. I’ve never been able to understand someone with an accent on the phone, sometimes not even in person. That doesn’t make the other person stupid, it makes my hearing deficient. One of our T2s commented very negatively with slurs etc on the Indians who are taking up the jobs that companies are farming out for trimming the bottom line. That is the American way. It’s all about cost and the bottom line. Besides, people are all in an uproar but this has happened in cycles since the beginning of the Industrial Age. As technology improves, Americans tend to move into the higher paying more advanced jobs, and the lower older jobs get dropped down, and eventually it is more cost effective to pay for the services/goods produced somewhere else than it is to pay for them to be done here. Americans just expect too much in the way of pay and benefits. Not all Americans mind. Just the ones in the Middle classes and above. Trust me I know. I’m teetering on the brink of “middle class” and have looked down that road of poverty several times in my life. It’s not a pretty one, and pride goes away pretty quickly. But there’s a part of me that wants to move to India. I hear it is a beautiful place anyway. And the culture is lovely. Women who are respected and equals, yet still have the ability to stay beautifully dressed and not become “masculine” to get ahead. Ok - that is probably yet another broad sweeping generalization, but it least is made with a little knowledge. A friend of mine recently spent 2 different trips there and helped me see the country through his eyes. I’m not totally off with that impression. I can’t imagine being able to dress so beautifully every day.

Today has been a hard day. After a year of trying to bond with my two oldest, I’ve come to the realization that nothing I do can change their impressions, their feelings or their decisions about me. They are too old for me to have as much influence as I once had, and right now they are in a space of blaming me for all the wrong in their life, and for worshiping their dad who came to the rescue after having little involvement in their lives for several years. It is hard to watch them in their little family, feeling very good about their “new” and perfect mom, and their dad. But I am working to accept it. When they are ready, if it ever happens that they decide to forgive me, I am here for them. I love them and will never give up on them.

On top of that the divorce is tomorrow. Less than 24 hours. Yes, I’ve been through it before but it was mutual then and it was just me there. This time I don’t even know that he won’t show up. He may just be crazy enough to decide to. My counselor assures me that is unlikely, and even if he did, he’s filed nothing, done nothing to make a case, and on the other hand I have documentation on everything I want to say. But it has been a long stressful road to this point and I’ve got a lot of anxiety. I truly just want the best for Mark even though every one seems to think that is impossible.

Even the letter from Mark’s counselor was perfect. It said exactly what was needed. Jesse was surprised I guess. He gave me the letter at the beginning of Mark’s session, and said if I wanted to discuss anything, and he was sure I would, we could talk about it at the end. But it stated perfectly what I have always said. That Mark in particular needs stability and consistency. It is evidenced by his own stability in times when things were predictible in his life, and at other times when they weren’t and he suffered anxiety and stress. I just want things to be the best for Mark. Consistency is absolutely imperative.

When I told Jesse at the end of the session that the letter was perfect, and just what I wanted, he blinked. He’d been ready to tell me he couldn’t take my side. I told him I didn’t want anyone to take my side, I want them to stand up for Mark. I don’t want A out of Mark’s life. In an ideal world he would be healthy and wonderful and Mark would have two good parents to rely on. But unless he stays consistent and predictable, then it upsets Mark and is not good for him. Even though A sees it as me being controlling, that is borne out by the fact that now that he calls every Saturday at the same time, Mark has stablized remarkably from where he was just a month ago.

So anyway, divorce tomorrow, and letting go of the kids today. They have their own lives, and they’ve made it very clear they just don’t want me in them. I hope that it will change someday. Until then I will love them regardless of where they go and what they do. They are a part of me and always will be.

Yep, stress would be the definition…

Can’t escape the consequences for our actions, ever. The last 2 years have been ones that have included tremendous growth, tremendous sorrow, and tremendous hope. I start to wonder if those things have to all be together for it to be a rich life. I know that it is hard if not impossible to experience joy without sadness, the having without loss, and the light without the dark.

But in somethings it is hard to accept the consequences. For almost my entire life I have coped with sadness, loss, disaster, and anything else negative by trying to come away from the experience with lessons learned. It hasn’t always worked. And sometimes the lessons are learned too late to make any real difference.

My oldest son came over last night for one of the 4 days he stays with me in a month. Not a lot of time to try to rebuild a relationship. And last night he was sad, grieving and mad about the loss of his girlfriend. In his anger he looked for something, anything to blame, and I became it. I find increasingly that as things are hard for Katie and him, that they just shrug their shoulders and decide it’s all my fault because I did everything wrong. I listened with my heart last night. I tried to listen without judging, and I affirmed that I had made many mistakes in their past, and that I had no way of going back and changing them. I told him that I live with those mistakes every day that I don’t have my two oldest kids in my life. I grieve for the pain they feel because of those choices, and hope that I can help to undo some of the damage by healing myself and being a better person.

The hardest thing to hear was that he felt that I was never there for them. Looking back, whatever I did, I made no decision without totally considering all of the kids and the impact of that decision. I always tried to do the best. I know now that it didn’t work. I didn’t always do the best, and some of what I did hurt them.

My deepest wish for the future is that someday the pain will heal enough for both of them, and good memories, (yes there are good memories) will come back and we can be a family again. However, the path is the path, and what is meant to be will be. I cannot push it into the shape I want it. My love for them will be there regardless.

I think the biggest thing to come out last night was for the first time I felt real anger toward Stephen. One of the things said to me was that I was the one who ruined their lives because they could remember everything I did, and since Stephen wasn’t a part of their lives they didn’t see that he’d ever done anything wrong or hurtful. That made me really angry. He didn’t even involve himself in their lives for 12 fucking years. If he did during the summers it was because I pushed it. Their early years were in many ways hell for all of us because of his drug addiction and actions, and because we split up and he abandoned them, and then got to come in at the darkest hour and “rescue” them - he is now a hero in their eyes, and I am the dragon lady. It makes me so angry that I really wish I’d never called him in. I wish that whatever the pain to me that I had dealt with what was going on myself. I’d like to think we would have worked through things, and the kids would still love me now. It isn’t fair, it really sucks and at this moment I really hate him for that.

Some say that people into a Gothic lifestyle, or who like things that have to do with death are sick and otherwise degenerate. Hell even the shrink in the hospital told me that the only reason people “like black” as a color is because they are depressed and once they are treated they like bright shiny colors. I don’t think I want to be a raccoon going after bright shiny objects without a mind.

I may indeed be degenerate to many people because of who I am or what I like, I consider being a goth life affirming. Having an interest in death, in dark subjects, in black doesn’t make me bad or crazy. It’s not like I’m a serial killer. But of course, how would YOU know… after all they dress like every one else anyway! And they are always the polite ones who never make waves, or anything… OOPS there goes that theory. I make waves all the time, whenever it is possible.

Anyway, I really really love the “Living Dead Dolls” . Some of them are pretty gross but a lot of them are really twisted but terrifically fun. I wish I had a lot of money for collecting them off EBay and then a big house just to house them. It would certainly be more fun than the Catholic iconatry all over the house Anne Rice made from a Nunnery in New Orleans. A good friend of mine said it popped up in little wall caches every where and was really creepy.

Yeah, yeah 2 posts in one day. Very strange. But even stranger still is what I just decided to write about.

Two days ago, I attempted to get the police report on the interviews from Katie’s charges against my 0h-so-soon-to-be exhusband. I called Arapahoe county. They had no records. Not even that they had transferred the case (it was out of their jurisdiction since it happened back in IL). Any sane human being would think that somewhere there would be a reference that they actually did transfer the file and where… No such luck. I eventually tracked it down, and found out the status, and requested the information. The officer said it was unlikely I could get it but the judge would have access to it if she wanted it. So I took the case number and will have it at the hearing.

That’s not the weird part. THIS is the weird part. When I asked the Arapahoe county records to look up the records under Katie’s name, they found only one incident, in the fall of 2002 (happened before the other) while A and I were still together. She said it was a DUI (my heart dropped) but that she was the victim, not the driver. I figured, ok, this is just something Katie didn’t mention to me in her drug crazed days. She wasn’t sharing much with me at that time so it wasn’t really a surprise. So when the clerk didn’t find the records for the charges against A I had her look up under his name. Again there was nothing for the spring of 2003 (she said that if it was transferred it wouldn’t show up at all - stupid). But there was the same case number for the DUI on Katie’s records. And he was the driver. He had been charged with DUI, reckless endangerment, and expired plates. The clerk said the DUI had been dropped, but they arrest people on the spot for that charge. So, how did he get arrested without me knowing? How did he get out? Why didn’t Katie (or any of the kids?) tell me. How did he go to a hearing (where the charges for DUI were dropped) without me knowing? How did I not know about the payments for the ticket.

Insane mysteries that will never be solved. I talked to Katie about it. She says she doesn’t remember. Just plain weirdness. Really makes me wonder just how much happened without my knowledge. And he’s supposedly the victim and I’m crazy? Yikes.

Last night our Cosmology class arranged to go to the Denver Astronomy Society’s open observation night. It was cloudy, and got worse, and so disappointingly we only saw the moon and a blurry Mars. But it was fun anyway. The few of us who showed up had a good time and laughed a lot. I got to know some of my class mates better and it was an interesting night. Grant, the professor is really funny, sarcastic but funny. He’s also a good teacher and really cares about us learning stuff, which is nice since some professors sort of just put the information out there and let you absorb as much as you want. Which is fine, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like you get as much back from them. But of course everyone’s different. Goddess knows I’ll probably make a lousy teacher. I can’t explain my way out of a paper bag. I’ll probably do much better as a researcher/ R.A.

For the first time too, I heard Melissa talk about not going on with a doctorate. Lately as I’ve watched her struggle, I’ve wondered if she does think she made a mistake switching to physics as a topic of interest. I hope she can find balance about that, either in recognizing what she does want, or in putting herself fully into her work. She’s so stressed out right now that it’s hard for her to laugh. That isn’t a good way to live. Even when things were the worst, I still tried to find ways to laugh. Not that they were always great, but I want to feel good about life. I don’t want to spend it unhappy and stressed.

We had a test in cosmology yesterday as well. I think that I was stressed out enough about some other stuff that I didn’t do as well as I could. Two questions in particular I messed up. One was as obvious as my face, when comparing high and low mass star lifetimes I totally forgot to talk about their type of fusion. (Duh, we only spent like 2 days on that topic!). I had lots of other stuff, but I’m betting that was a key element that I should have remembered.

Then on the final questions, we had 3 math problems of which we were to pick 2. I totally forgot and did all 3. Again just stupid (wondered why others were finishing before me). But then I also screwed up on two of them. One asked to compare the answer to the energy of a volcanic explosion and I completely missed doing that (it was math! didn’t expect to do an essay there). And one of the others I calculated a relativistic distance - great as far as that goes, but forgot that the travel time was 10 minutes! So I calculated it for a distance traveled in 1 second… just a little difference (ugg). That one I remembered walking away from the test! So I didn’t do as well on this one. But oh well. I think I did ok, just don’t like not getting A’s. Same old story.

Had an interview yesterday that I totally bombed as well. Two sql questions, and couldn’t answer either of them. I knew it when I walked out. But the consolation is simply that I didn’t want the job anyway. It was database related and I really hate that type of work. So I’ll keep looking for whatever is out there for me.

That’s another thing that is funny about Grant. He keeps making comments about not knowing where he’s going to be in the near future. He keeps saying things like “if I’m here” etc etc. Talking to him in his office he said that if he doesn’t stay here he probably wouldn’t teach any more. He wants to do research. He also said that getting a Ph.D is not all it’s cracked up to be. Says it is really stressful. I guess for me it’s a personal thing. My brother was a doctor. Want to do as well as him.

Oh well - that was the day yesterday. Another boring rambling about my life. Oh I guess there were some UNboring details.

I had kind of a rough morning before the test (hmmm… maybe that is why it was so stressful!). First off, I was in with my new therapist who has no windows, and the electricity went out… that was fun. It was the end of the appointment anyway so I wasn’t too bothered. Then I went to try to get gas at the gas station. I pulled into the pump, and the stupid card reader didn’t work. Kept flashing “insert cash” and there wasn’t even a place to insert cash into! So I moved my car, got out again, and put my card in this one. It worked (thankfully). However, I had enough money in my bank account to put in $10 of gas to leave a little in the account. (I hate being this poor). And I got to $10 and the stupid release wouldn’t work. I kept trying to get it to stop and it was just stuck. Uggg. It went up to $12.85 before it would release. I was having visions of A) going over what my card would allow (gee that would be fun) and/or b) getting completely dowsed in gasoline when the stupid thing eventually filled the car and wouldn’t stop… Lovely images both. But neither happened. And I had that much in my account (left a few cents anyway). So then I pull out of the gas station which is right across from school. Get into the left lane, and there is a truck stopped in the left turn only lane so I swing out into the next lane to go by him at the light. He decides that he’s going to move THIS turn of the light so I zoom up to pass him and it’s a very short block with a left turn only in front, and as I zoom through this second light, I hear the light rail whistle and look to the left and there about 15 feet away from me is the light rail zipping along towards me. I think it cleared my car by about 5 feet. It was kind of weird. I didn’t really get shaken up, didn’t feel scared… Kind of numb. The back of my mind kind of registered that I should be freaking out right about then but I just didn’t. But maybe that is why I did bad on the test. Who knows. My mind works in mysterious ways most of the time.

OK, so yesterday I had just finished a post after working on it for 1/2 hour, and was just proofing it when I opened a link from email and POOF! all that writing gone. Yesterday I just decided, fuck it. Not writing it all over. It was about my birthday. It was a good birthday. I practiced being thankful. And I felt it. It wasn’t hard. Each of my kids at least paid a visit. Spence managed to wrangle a cake, ice cream AND presents… Shocked the heck out of me and made me feel loved. I spent time reflecting on how healing has made me so aware of the little things in life, and how I am so grateful for them. And how it reinforces the work I’ve done and continue to do. All of that good stuff. Might have balanced what I’m going to write about now since I’m really angry. (more…)