Grace

So in the name of avoiding laundry for as long as humanly possible, here is the long awaited entry on Grace.  Oh, and I’m going to stop capitalizing that now, partially because I’m not really sure it should be, and partially so I don’t have to hit the caps lock key quite so often.  I have freakishly tiny pinkies, and I tend to hit other keys when I reach for the shift key or anything else I need to hit with my pinky.

So, grace.  I’ve been noticing over the course of the adult inquirer classes at church that Lutherans talk about grace a whole lot more than Catholics do.  Oh, the concept is all throughout Catholic theology, but it’s never really discussed in a Bible study or educational setting or whatever unless the topic happens to be the Sacraments.  But my current pastor has talked about it in every class we have had so far, and mentions it in just about every sermon he preaches.

Last Sunday, when he called the decision the paralyzed man’s friends made to cut a hole in the roof and lower their friend down to see Jesus a “graced moment,” I started to contemplate exactly what grace was.

Now, I know that there are about a million websites out there that will give me a theological definition of grace from the perspective of about a thousand different religions, denominations, and churches.  That’s fine and dandy.  But I wanted an understanding of grace that would be something I could live with as I went through my everyday life.  If I am about to assent that I believe in “justification by grace through faith,” I should know what exactly that means for me.

Amateur linguist that I am, I thought I would start my quest by considering the secular uses of grace and words that come from grace.  When we say that an athlete or a dancer, or whatever is “graceful,” we usually mean that they move with such smoothness, such flawlessness, and such…panache as to make even the most difficult movements seem effortless.  When critics talk about graceful brushstrokes in a painting, or graceful lines of a sculpture, they usually mean that the work of art manages to draw the viewer into it, almost to the point that it ceases to be an inanimate object and becomes something more.  When a home itself is described as gracious, it usually brings to mind a rather large home that is well-decorated, but still manages to feel warm and “homey.”  


If someone is described as a gracious host, he or she is usually very attentive to and generous with his or her guests.  If a person acquits himself or herself with grace in a particular situation, he or she managed to get through a difficult time with his or her dignity intact, and without offending anyone or causing any further strife.

The prayer we say over meals is called “Grace.”  My mum belonged to Grace Lutheran Church.  Thousands of girls have been named Grace, especially since Grace Kelly married into the royal family of Monaco.  Entire websites are devoted to poems about grace.  When we see someone in a tough situation we barely avoided ourselves, we might say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  One of very few hymns sung in just about every Christian church, regardless of denomination, is “Amazing Grace.”

So what does all this mean?  First of all, it means that grace is intangible and ephemeral.  You can’t say, “Well, if I only had two more ounces of grace in my life, everything would be OK.”  And I personally can’t imagine ever asking a pastor or a spiritual director how to get more grace in my life.  

But it also means that grace is undeniably real.  Like air, we often only recognize it by its absence.  If you gathered a group of random people in a room and asked them to come to a consensus about 10 people who are graceful, it will probably take them quite a while, and much contentious discussion.  But if I get up on the dance floor (or walk down the hall for that matter), no one is likely to think that God has blessed me with grace of movement.  (And if you need further proof of that, consider that I broke my foot while practicing the Mexican Hat dance, that I broke it again when I was walking down some steps, and that I ran over myself with a van.)

All this is well and good, but what does it mean?  How can I recognize a graced moment, and how can I live grace in my life?

I had planned to write something a little different than what I’m going to, but I had yet another revelation as I was typing this.  The first lines of “Amazing Grace” actually offered me an interesting idea: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound / that saved a wretch like me…”

Sound.  When I though about grace as a sound, something clicked for me.  One of my favorite passages in the Old Testament is when some Old Testament guy (yeah, I was raised Catholic – I remember passages, but not details)…wait.  I’m going to get a Bible.

OK.  It was Elijah (I knew it was an “E” name – I had Ezekiel on my mind, but as soon as I saw the book, I remembered that he was the creepy prophet - Fr. O’s words, not mine).  The passage is 1 Kings 19: 9-13.

Elijah was looking for God, but he didn’t find him in fire, or earthquakes, or wind – all big, noticeable things.  Elijah found God in a tiny whisper.

I think that tiny whisper, that God-sound, in all of us is grace.  It’s our assurance that, no matter how crappy things are going, no matter how mean other people are, no matter how bad we feel about ourselves, or how bad we screw things up, we are Loved.  Grace is the knowledge that there is nothing we did to deserve that Love, nothing we can do to buy our way into that Love, and nothing we can do to lose that Love.  

That God-sound, God-love, helps a dancer or athlete through the hours upon hours of rehearsals and practices that make their tasks seem effortless.  That God-sound, God-Love enables an artist or sculptor to see the beauty of creation and the motion of a piece of canvas or lump of clay.  A composer is able to bring that God-sound to the page, and a musician is able to translate it into something almost tangible.  A writer releases that God-love through ink and paper (or pixels and electrons) and shares it with others.

The God-sound of grace is what compels someone to be generous and gracious to his or her guests, or to total strangers.  It is what sends people to remote areas to help make other’s lives better.  It is what encourages us to listen to someone who is lonely.

I think this is a definition of grace I can live.  And I pray that I may always listen to that God-sound, and appreciate and share that God-love.

Maybe...

Generally speaking, I’m pretty happy being single.  I don’t spend my free time longing for a man to complete me like so many single women do on TV or in the movies.  I don’t feel like less of a person because of my singleness.

But lately, I find myself longing for the intimacy of a married relationship. I want someone to confide my anxieties, joys, and boring details of my life to, and vice versa.  I want someone to lay next to at night in bed, and know that I am loved.

And even more oddly, I want to have a child.  This week I found myself picturing myself holding a tiny baby and telling hoe much Mummy and Daddy love him.  I imagined holding her on my lap at the library and reading the Velveteen Rabbit together.  I can see myself tucking him into bed at night after saying prayers together.  Heck, I’m even a little excited over the potential battle over math homework.

Perhaps it’s just a phase, and next week I’ll be back to normal.  Perhaps this is normal.  Who knows?

A Little More Info...

Just to clarify a bit on my last post, my main character is a woman – a straight woman.  The gay priest is her best friend, and the dead drag queen…well, that’s a bit harder to explain.

The novel asks the question that so many 20- and 30-somethings ask: “Who am I, really?”  That sounds cliché on the surface, but I hope that I am approaching it in a somewhat unique way.

I’m not going to write much about my main character, Ella, because it would give too much of the plot away for me to write anything about her yet, and I’m not ready to do that .  But I can tell you a little bit about these two supporting characters without giving too much away.

Scott is the gay priest.  He didn’t start out gay, but he did start out a priest.  He wandered over from another story I started, and changed his name as well.  Scott became gay for a lot of reasons.  First of all, he wandered into this story right around the time the Vatican started making noise about gay seminarians and priests.  It frustrated me because if priests are supposed to be living celibate lives anyway, what difference does it make if they are straight or gay?  Come to think of it, it shouldn’t make a difference even if they weren’t celibate.  But that’s a story for another time.

Anyhow, I made Scott gay because I was a little ticked off about the Powers that Be deciding they had the power to deny that someone had a calling to ordained ministry simply because he is gay (or female, or heterosexual and married…but again, story for another time).  And I made him gay because, despite the fact that he is firmly in the closet with everyone but Ella, he is remarkably self-actualized.  He knows who he is, Who created him, and he is comfortable and happy with that.  I needed someone like that to act as a confidant for Ella.

As for Uncle Betty…well, would you believe I literally dreamed him up?  I had an odd dream that I was buying a house in a planned, intentional community.  They had a huge green space, a communal garden, and they actually did things together in the evenings and on the weekends.  Anyway, the person who is selling the house is showing me around, and the most remarkable thing about the place is that there is a bathtub in every room except the kitchen and dining room.  When I remark on it, he told me that the house formerly belonged to a drag queen and his partner, and that he insisted on having a tub in every room.  In my dream that seemed perfectly normal.

So, when my mind was wandering during the sermon (it wandered a lot that day, actually, and spawned the entry I plan to write about Grace as well.  It was a really good Gospel, I guess), I realized that that drag queen and that house was exactly what I needed.  Except I couldn’t figure out how to tie that back to the main plot .  

So, as I was driving home from work one night, taking the long way to avoid the horrible Baton Rouge traffic (which will only be worse this weekend thanks to two LSU basketball games, baseball games, and Mardi Gras parades), it hit me that the drag queen needed to be a character.  The only problem with that was that he was dead.  So, what do you do with a dead drag queen (That could be the start to a horrible drinking song.)?

Well, all I’m going to say is that he isn’t a ghost, an angel, or other spiritual/paranormal manifestation.  I’m also going to say that he acts as a mentor figure for Ella.  Beyond that, well, you’re just going to have to buy the book in a few years.

Oh, and for the few of you who read this who know me, sorry if you disagree with anything I wrote.  Most people get more conservative as they get older.  I seem to have become more liberal.  I’m just a rebel, I suppose.

I Have an Announcement to Make

The Great American Novel now has a title. Or at least a working title.

Are you ready?

Are you sitting down?

Hold onto your hats...

The Great American Novel is now called...Advice from Uncle Betty.



OK. The two or three of you who actually read this thing are scratching your heads right now. I promise you that the title makes sense in the context of the story. Besides, wouldn't that title make you want to at least pick it up and read the cover blurb when you walked by the Discover New Authors rack at Barnes and Noble?

The title came to me last night when I finally figured out how to tie together two plotlines, one of which I didn't even know was going to be in there until Sunday, when my mind wandered during the sermon at church (I know, bad Sheryl).

The only problem is that on the off chance I ever finish this thing and actually get it published, I can never submit my name to the list of published authors my alma mater keeps. How exactly do you tell someone from a fine, Catholic institution like Gannon that the two supporting, protagonistic characters in your novel are a gay priest and a dead drag queen?

Before I Head Home...

...from an outrageously long day, I just have to say that the medals being awarded at the Winter Olympics look like CD's suspended from a piece of ribbon. Ick.

These are the flowers I sent to the church for my aunt. They were inexpensive, but at least I did something, I suppose.

Conflicted

I had a nice, long post planned on the subject of Grace, but something happened that changed that.  

Actually, I may still write about Grace after I write about this something else.  They fit, in a weird sort of way.

I happened to check the obituaries in the Pittsburgh paper online tonight, and I discovered that my last remaining aunt died (well, except for the one in TX who I only know in theory).  No one called me or anything, and had I not decided to click on that link tonight, I may have never known.  I certainly hadn’t known that her husband had died, or another one of my uncles…at least until tonight.

My feelings about all this are terribly mixed.  This is the aunt who I could never get a clear read on; sometimes it seemed like she supported my academic success and independent nature, and other times it seemed like she reviled it.  This is the aunt who has never forgiven me for an incident that happened at her grandson’s First Communion party, when I was 18 and too stupid to know when to gracefully give in and ignore other people’s insults.  This is the aunt who informed me at the visitation for my mother that as soon as Mum was in the ground, our relationship was over.

On the other hand, she was also my dad’s closest sibling.  He was godfather to one of her children.  Her daughter is my godmother.  I know she and my uncle helped my dad out of more than a few tight spots.

I find that I can’t cry over her death.  I really want to, and I really want to feel regret that I can’t fly to Pittsburgh for the funeral.  But honestly, I don’t.  No one has made an effort to stay in touch with me since I moved down here.  Heck, no one has made an effort to stay in touch since I left for college.  It was almost like my dad’s family viewed my childhood as a burden to be borne until I was of age, then they forgot about my existence.  As much as I don’t want to admit it, that hurts.

I told my shrink about all the feelings of inadequacy my extended family had engendered in me.  I explained how my mom’s family really didn’t value education, and to them, college was just a waste of four years and a bunch of money.  I explained that, because I was by far the youngest of my cousins in my dad’s family, there was never anything special or unique about me, because someone else had already done or accomplished everything I did.  I told him how sometimes I hated myself because I was just me – not an attorney, or a chemist, or an IRS agent, or a special education teacher.  I don’t have the mechanical skills that are so prized on both sides of the family, and I’m almost 35 years old and haven’t married or popped out any children yet.

We spent almost two full sessions counteracting all the lies they told me.  And even despite that, I don’t know if I really believe the things I learned to tell myself.  It’s hard for me to believe that despite the fact that I haven’t found my career niche, despite the fact that I don’t have a graduate degree yet, despite the fact that I don’t know anything about the stuff under the hood of my car and I always end up with pieces left over when I try to put together do-it-yourself furniture, I am a good, talented and worthy person.  If anyone else in my family, other than my parents, had told me that just once, I might not have so much trouble believing it.

I don’t know why their approval, especially from my dad’s side of the family, is so important to me.  I suppose it may be because it’s the one thing my dad really craved and never really had assurance of.  My dad adored his brothers and sisters, but they never really did right by him on an emotional level.  Instead, they held petty childhood grudges, they reinforced the fact that he was less successful than them or their spouses, and they – especially his brothers – made him feel like less of a man than he really was.  Yet all he wanted, the only thing he felt was missing from his life, was their approval and acceptance.  

I know I wasn’t consciously aware of that as a child – how could I have been?  But I think I sensed it subconsciously, and decided that if that approval was so important to my dad, it should be important to me as well.  So I tried.  I really did.  But I never measured up.

Damn.  Seeing her obituary has dredged up all kinds of stuff in me that I thought I had well and truly dealt with.  I didn’t realize it until I hit this point in my entry.

Well, I suppose all I can do now is make peace with this the best I can.  I know that at heart, she was a good woman, and I know that she is in the presence of God tonight.

I guess the post on Grace will have to wait after all.  I’m not feeling very grace-filled at the moment.

From the TMI Department...

I don't know if it's because I had "female time" for the first time in about 6 months this month that has made my hormones go absolutely wild, but I don't like it. I have been up and down more times in the past week than I can count, and anything can set me off.

If my body has just been storing that up until now, and if things go back to normal next month (assuming things in general go back to normal next month), I can deal with it. Otherwise, I may either wind up killing someone or being killed by someone.

Now that I've given you more information than you could possibly need about my life, I'm going home to eat pizza, do laundry, and finish the work I didn't get done today because I had yet another crisis to deal with, and yet another meltdown.

Sometimes I wish I were 20 years older and completely past the female stuff.

Didja Miss Me?

No? Didn't think so.

It's not that I haven't had anything to write about - I have. I've just been too tired to sit down and write at night. So instead, I'll take a short break here and there during the day and do it.

Let's see...I wish I could say that I'm too tired to blog because I have been working on The Great American Novel, but the truth of the matter is that I haven't. I've handwritten about 4 new pages, most of which I'll probably end up scrapping. I've been too tired to do that lately as well. I will work on it, however, even if it kills me.

Work is...work. It's part of the reason I'm so tired. I'm under a lot of pressure with a new technology we are rolling out, added to my normal responsibilities. Add to that some other issues which I'm choosing not to write about on the off chance someone happens to find this blog, and I'm just going through a down point work wise.

There is an issue I will write about, however, because it is general enough to be anonymous. I am now the only person in our office who doesn't smoke. Now, you are saying to yourself, "That's a good thing. They will all die horrible deaths at an early age, and Sheryl will live a long and healthy life knitting hats for the fish she considers her children (dog and cat allergy, you know)." That's true, and it wasn't a big deal when only two people in the department smoked. They'd take five minutes a few times a day, go have their cigarette, and that would be that. But now that my boss and other two coworkers smoke, those smoke breaks turn in to 15 or 20 minutes three or four times a day. And I'm left in the office, all alone.

I feel exactly like Rachel in that episode of "Friends" where exactly the same thing happens (would that I looked like Jennifer Anniston, though!). They talk about stuff out there and make decisions, and I'm left out of it all. I don't like that, but what can I do about it? I'm not about to take up smoking, nor am I going to subject myself to the second hand stuff. Sigh. I guess I'll have to just grin and bear it. Either that or I can finish The Great American Novel, it can become a multi-national best seller, I can quit my job, go on an international book tour, and live off my residuals until I finish my next novel.

I can also travel to the fantastical land of Boboville where the rivers run with white chocolate and teem with Swedish Fish, and everything you need is provided for you by squirrels wearing colorful sweaters.

Yeah.

Anyway...

I don't think I ever said what the ENT told me. My glands are fine, in general, though he said there was some swelling in one of the parietal glands, but he wasn't concerned. He did a laryngiscope, though, and apparently I have ulcerated vocal cords. He said it's most likely from reflux, but I don't feel like I have reflux that badly. So I have to take another medication for that and go back to see him next month. He was also of the opinion that my thyroid would probably have to come out in the next year or so. Yipee.

I suppose it's for the best, since it seems the medication isn't working anyway. I'm more tired than I was before I started taking it, and my last test results showed that I actually got worse instead of better. I'll know more when I get blood drawn in a couple weeks, or when I see my doctor again in April.

What else...The new members class at church is going well. I'm learning a lot, and my decision to become Lutheran is being affirmed. Part of me, the part that was still raised with fear-based Catholicism, is still having reservations, but even that part is coming around. I just wish that making this choice didn't cost me some of my friends.

Umm...The Superbowl party was fun, even if the game was a little boring. The couple who hosted had an absolutely adorable, teeny, tiny dachshound. Of course, I had to play with it. Of course, I'm allergic. Of course, I got hives. But it was worth it.

Oh, and the Steelers won. YIPPEE!

Well, I have work to get done, so I guess I should get back to it. Tomorrow, expect a deep and profound entry about why fish need hats in the first place. Or something like that.

Steelers Fans...

If any of yinz have any audio files of Steelers songs, can you e-mail them to me, or give me a link to where I can find them on the internet? I fully intend to annoy my co-workers on Friday.

Request

Hey. I was reading on the blog of a seminiarian about his J-term experience in an emerging church community in Seattle and I was intrigued.

I'm familiar with the concept of the emerging church, but I was always leery of it because it seemed so...unstructured. But after reading his blog, I'm thinking I feel more positively toward it. It sounds like, at least at this community, they get that the Church really is just the people of God, and that liturgy is the "work of the people." They just apply it differently.

So if anyone happens across this entry and has any suggestions of books/websites where I can read more about the emerging/postmodern church, leave me a comment.

Thanks!

I'm Awake

At 5 a.m. for no apparent reason. In fact, I've been awake since 2:15 a.m. for no apparent reason. Sigh.

So, my last post...Yeah. I had an allergic reaction to both the antibiotic I was taking for the staff infection, and the adhesive on the new dressing my manager tried using since I had so much drainage. I had hives from my scalp down to my thighs. I still have the last vestiges of them. Miserable only begins to cover it. But at least I don't itch or look like a leper any more. Hopefully, the patches on my face will fade before I go to Atlanta next week so that I can wear make up.

Did I mention that I was stuck...I mean honored to go to Atlanta next week? Apparently everyone in the company whose original hire date falls in first quarter has to go renew our company spirit. I would much rather stay home and work for the company than waste my time with this, but oh well.

Today's the day I go to get my lymph nodes evaluated. I'm nervous, but I know it's something I don't have any control over, and there is no use obsessing about it. That's a change for me. Don't know if it's the medication or the therapy, or a combination, but it's a good thing.

Oh, medication. Before I started taking the steroid to get rid of the hives, my doctor re-checked my blood for the thyroid hormones. The steroid apparently interferes with the test, and since I was due to get them checked this week anyway, she went ahead and did it that day. Well, the levels have actually gotten worse instead of better. She wasn't expecting that. She was expecting that she'd have to increase the dosage of the medication, but she was expecting to see some improvement or at least stabilization. She's not sure what the deal is, but if it happens when she checks it again in 6 weeks, I'll have to see an endocrinologist. Joy.

So how 'bout those Stillers? I'm not particularly a football fan, but I think that there is something imprinted in your genetic material that makes you a Steelers fan when you are born in Western PA. I'll actually be going to a Super Bowl party as a result. I'm very excited to wear the black and gold. Now if only I could find my Terrible Towl. I think it got left behind at St. Al's Church and Country Club.

Boy, I haven't written about that place in a long time. I've kind of put it to the back of my mind, even though I get frustrated whenever I read their bulletin. I don't know why I don't just ask them to take me off their roles, especially in light of what I'm about to write about.

[Deep Breath] Well, I've made the decision to go through the inquirer's class at the church I've been attending in preparation for becoming Lutheran. Yes, I've decided to take that plunge. I know that this will come as a surprise to a few of you who "knew me when," but I think that it is the right choice for me. I feel more welcomed in that little church than I ever have in any Catholic parish I have ever belonged to, even the chapel community at Gannon. I feel like less of a hypocrite theologically speaking as well.

For as long as I can remember, I was basically a devout cafeteria Catholic. I don't think I could have used that terminology, but I first realized it in 4th grade when I got punished for saying that I didn't see any reason why girls couldn't serve at the altar, since they did in my mom's church (she was an ELCA Lutheran). I learned at that point to just quietly accept what I could accept and reject what I couldn't. Everyone was happy as long as I could parrot back the company line on demand when I was in school, and teach the "correct" theology when I taught religion.

But I wasn't happy. It became increasingly difficult to hear God's still, small voice inside me. My own doubts and frustrations were drowning out that quiet whisper. I was angry that my church didn't value my contribution as a single, lay woman as much as it valued a married person, priest, or religious, or in some places even a single, lay man. It pained me to watch the youth ministry in a Church that claimed to value all life intentionally ignore the needs of the quietest in their midst, the ones who didn't quite fit in. And I hated, hated, hated the fact that in the parish where I worked, as well as many, many other parishes I was familiar with, status, money, and connections had more to do with determining your worth than the simple fact that you are a child of God.

Now, I'm not naive enough to not realize that there is some of that in every organization, religious or secular, and that it is an inherant part of the culture of the old South. But that doesn't make it right. I've seen less of that in the small congregation where I've been attending church for hte past year and a half, though. I suppose part of that is because it is such a small congregation (only about 300 members, as opposed to almost 8000), but from everything I've read and experienced, it seems to be a part of the Lutheran culture. There is also far less judgment than I ever experienced in the Catholic church. I have a theory as to why that is, but I'm not going to share it until I'm further into these classes and know more about what I'm talking about.

I suppose I won't know until I die if this is the right choice to make. But I'm pretty well at peace about it. God and I are talking on a regular basis again. I'm remembering how much I've always loved Scripture, and I'm getting back into Bible study. And I feel like even my dad would approve. Fear of disappointing him was what kept me in the Catholic church for so long. But I believe that he would want me to be wherever it is I can find God.

Wow. After a rambling, unfocused start, I eneded up getting pretty deep for having only three and a half hours sleep. I can catch another hour if I fall asleep right now. So until later...

I'm Cranky

I'm itchy, I'm tired, and I don't feel good. It is taking all of my energy to keep from biting people's heads off today. In general, Life Sucks.

Just thought you all should know.

So, I haven't been here for a while, huh?

Oh, I've thought about writing, but then I'll get distracted with something else, and I just never quite got around to it.

So, I guess I should share what's been going on in Sheryl land, huh?

Well, first of all, it doesn't feel like January. There should never be a day where the temperature hits 80 in January. Never, under any circumstances. Just my opinion. Though some of the leaves down here did actually change color this year, so I suppose that's something.

So, the health stuff I've been hinting at. Well, my doctor did prescribe an antidepressant, and it is helping. I'd like to be on it no longer than a year, personally. Anyway, she did a whole bunch of tests and discovered that although my blood count, blood sugar, cholesterol, and insulin levels were normal (that last was a bit of a surprise, though), my thyroid levels were low. So I'm also taking medicine for that. She also found when she did a physical that my thyroid was significantly enlarged. That's where the fun begins.

So because of the enlarged thyroid, she ordered an ultrasound. Well, the ultrasound showed several nodules, but it also showed some lymph nodes that shouldn't have been there. So she ordered a CT scan. Unfortunately, after making me wait forever for the results of the scan, the scan wasn't readable due to an "artefact" on the films right in the area they were concerned with. Basically, that means that either I moved or something was screwy with their machine.

My doctor decided that rather than have the CT scan done again right away, she wants me to see an ENT to have my neck evaluated. She said that most likely it's all due to my thyroid, but it could very well be something else as well. I see him next week.

It just makes me nervous to think about. I mean, I see all kinds of little things that add up into a scary big picture. I'm having tons of skin problems all of a sudden (including an apparent allergy to adhesive tape). I've been having trouble swallowing for over a year now, but I had just chalked it up to my imagination. I realize now that it very well may not be. And last weekend I developed another abscess/staph infection, which meant more draining and packing, and this time the packing really hurt.

My manager, who is an RN, is concerned that there may be some kind of immune thing going on. But that doesn't make any sense considering that I haven't been sick (except for the staph infection and an ear infection) all year. Everyone else in the office has had strep at least once. She said that she would be thinking diabetes if the test results hadn't been completely normal, or HIV infection if there was any chance I had ever been infected (which there isn't). I just don't know what to think.

Regardless, the fact remains that I am scared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was going to write more on another topic, but I'm tired now. I'll try to write more tomorrow.

You Know What I Think?

I think it is patently unfair to make someone with an anxiety disorder wait more than a week for the results of medical tests that could potentially indicate that something is seriously wrong with them.

I'm just saying.

Don't worry about me, those of you who know me. I'm not going to say anything about any possibilities until I know something for sure. It's probably nothing, and I've picked my cuticles bloody for no good reason (I do that instead of biting my nails - maybe I should go back to doing that instead). Nevertheless, I'm genuinely worried, and the wait is just about killing me.

Still, I know that all I can do is put it in God's hands, and trust that God will handle it even when I can't.

So, if y'all could give a holler to the deity of your choice on my behalf, I'd appreciate it.

Oh, and for all you English majors out there - here is the best part of your degree. I was just watching "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and there was a question about what meter Dr. Seuss wrote most of his books in. I correctly correctly identified it as anapestic tetrameter.

Yeah. That's a great use of a bachelor's degree.

Quick Note

I've got lots of stuff to write about, though most of it isn't good. I'm not going to write right now, however. I want to wait until I know more about a particular situation.

If I don't get back before Christmas, have a Happy one.

Insight

So, today I had therapy. It is very weird to write that.

In the hour I was there, we came to the conclusion that I have a pleasing people thing. I just want to make people happy in general, and happy with me specifically. And I have an overwhelming fear of rejection.

The therapist asked me to identify where I think that is rooted, and I couldn't pinpoint it. I can tell you various moments in my life, dating all the way back to preschool(!) when I kind of...retreated...further away from people each time I was rejected. And each of those times I seemed to try harder and harder to not do something to stand out, to push myself into the background, and to please people by being low-maintenance.

I've been trapped so long in the pattern of putting other people's needs ahead of my own that I don't quite have any idea how not to do that.

Perfect example. I wasn't planning to go to the company Christmas party tomorrow. I have a doctor's appointment, and social things like that always make me uncomfortable (yes, I am an introvert, as we previously discussed). But as I discovered that there were more people I know going than I thought, I thought about changing my mind. But low and behold, I find out that by boss's boss can't find a sitter. So what do I do? I volunteer to watch her kids. So while everyone is out partying and drinking on the company's dime, I'll be watching Disney movies, coloring, and otherwise twiddling my thumbs.

I am stupid.

Ok. I am not stupid. I had to learn how to counter that particular negative thought today. I'm intelligent and competant. I just don't feel that way a lot of the time.

Quick Note

I go through periods where I tend to try to fix everything in my life all at once. This is not only not possible, but it also is incredibly unhealthy. I know this but I do it anyway.

So, this is just a note to say that if you hear me (well, read me) write anything about graduate school any time in the next...three months or so, smack me. Hard.

Thank you.

I'm Here

That's about all I can say about today.

I'm trying to be more aware of what I'm thinking and feeling lately. And I had a revelation. I have an overwhelming need to please people. There is a big part of me who wants just to make people happy, whatever that takes, and feels guilty when people aren't happy, even if it's something I have no control over and, in fact, have nothing to do with. But, by the same token, I don't think that other people need to do things to make me happy, or make my life more pleasant.

I know that's screwed up thinking. But I have no idea how to fix it. Maybe this therapy thing will help. Maybe drugs will help.

Meh.

300.02

I sometimes envy the medical coding specialists I work with. It's like they can speak a whole other language. When somebody says 434.91, they immediately think "CVA". They throw around V57.1 and 781.2 the way most people say blue or air.

It also depersonalizes medicine. It's no longer a person with an illness, just a number.

Sometimes I think it's easier that way.

That number in the title? That's apparently why I've been a little...erratic lately. I wish it were just a number.

Yeah, I did something completely out of character and actually sought help. Apparently, I have generalized anxiety disorder.

I have to say I was surprised by that. I was expecting depression, but not that. I don't think of myself as an anxious person. I've always thought I was terribly laid back, perhaps even too laid back. But as the therapist explained the symptoms to me,a nd why he thought I fit that criteria, I had to admit to myself that he was spot on. I just didn't realize how...tense I had been, and how anxious I tended to be because it was just such a pattern in my life, and probably has been since I was a little kid. The way I obsess over small mistakes. The way I never think anything I do is good enough. The way I never think I'm good enough. I've had those thought patterns for so long that they've just become a part of who I am. It took someone who hasn't known me forever to point out to me just how screwed up my outlook on life and myself had become.

The therapist also said that either underlying or accompanying the anxiety is a certain amount of depression. He said it's kind of like a chicken and egg thing; there's probably no telling which came first, but now they just feed each other. Lovely.

He also said that it's a good thing I'm seeing my primary care doctor this week. He said drugs might be a good thing. That idea scares me, too. There's a really long and strong history of addiction on both sides of my family. There haven't been many who have been able to avoid it.

{sigh} I wish it were all so simple as changing a few numbers.

All I Want for Christmas - In My Dreams Edition

1. World Peace. A perennial "In My Dreams" entry due to the fact that an awful lot of people are just plain mean.

3. A Big Brother. Impossible without a strange rip in the space/time continuum.

2. A Puppy. Won't happen because of A) My lease. B) My allergies. C) The fact that I am never home.

And yes, I am numerically challenged.

100 Things Meme

These have been popping up all over blogdom lately, so I guess it's my turn.

1. I'm an only child
2. If my parents' first child had lived, and if my mom hadn't miscarried twice, I would have been third of four.
3. My dad was one of eight, and my mom was one of 3, and I am the only only child in the bunch.
4. I have second cousins who are older than me (all of the second cousins on my mom's side (except for one) and two on my dad's )
5. The first book I sort of remember being read to from was a big, huge Sesame Street book with lots of stories and activities.
6. I can only remember my dad reading to me once. My grandmother (Mum's mum) was in the hospital and my dad took me to the library across the park to entertain me (I was four or five). I don't remember the book, except that it had a boat in it, but I do remember the librarian shushing my dad. He got a little too into doing voices for the various characters.
7. The first book I read myself was the Sesame Street Cooperation book. My dad bought it for me at Revco, again to entertain me when my grandmother was in the hospital. I was sitting on the floor of the backseat of our Buick (one of my favorite places) and I started to read. Mum thought Daddy read the book to me in the store and I memorized it (something I was well-known for, apparently), but he hadn't.
8. I learned what a skate key was from that book.
9. Despite the fact that I love reading and writing, English and Language Arts were never my favorite subjects in school.
10. I majored in English anyway.
11. When I was very young, I believed that every church was literally God's House (something Catholic parents regularly teach their children - minus the literally part). Every time we'd pass a church with a man sitting on the steps, I declared that it was Jesus sitting on the porch of his Daddy's house.
12. Sometimes I wish I had never outgrown that belief.
13. I went through a period when I was around 7 or 8 when I wanted to change my name to Linda. I thought that was the most glamorous name in the world.
14. I had an imaginary friend named Eddie when I was little. He looked like a worm and lived in the walls of my room. At night, he and his little worm friends would put on puppet shows for me before I went to sleep.
15. Yeah, I had a vivid imagination.
16. I used to eat butter right off the butter dish.
17. I would then follow it by drinking lemon juice right out of the squeezy lemon in the refrigerator.
18. I never learned to ride a bike.
19. I did, however, learn to roller skate, and I used to be able to roller skate backwards.
20. I can't anymore.
21. I had a mammogram at the age of 11 because I got hit in the chest with a line drive playing softball and my whole breast turned black and blue.
22. It was horribly painful.
23. My coach didn't want to let me come out of the game. He was a...well, insert the epithet of your choice here.
24. I stopped playing softball because of the way he treated me that season. I realize now that it was emotional abuse. I should have realized then because my dad, who came from the, "you finish whatever you start" school of parenting told me I could quit the team if I wanted.
25. I didn't.
26. If you haven't guessed, I come from a long line of doormats.
27. I wish I had been raised to be more assertive.
28. I seriously considered killing myself when I was in eighth grade.
29. I've never told anyone that before, not even my Mum.
30. I have a tendency to be more emotionally honest and open in writing, even if someone I know is reading it.
31. I'm afraid of silence.
32. I'm even more afraid of dark silence.
33. I at peanut butter sandwiches for lunch every day for two straight years in sixth and seventh grade.
34. I haven't eaten one since.
35. I guess there is such a thng as too much of a good thing.
36. My first dog, Muffy, ran away the summer before first grade. We think the mailman left the front gate open, but even if he did, it was weird for Muffy, who was the best dog ever, to leave the yard.
37. We had to give our last dog, Harvey, away. My dad got her when I went away to college, but I came home to discover that I had developed an allergy to dogs that was almost as bad as my allergy to cats.
38. My dad loved that dog. I always wondered if giving him up hastened his illness and death.
39. I still feel vaguely guilty about that.
40. I'm attracted to baseball catchers and hockey goalies. I think I have a thing for masks.
41. In fact, I harbored secret fantasies that Mike Lavallier would leave his wife and fall madly in love with me.
42. Guess that isn't such a secret fantasy anymore.
43. The first time I opened a Bible I was six and my mom showed me hers.
44. The next time I opened a Bible was seventh grade. We had one class on the Bible, in between learning about the seven deadly sins and how God loves us but we are going to hell anyway.
45. The next time was Confirmation class in ninth grade. I had to write a one page summary of the book of Isaiah
46. The next time was my sophomore year of college, when I learned that it was impossible to write a one page summary of Isaiah because there were at least two and possibly three distinct writers of Isaiah.
47. Amazingly, Isaiah is my second favorite book in the Old Testament, despite that experience.
48. My favorite Old Testament book, and in fact my favorite book in the Bible is Jeremiah, because he had the guts to yell at God, and despite the fact that he thought God and pretty much screwed him, he followed through with his calling and he never really lost faith.
49. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I went back to St. Al's CCC for Mass some weekend. I have visions of being escorted out of the church.
50. I have a secret desire to dye my hair some outlandish color.
51. Guess that isn't so secret aymore, either.
52. I broke the same bone in my foot two different times in five different places. The bone is all of about two inches long.
53. The first time, I was practicing the Mexican hat dance ion the doorway of our living room for our Girl Scout troop's performance in the council's international festival so I wouldn't bother my dad while he watched the news. I walked on it for a week before the pain got to be so bad I couldn't stand it. I was in a cast and on crutches for 10 weeks.
54. The second time I was walking down the steps of the mens' wing in the Kirk House the day we came back from Thanksgiving break my sophomore year of college. I had gone upstairs to see the quasi-obscene pictures one of my housemates had drawn on the chalkboard up there, and as I was walking down the stairs, I suddenly found myself at the bottom of the steps on the floor. I still don't know how that happened. I waited a week before I went to student health, because I was afraid I didn't have health insurance, and I wasn't sure what would happen if I had to see a specialist or go to the hospital.
55. Well, that and my fear of health care providers.
56. I avoid going to the gynecologist because everytime I find one I like, she leaves the practice. Then the whole crappy cycle has to start over again.
57. Plus, I'm scared to death that a doctor is going to find something seriously wrong with me when I go in for something routine.
58. And if they don't, I feel like I'm wasting their time.
59. Did I ever mention that I started my college career as a pre-med major?
60. I used to be afraid of Santa Claus.
61. In fact, in every picture we have of me sitting on Santa's lap, I'm sobbing like mad.
62. I was so afraid, that I ran away from him at Allegheny Center Mall when I was very little. All I remember is that the security guard found me by the fish tanks in Sears.
63. I adored my Aunt R (my grandmother's baby sister) and Uncle C and used to beg my parents to go over to their house.
64. Conversely, my Aunt V always made me uncomfortable and I used to beg to stay home when we were going to their house, despite the fact that I loved my Uncle L (my mom's middle brother, who was 12 years older than her).
65. Aunt V thought it was OK to give me old catalogs, crappy comics, and the plastic "eggs" that L'eggs pantyhose used to come in for Christmas, while she gave her grandchildren all kinds of brand new toys. At first I was naive enought not to know that was wrong, but even when I did I still told her wonderful the "gifts" were.
66. What she didn't know was that Uncle L always slipped me money every time he saw me.
67. Uncle L also bought me a typewriter in 10th grade so my chemistry teacher wouldn't take point off for my bad handwriting.
68. He never would have admitted it since I was a girl, but he was proud of the fact that I was the first on that side of the family go to college.
69. Even when I am being all emotionally vulnerable, it's hard to come up with 100 things.
70. I once ran myself over with a 15 passenger van.
71. I still have a lump on my leg, 13 years later.
72. I didn't realize until I moved to Louisiana that food was actually supposed to have flavor.
73. Not all food in Louisiana is mouth-burning hot.
74. But having said that, don't eat the potatoes or mushrooms at a crawfish boil. I learned that the hard way.
75. The tomb they used to put on the back altar of my church in Pittsburgh on Good Friday really creeped me out.
76. The risen Jesus they put there on Easter creeped me out even more.
77. Another secret fantasy of mine is to one day have a really good mattress topped by ridiculously high thread count sheets.
78. I'm a texture slut. I've bought sweaters I don't really like before just because they were soft. When I was little, I used to embarrass my mom because I would hike up my skirts so that I could finger the silky slip underneath.
79. I still do that on the rare occassions I wear a slip, but I've learned to be more discreeet.
80. It is very hard for me to ask for help with anything. Ever.
81. It is very hard for me to accept help when it is offered.
82. Somewhere in the back of my mind I think that needing help is a sign of failure.
83. However, I don't think other people are failures when they ask me for help.
84. I would really like to own a brand new car.
85. I could get my life on track financially (and then some) if I had $50K.
86. Getting my life on track in other respects is a whole 'nother story.
87. I sometimes wish I had the guts to go to an African American church.
88. I think Finding Nemo is one of the most spiritual movies ever made.
89. I hated the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I feel guilty for admitting that because it was the kind of movie I should like.
90. I wish I had gone to grad school right after I finished college.
91. I always wondered what my life would be like if I had spent grades 1-8 in public school.
92. The first time I realized that I was an introvert was 2nd grade. All the girls in my class were busy forming little circles and talking on the playground at recess. I was perfectly content to stand along the permiter of the playground and just watch. My teacher tried to make them include me, but I always ended up on the outside of the circle - they literally closed me out of the ciricle.
93. I'm an INFP, according to Myers-Briggs.
94. I'm an off the scale I, and a boderline F.
95. My favorite thing to have for dinner is mashed potatoes and corn and broccoli. If I could get enough protein from that, I'd never eat anything else.
96. I once ran over a stop sign at a grocery store shopping center in Erie. I got two flat tires, but I never told anyone why.
97. If I let myself, I could eat Swedish Fish until I made myself sick.
98. Mum made the best cranberry sauce ever. She would make three or four big molds every holiday, including Easter and my birthday (she bought the cranberries in teh winter and froze them). She, my Uncle L and myself (and my grandmother when whe was alive) could make a meal out of just cranberry sauce.
99. As hard as I try, I just don't particularly care about football. I love the Steelers, though.
100. I can't believe I reached a hundred.

And as a bonus

101. It took me almost two hours to write this list.

Thanksgiving

So I suppose I have a lot to be thankful for. I'm relatively healthy (if a little insane), relatively safe, and relatively stable (again, except for the occasional depressive episode and panic attack). Life could be worse, I suppose.

I had chicken cordon bleu (out of a box) for dinner tonight, along with broccoli and cornbread dressing. Didn't eat much of the dressing, though - it was way too moist. I'll stick in a frying pan tomorrow and cook off some of the moisture. I like my stuffing dry, thank you very much.

I made apple brown betty for dessert. I had some leftover apples sitting in brown sugar and apple juice, so I threw them in a pan with a little butter and made a caramel apple sauce. So good.

So I saw this meme on someone's blog - I'm too lazy to link or credit - and I present it to you now.

Take the month and day of your birth and look up that verse in each of the four gospels.

Matthew 5:13 - "You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under foot."

Mark 5:13 - And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine. The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank and into the sea, where they were drowned.

Luke 5:13 - Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, "I do will it. Be made clean." And the leprosy left him immediately.

John 5:13 - The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.

I find it interesting that all but the first quote are in the context of a healing, and the first one is one of my favorite verses.

God is funny like that, I guess.

The Details

So we flew to Atlanta this week for a one day meeting. Got to fly first class on they way. It was nice, but not nice enough to suddenly make me not hate flying.

This past Monday, I got officially promoted to project manager. What that means is that I'll do most of the stuff I was already doing, give up some of the stuff I hated, and get a raise of $5000. That's nice

You know, I should be thrilled with that. It should have been celebration worthy. But all I can say is "that's nice."

It makes me sad that I can't get excited about good stuff anymore, and that my brain seems to be caught in a perpetual game of "my life would be so much better if only I would have..."

Sigh.

I Get to Fly First Class Today!

And oh yeah, I got promoted.

No Big Shock Here...

You Should Get a MFA (Masters of Fine Arts)

You're a blooming artistic talent, even if you aren't quite convinced. You'd make an incredible artist, photographer, or film maker.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

I Have a New Favorite Tea

I've been a Darjeeling person for a long time now. But last night on a whim, I bought 1001 Nights tea from the Origianl Ceylon Tea Company. I made some this morning, and it is really, really good. It's strong, but not overwhelming, and there is just a little hint of strawberry. And I didn't need to use much sugar with it, certainly less than I ususally do.

Just thought I'd share...

Just Checking In...

Letting everyone who cares know that I am still here, marginally all right, and relatively sane (though every online screening I've done says that I'm probably moderately to severely depressed...).

I'm not mad at that guy anymore. It occurred to me this week that the whole business world is brand new to him. He's used to the world of academia, where research projects go on for years, and findings aren't reported until they are absolutely ready. In business, the pressure to produce under deadline is huge, and sometimes the deadlines are pretty damned near impossible. He'll learn eventually.

My NaNovel is coming along nicely. I have about 4300 words. I don't stress about word count the way most wrimos do, though. I just use this as an excuse to commit to daily writing. If I make it, great, if not, that's OK too.

Unfortunately, some folks take things way too seriously. We had a supposedly friendly competition going on with Macon, GA for highest average word count per person. Some nasty things were said to one of our folks by someone in GA, and someone in BR got mad about people with low word counts signing up for the challenge and "diluting" the efforts of the high word count people.

I hate competition.

And Let Me Just Say...

...that it makes me absolutely insane that the person I have to keep re-explaining things to is a PhD and makes twice what I do.

I'm done ranting now. I'm going home to take Advil and eat rice.

OK. I Admit...

That I sometimes get proprietary about projects I'm given. OK. I even admit that I always get proprietary about projects that I am given.

But when something I actually liked doing was taken away from me today, I was very cooperative. I explained everything over, and over, and over again to our new statistician.

But forgive me for saying this - I'm ticked off that he just as much as implied that I somehow screwed up the downloaded table. I didn't touch the downloaded table. I didn't change numbers or manipulate it in any way. The database that I downloaded was fine.

But no, he has to download it for himself, just to prove that the numbers I told him came straight from the source actually were right numbers.

I am fit to be tied, and angry enough to spit right now.

I Suppose I Should Thank Sr. Mary Agnes...

...but I think she's dead.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Ahem..

So I thought I should post today because there are undoubtedly a few regular readers out there who are a little bit...concerned right now.

I am OK. Really. I just took a little dip in the deep end for a while. Had a little disagreement with whatever small bit of sanity I posses, and we had a little trial separation. We're back together now, though.

Last week was...brutal. And it wasn't just the car accident. Heck, if that were all it was, everything would have just been peachy. But it was lots of things. It was the fact that I was forced into captaining our incredibly losing effort for the scavenger hunt at work. Even though I had no control over whether we won or lost, I still felt guilty that we didn't make a better showing. Heck, after all the work I put into the stupid hearse, we didn't even have one of the top three boxes. I hate being forced into doing things I don't want to do, especially something silly like that.

Then my boss made me take Tuesday off. That meant I had all day Tuesday to sit around the house and think. And when I have too much time to think about things...well...it's a dangerous thing. Because I don't just think. I dwell. And I replay. And I rehash. Mainly, I just obsess. It's one of my many personality flaws. I can't help thinking that if I had ignored my boss and gone to work on Tuesday, things wouldn't have gotten that bad.

Then I kept getting requests for hospital information at work from account executives. And not just for one or two hospitals. Sometimes, it was for every hospital in a state. It isn't hard to download the information, but it is boring and incredibly time consuming. And since it doesn't require much thought, it was just more time to think about everything that is wrong in my life. That kinda sucked a whole lot.

Then on Thursday, I got an impossible request from someone outside our department, but within our division. There's certain report I've been asked to do for him every six weeks. It is easily my least favorite part of my job. It is time consuming (to do it right takes 3 days), tedious (I have to run the same information for 80 agencies), and frustrating (because people are stupid). I have no idea why we still have to do the report when the initiative has been moved to a different department but...oh well.

Anyway, because the guy I do the report for is stupid, he told the agencies that if they entered a certain code for particular patients by 5 p.m., they would be given credit for those patients. And, if the agencies didn't show growth in this area, they would lose a particular piece of technology that really sets them apart from other HHAs in most areas. That would land the directors and the account executives in a world of trouble.

Well, the time factor was bad enough, but then the system went down. Now, I'm not really crazy about driving at night right now, and I told my boss as much. She said that if I didn't think I was going to be able to get all the reports run in time to meet the deadline, I needed to call her and tell her. I called her around 6:15 for the first time and left a message on her cell. I called her home phone 10 minutes later, and sent her an e-mail. She called me back at about 7 and yelled at me. She said that she was very clear that if I didn't think I could get things done at a decent hour, I should call her, which I did. What I didn't pick up, and perhaps I should have, was that she wanted me to go home then. I thought I needed to wait for her to tell me to go home. When she yelled at me, fragile as I was last week, I sorta kinda really lost it.

Now, I will be the first to admit that my judgment was really off. I hadn't been sleeping well, and I had had too much time to dwell on every failure I had ever had in my life (and believe me, they are numerous). I just felt like if I didn't get that report done, it would just be one more thing to add to the list. I know it was irrational, but you have your neurosis and I have mine. Mine just happens to be a crippling fear that nothing I do is ever good enough.

Anyway, the boss called me into her office on Friday morning, ostensibly to go over what she thought would be a quicker way to do this report. Well, we did talk about that. But she also told me that I had to call our EAP to get some help. I didn't do that, but I did make an appointment with my doctor. I know I have a tendency to fall into funks way too easily. Maybe I do need to be medicated. Of course, I couldn't get an appointment until December, so I have plenty of time to cancel if I change my mind.

I was better on Friday. Except when I was in her office, I didn't cry at all. I wanted to one other time, though. Friday was the company Halloween party. I didn't dress up, but I did write obituaries for the other folks in our department. They were cute, but there was nothing really special about them. Nevertheless, everyone in our department gushed over them. I think they were only doing so to make me feel better. My boss went so far as to say that I was in the wrong field (was that supposed to be comforting?).

I should have been basking in the glory of someone praising my writing, but instead, I was a little offended. What I wrote for those obituaries was not anything that anyone with a little bit of talent and a lot of obscure knowledge couldn't have written. It wasn't real writing. It didn't have substance, and heft, and meaning. It bothered me that based on little snippets of fluff, someone could declare that I needed to be a "real" writer.

That's so stupid when I read it in retrospect. But it still bothers me a little bit. I want nothing more than to be a serious writer. But the only writing anyone ever complements is stuff so basic a high school student could have written it. I know it shouldn't bother me. People in general don't realize that there is so much more to writing than clever word play. But it's aggravating, nonetheless.

I guess it all plays into that fear that nothing I ever do is good enough. That's why I never finish anything I write - I can't stop editing. I don't know where that particualr neurosis came from. I can't blame my parents for that one. They praised even minor successes as the greatest things since sliced bread (cliche, I know). I guess it could have something to do with the fact that I never seemed good enough for my peers. I was always just on the outside of the circle. I never had the right clothes, never saw the right movies, never listened to the right music, never went to the right parties. But gosh, I wanted to be on the inside. I had enough self respect and enough familial backing to not do anything stupid in my quest to belong, fortunately. But I have never been able to shake the belief that I'm just not good enough.

{sigh} I suppose that's enough soul-baring for one night. I'm going to crawl back into my introverted hole now.

My manager thinks I need to be on drugs just because I can't sleep, I can't stop crying, and I have panic attacks every time I drive in traffic. She's probably right.

Since I don't feel like dressing up anymore for Halloween, I got roped into writing the "obituaries" for the folks who are going to dress up. Monday I would have jumped at the chance. Today, all I want to do is cry (which I've only done twice so far). I guess three straight days of insomnia will do that to you.

I'm Better Now.

Really. I just wish that everything didn't make me cry.

I'll write more tonight because I have lots to say.

So...

I was off work today. My boss made me take off after I couldn't control my crying on the phone with her last night. Today was so hard to get through with nothing to do. One of my co-workers called me and I cried on the phone to her as well. She said she'd call back later to check on me. She never did. Nor did my boss who said she'd call today. I don't know what it is about me that keeps people from caring about me for more than a few minutes.

You know, that's really not a fair thing for me to say. It's frustration calling more than anything. Most people, when they are in a tough situation turn to their family or significant others. I don't have either of those things. I have no one.

I admit that sometimes I really resent God. Oh, I'm not shallow enough to buy into that reward/retribution theology that says that God rewards those who do his will and punishes those that don't. And I never bought that platitude that says that says that God never gives us more than we can handle. I know God didn't cause my accident.

No, I resent God for taking my parents away when I was so young. I was barely an adult, and all of a sudden, I was completely on my own. There was no weaning like most people get to experience. And the rest of my family did nothing to support me through all the crap I endured after my dad and mom died. I faced everything on my own.

I know that I brought it on myself. I'm not a particularly open person. I never have been, because I discovered early on that you get hurt when you leave yourself vulnerable. It isn't easy for me to depend on other people, because beyond my parents, I never had anyone I could depend on. I just wish that I did have someone on whose shoulder I could cry when stuff like this happens.

I'm whining. I know it. And I know my resentment of God is misplaced. But nonetheless, I all really wanted to do today was to kneel on the floor and put my head on my mother's lap like I used to when I needed comfort. I longed to feel her fingers carding through my hair, imparting comfort with every stroke. I wanted to hear voice, and feel her stomach move as she laughed. For one day, I just wanted to be someone's kid, and have someone take care of me.

But I'll never have that again.

Sob

I was just in an accident on the way home. An accident that can be directly attributed to the increased traffic in Baton Rouge.

The traffic at my usual exit was backed all the way onto the interstate. I didn't want to sit in that, so I decided to switch lanes. The next exit would get me home just as effectively and much quicker. So as I was trying to switch lanes, the traffic in front of me stopped more abruptly than I anticipated. I hit the left bumper of the car in front of me with my right front bumper. He was in an SUV, so naturally there was almost no damage.

I, on the other hand, in my little compact car, have an accordianed hood, broken headlight, and probably some other stuff. The car is drivable, but I don't know how safe it is.

His car was of course owned by a company, so of course if my insurance doesn't cover all the damages I'm on the hook for whatever remains. Not to mention the damage to my own car.

I'm OK. I'm shaking, but I'm ok. Though my stomach hurts, and I'm feeling a little sore now.

I hate my life, and I hate Baton Rouge.

I'm Building a Hearse

It's fun but messy.

Our company has a scavenger hunt every year for halloween. My department chose as its team name the ICD-9 code for Dropped Dead. There really is one. Go find yourself a code book and look it up (or leave me a comment and I'll tell you what it is). I got volunteered to be team captain. Part of the requirements for the hunt is that you submit your items in a decorated box. In keeping with the whole death theme, we are submitting the few items we have in a hearse. We only have a few things because 2/3 of our team was out of town all week. The two of us who were left decided to have some fun. We were supposed to take a picture of all our teammates gathered at a particular bench not far from the office. Well, that's really hard to do when the whole team is out of town. So we got everyone pictures from the company directory, stuck them in a frame, and took a picture of them at the bench under a sign that said "In Loving Memory..." We were supposed to have a road map of Alaska, and we printed one off the internet and enlarged it so it is about 2 feet high by 2.5 feet long.

We may lose, but we had fun doing it.

So, do you want to hear the plot of my NaNovel? Well, congratulations, you're going to . Actually, I don't have much of a plot yet, but I have a pretty good concept.

The protagonist, Ella Shue, was someone who was pretty much the consummate follow or sidekick for most of her life. She did what other people wanted her to do because she was so desparate to fit in. She was manipulated by her friends, her family, even her teachers.

It wasn't until she went away to college, escaping all of those things, that she really discovered who she was, and that she was a very talented person, who did not necessarily have to follow to fit. She found her niche, and found happiness and success. This is all backstory that may or may not make it into the novel in some way, shape, or form.

Several years later, Ella is at the point in her career where she is hiring an assistant for the first time. A resume crosses her desk with a very familiar name - the person who was chiefly responsible for keeping her in the background in high school. It is a very common name, however, and she doesn't think any more of it until the day of the interview when she sees that it is the same person.

For some reason that I haven't determined yet, Ella ends up hiring her. The novel is about how Ella copes (or doesn't cope) with that change in roles.

I have some rather interesting plot points in my head. I just need to work out the details. This theme and the style I plan to use is somewhat of a departure for me - it is more popular and less literary. But I'm thinking I need a change to push me out of the funk I'm in. I feel confident that I can hit 50K this year.

I Am Sad

I was looking forward to getting to dress up as a corpse that has been pecked to death by birds for Halloween next Friday. Today I found out that I have to go to a stupid meeting Friday morning. I can't go to the meeting in costume, and the party starts right after the meeting.

I was excited about getting to do something with my department. It's different when you don't feel forced into it, and when you feel like you are actually a member of the team. Now I don't get to.

It's pathetic, but I really want to cry.

So I'm Going Deaf...

No, really. I am.

Went to the ENT yesterday. She said that the infection I had did likely perf. my eardrum, which I already knew. She couldn't see any fluid, but she said that the Eustacian tube may be a little bit compromised, which is causing me to feel like there is fluid in there. Not much they can do about that. I just need to take decongestant whenever I feel like that.

They did a hearing test. I have a slight low frequency loss in both ears, which I've known since I was a kid. It is a little worse now than it was last time I was tested. She wasn't concerned at all right now, but said it's something I need to watch, especially given my family history.

{sigh} This is why I don't go to the doctor ever.

Uh...No

Guess this lends credence to the fact that I was premature. This does not describe me at all.

Your Birthdate: May 13

Being born on the 13th day of the month should help make you a better manager and organizer, but it may also give you a tendency to dominate people a bit. You may be more responsible and self-disciplined than you realize. Sincere and honest, you are a serious, hard working individual. Your feeling are likely to seem somewhat repressed at times. You are apt to be much more practical, rational, and conscious of details. Your intolerance and insistence on complete accuracy can be irritating to some.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

A Change May Be on the Horizon

I have a background this color...

Your Blog Should Be Purple

You're an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything. You tend to set blogging trends, and you're the most likely to write your own meme or survey. You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you - not what anyone else has to say.

What Color Should Your Blog or Journal Be?

Yeah, Another Quiz

You Are Likely an Only Child

At your darkest moments, you feel frustrated. At work and school, you do best when you're organizing. When you love someone, you tend to worry about them. In friendship, you are emotional and sympathetic. Your ideal careers are: radio announcer, finance, teaching, ministry, and management. You will leave your mark on the world with organizational leadership, maybe as the author of self-help books.

The Birth Order Predictor

Yep. 5 questions and they got it right. The funny thing is that I have done all of the mentioned careers in one form or another. Guess I just need to write a self-help book. How about Coke in a Sack: Adjusting to Living in the South when You Are a Damn Yankee?

Ugh!

Tomorrow I have an appointment with an ENT. I'm not happy about it.

Remember that ear infection I had a couple weeks ago? Well, it got better, but I'm still having some residual problems. Every now and then, it feels like fluid is built up again, but then it goes away. I think my boss got tired of me asking her to repeat herself, because she threatened to drag me in kicking and screaming if I didn't go voluntarily. Maybe I only have an allergy.

Of course, If I'm to be totally honest, I was having problems before the infection as well. I can't clearly hear conversation if there is any background noise, like in a restaurant or in the office when the printer or copier is running. I seem to have trouble with lower sounds as well. Add to that the fact that hearing loss runs in my dad's side of the family (every single one of his siblings have had problems of one kind or another), and the fact that I already had a small loss due to all the ear infections I had as a child, and well. I guess I should be worried. And I am.

She'll probably tell me it's all in my head and then I'll feel stupid for wasting her time and mine. That's why I hate going to doctors. That and the fact that they may find out that something is actually wrong. I don't like either of those scenarios.

And the Steelers lost thanks to Tommy Maddox's stupidity. How can you not fall on a fumble when you are in field goal range in overtime? Idiot. Then he throws an interception that ends the game. I hope Ben Rothlesburger is better next week.

Faith, Art, and Birds

So I was surfing the NaNo forums today. I'm preparing to write, and I wanted to see what other people were doing and thinking. And it wasn't to get plot ideas - I finally have one of those (I'll post that later). I was just curious.

So within the genre forums I clicked on to the Spirituality/New Age forum. I'm not writing in that genre, but I was curious. Anyway, it seemed like most of the Christian writers there were writing blatantly Christian novels. A few were attempting allegories, but most were following the typical theme of someone searching for something and not finding it until they accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Cliche, but it seems to be that most novels in that "Christian" genre are.

This got me to thinking. Is there a difference between a Christian writer (or artist, or dancer, or whatever) and a writer who is a Christian? I've had this discussion before, and I've read about it before, but I think I have put it into a different light for myself today.

When I try to write something with a blatantly Christian theme (I'm talking fiction - nonfiction is an entirely different animal), I usually end up failing or just giving up. I always felt vaguely about that. I figured that if I claimed to be a Christian, I should be able to write about it in whatever way I wanted and have it be good (at least as good as how good a writer I am - this sentence not withstanding). But it never was.

I've come to realize why that was. When I tried to force the issue, it ended up being unnatural and contrived. It's like trying to...well, I don't really have an appropriate analogy. But random angels, miracles happening, and "reward theology" just aren't reality. Not that I don't believe that angels exist or that miracles happen (believing that good or bad things happen to you in proportion to how hard you believe or don't believe is another story), but I think that they are more subtle that what you find in most "Christian" fiction.

Having said all this, however, I believe that no matter what I write about, or in what genre I write, my faith in God informs it. I can't separate the part of me that believes from the part of me that creates, since all of me comes from the ultimate Creator. Being a Christian colors my world view, which in turn colors my writing, whether or not I am writing about blatantly Christian characters or themes.

So this year, I'm not going to try to force things. There is nothing purely Christian about my plot, there is nothing about my main character accepting Christ in any way, shape, or form. I'm not going to force my novel to be something it doesn't necessarily want to be. But as I've begun outlining my novel, I can see my beliefs influencing the direction I am moving, but in a more subtle, true to life way. I don't know what category that puts me in, but here I am.

Oh, and I'm going to be pecked to death by birds for my company Halloween party. There's a story behind that. Leave me a comment if you want to know it.

Just one more "quiz"

Your Brain's Pattern

You have a dreamy mind, full of fancy and fantasy. You have the ability to stay forever entertained with your thoughts. People may say you're hard to read, but that's because you're so internally focused. But when you do share what you're thinking, people are impressed with your imagination.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Yeah, this fits...

Your Hidden Talent

You are a great communicator. You have a real way with words. You're never at a loss to explain what you mean or how you feel. People find it easy to empathize with you, no matter what your situation. When you're up, you make everyone happy. But when you're down, everyone suffers.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

I promise I will write something substantial this weekend. No, really. I mean it.

Good Grief!

You are Charlie Brown!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

This does not surprise me at all. {sigh}

Movie Recommendation

If you haven't yet, you absolutely must see Million Dollar Baby. I didn't see it when it was out in the theaters because I hate boxing, and thought it was all about that. I isn't. My boss recommended it, and she was absolutely right. The last time I cried this much watching a movie was when I was in college and saw Shadowlands. That movie is in my top 10, and now I think this one is as well.

I have a new respect for Clint Eastwood. He did an incredible job of directing, and he wrote the title music, which is just incredible.

Rent it. Now.

Career Counseling

I need some.

I've been thinking a lot lately about where my career is going and where I want it to go. Now, in all honesty, I would like to spend my day writing and have someone give me lots of money to do it. That isn't going to happen anytime soon, unless some publisher out there wants to by an unfinished, unedited novel. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

No, huh? Oh, well.

I started thinking about this when we hired a new statistician. A lot of what I have been responsible for is now going to him. Personally, I'd be insulted if I were him, considering he has a PhD and I have a little liberal arts BA. But I'm not him, so what do I know? Anyway, with him taking over a lot of those tasks, I'm left with most of the more...menial jobs in the department. I'm a team player, and I'm willing to do my part, but I'm bored. Bored, bored, bored. With no end to the boredom in sight.

My manager thinks she is doing me a favor by taking some of these tasks away from me, but she isn't. The little bit of challenge and creative outlet those things afford me was the only bright spot in my day. I tried to tell her this, but she didn't seem to understand, and told me that I need to be able to give things up. I guess that I didn't do such a good job of communicating with her.

I'm frustrated because I can't get a handle on exactly what my role in the department is right now, and I can't get a hold on where my job and my career is going. To make matters worse, my manager left my position off of her staffing model, and with the COO talking about looking for places we can make cuts at corporate, I'm a little paranoid.

My manager swears that she values me as an employee, and she wants to take me as far as I want to go in the company. But the fact of the matter is that I'm 34 years old, and haven't been on a career path since I graduated from college. I don't know where I can go.

In light of that, I made a list of things I'm good at, and things I like to do, and evaluated them in terms of my current position.

• Writing. The fact of the matter is that I am a good writer, and I love writing and editing. I get to do some editing now, but it's really just proofreading. I rarely get to write, and most of what I do write are simple, little, e-mails. I get frustrated when people with inferior writing skills are assigned writing tasks while I am stuffing envelopes, and then when I edit their work, they ignore any substantive suggestions.
• Research. I used to get to do all kinds of research. I love the challenge of looking for articels on particular topics, or actual statistics to back up an observation. But now that the new statistician is here, I've already seen a lot of these tasks given to him. My manager says that I can't give things up, but I like this. I don't want to give this up. I'll give up every single statistical thing that I do in a heartbeat, though. But she isn't taking those away from me.
• Problem-solving. See above.
• Design. I may have the artistic ability of a turnip, but I'm good at finding different elements and putting them together in a way that is pleasing to the eye. I do get to some of this, but not as much as I would like. And again, I get frustrated when I see people with no concept of what they were doing putting together flyers, PowerPoint presentations, and the like.

Now, to be fair, I had to make a list of the things that I don't like and that I'm not good at as well.

• Repetitive tasks. Not only do I hate, hate, HATE doing reptitivie things that require little or no thought and/or effort, I get bored and distracted very easily. That makes me both inefficient and cranky. Naturally about 75% of what I do now that the statistician is getting so many of my tasks falls into this category.
• Numbers. I hate them. It's not that I'm not capable of working with numbers - I am. But I find them difficult. I get a little dyslexic with them, and have to go over and over what I've done, and basic calculations are sometimes beyond me, not because I don't understand them, but I have trouble with the arithmetic (remind me to tell you about my high school Calculus class sometime). Now, you would think that now that we have a statistician on staff, someone who actually understands this crap, these would be the things that he would be assigned. But no. He gets to research how other companies have measured success with a new technology we are rolling out, while I try to determine what percentage of our drop in revenue is do to which of several events. I don't know how to do that. Heck, I don't even understand the sentence I just wrote.
• Organization. Now, this is a weakness that is a detriment, and one I have been working on my entire life, from the first time Sister Carol dumped out my desk because it was too messy. I can keep myself organized, but a whole department? Not so much. So naturally, that is part of my job description. I've always wondered, though, if my fondness for piles over files is has something to do with having a creative mind.

Add to all this the fact that, as much as I want to deny it, I seem to have an innate talent for business. I have no idea where it came from, as I never in my entire life have wanted to work in the business world. I'm not proud of any ability I have in that area, and I've pretty much tried to hide it as much as I could. The business world just makes me uncomfortable. I feel guilty about being interested in making money as a business when there are so many people in this country and this world who don't even have enough to survive on. I guess I really am just a bleeding heart.

So where do I go from here? I've looked into graduate programs, but I have no idea where I would go in the company with them. I love the company I work with (even if I'm seeing more of the typical corporate politics coming out now). I love my manager to death. I think she is an amazingly gifted woman who is tremendously unappreciated by upper management. I love my co-workers, even the statistician who is taking away the things I like to do. I even love my manager's manager, who, even though she is "only" the CIO, runs the company for all intents and purposes. She makes me crazy sometimes, but I respect her tremendously.

So, where does that leave me? I have no idea. But I think something has to give at some point in time. All I want for Halloween (Christmas is too far away) is a career.

You Know You Live on the Gulf Coast When...

Normally I ignore and delete "joke" e-mails, but I had to share this one...

You know you live on the Gulf Coast when...

• You have FEMA's number on your speed dialer.
• You have more than 300 C and D batteries in your kitchen drawer.
• Your pantry contains more than 20 cans of Spaghetti Os.
• You are thinking of repainting your house to match the plywood covering your windows.
• When describing your house to a prospective buyer, you say it has three bedrooms, two baths and one safe hallway.
• Your SSN isn't a secret, it's written in Sharpie on your arms.
• You are on a first-name basis with the cashier at Home Depot.
• You are delighted to pay $3 for a gallon of regular unleaded.
• The road leading to your house has been declared a No-Wake Zone.
• You decide that your patio furniture looks better on the bottom of the pool.
• You own more than three large coolers.
• You can wish that other people get hit by a hurricane and not feel the least bit guilty about it.
• You rationalize helping a friend board up by thinking "It'll only take gallon of gas to get there and back"
• You have 2-liter coke bottles and milk jugs filled with water in your freezer
• Three months ago you couldn't hang a shower curtain; today you can assemblea portable generator by candlelight.
• You catch a 13-pound redfish. In your driveway.
• You can recite from memory whole portions of your homeowner's insurance policy.
• You consider a "vacation" to stunning Tupelo, Mississippi.
• At cocktail parties, women are attracted to the guy with the biggest chainsaw.
• You have had tuna fish more than 5 days in a row.
• There is a roll of tar paper in your garage.
• You can rattle off the names of three or more meteorologists who work at the Weather Channel.
• Someone comes to your door to tell you they found your roof.
• Ice is a valid topic of conversation.
• Your "drive-thru" meal consists of MRE's and bottled water.
• Relocating to South Dakota does not seem like such a crazy idea.
• You spend more time on your roof then in your living room.
• You've been laughed at over the phone by a roofer, fence builder or a tree worker.
• A battery powered TV is considered a home entertainment center.
• You don't worry about relatives wanting to visit during the summer.
• Your child's first words, "hunker down" and you didn't go to UGA!
• Having a tree in your living room does not necessarily mean it's Christmas.
• Toilet Paper is elevated to coin of the realm at the shelters.
• You know the difference between the "good side" of a storm and the "bad side."
• Your kids start school in August and finish in July.
• You go to work early and stay late just to enjoy the air conditioning.

August Wilson Died

I may actually cry at some point today.