Invictus…or I Decide My Response To The Darkness

I watched the movie, Invictus, last night…for the second time. No, I’m not going to review the movie, nor am I here to wax political about Nelson Mandela.  The poem, and the movie, resonated with me on deeper levels, more personal levels, for reasons of my own which are far removed from the movie.

Here is the poem:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

~ William Ernest Henley

How’s That Hope And Change Workin’ For Ya?

Yeah, I know.  It’s a political sentiment posted on Facebook status updates and bumper stickers, but that isn’t how I intend it.  I’ve spent my last two posts talking about my grand designs for a “Healthy New Year”.  I feel in the interests of honesty and authenticity, I ought to share exactly how that’s gone for me so far, only one day into this “healthy” (hahaha!) new year. 

Yesterday I had such great plans.  I’ll save you the angst.  Suffice it to say I accomplished absolutely none of it.  I stayed in my p.j.’s all day.  I did not exercise.  In the name of not wasting food, I made lunch for myself of leftover (wait for it) fried chicken.  Yes, the yummy greasy stuff and store bought to boot, not even home made, which I’m certain would have shaved, oh, half a calorie off it.  I ate three whole pieces.  Not true.  I ate two whole pieces and the skin (ewwww!) off the third.  Sigh. 

If that wasn’t bad enough I had the healthy food compared to what my kids got.  I am such a derelict mother! My kids chose Bagel Bites for lunch! And, of course, I let them choose.  Yeah, all that, while perfectly healthy and yummy tasting turkey is in our fridge ready to be made into sandwiches.  (What?  The bread is moldy? Crap!)

On top of all that, my son digs the chocolate chip cookie dough out of the fridge and decides to start digging in.  Well, out of sight out of mind, but put the junk right in front of me while I’m blowing off my entire day relationally and otherwise by importing all my CDs to iTunes and then synching my new iPhone (yeah, don’t get all excited…it is only the 8 gig one and a refurbished one at that) I ended up just having to have a taste.  And then another taste and, now, well, I’m not feeling so great.  Add to that two glasses of yummy Reisling (hey, it was just there begging to be sipped) and  I’m laughing uncontrollably at my own weakness. So much for my great resolve, eh?

Yep.  The best laid plans of mice and men…or something like that?

Sigh. I’ve developed a lot of really crummy self indulgent (as opposed to not so crummy self indulgent?) habits over the last decade. 

This is going to be a bit more difficult than I thought.  

Well, I guess, I can take the Scarlett O’Hara approach and deal with it tomorrow. 

But that’s the last “gimme” I’m giving myself!  I swear! 

If You’re Like Me

If you’re like me then you are a reader. 

You’re a reader of articles, of stories, of books and blogs. 

And…if  you’re like me…you don’t just read those articles, stories, books and blogs and cast them aside. No “out of sight out of mind” for you. 

If you’re like me you connect with those stories, articles and books, or, at least the ones you love, the ones that resonated with you, the ones that made you think, the ones you gave up moments of your life to pause and listen through the written word, to the voice of another. For a moment, if you’re like me, you enter the world by invitation of the author and you become one with that world.

If you’re like me you think about the characters.  No, you do more than think about them. With the help of the author you create them, breathe life into them, worry about them when you’re not reading them and you wonder about them as if the story could continue beyond the printed words the author wrote as if in some Inkspell-ish sort of way…if you’re like me. 

If you’re like me, you speculate about the people behind the pen.  Those creators of characters, those wielder of words, those visionaries who craft fantasy the way carpenters craft homes and artists their sculptures with such precision and intricate care.  You meditate after a fashion on these people who communicate so clearly and so deftly so invisibly. You think about them, about their lives, their loves, their sorrows, their existence, even if only for a fleeting moment and you wonder.  What kind of person would it take to write something like that?

If you’re like me you become, in a word, or maybe after many words attached to the invisible artists who’ve helped you create worlds, travel distances and experience lives you might never have known.  Or maybe, you do know the life of which they speak and you are all the more drawn to them because the existence they share is your existence as well.  You know it.  You feel it.  You live it.  And someone chose the words to express it that you yourself could not and you are grateful. 

If you’re like me, then in  a small way, you may even come to love those invisible craftsmen who work their art in black on white, creating entire galaxies where only blank, dead, white space existed before.

If you’re like me,  you wonder what happens when suddenly nothing is heard from them again.  The end of a series of books, the last of the articles, a blog abandoned.  You wonder what happened in the life of that person that ended their existence in print so suddenly…if you’re like me.

If you’re like me, in those respects, and you’ve been reading along here at The Wild Mind  maybe you’ve noticed that where there used to be an almost daily account of distraction, there has been a strange and unusual (at least it has to be for The Wild Mind because look how long her posts usually are!) silence of late. If you’re like me, you would wonder what happened in the real world to shut down the digital world of the person you’d grown somewhat attached to and were reading every so often. 

You would appreciate an explanation…if you are like me.  And you would hope that that explanation did not contain news of abandonment, because if you are like me abandonment in all its many forms never goes over well.  If you’re like me you even hate it when your favorite TV series gets cancelled.  You hated it when you finally finished the Harry Potter Series and you hated it when the Lord of the Rings movies were done. You knew it was the end of the story but somehow you wondered, was it also the end of the author?

You might wonder these things…if you’re like me.

Giving Up

Seriously?  Sometimes I feel like just throwing in the towel.  Misunderstandings, offenses, you know.  Things intended to affirm actually offend and the next thing you know something like World War 3 is underway. 

Yeah.  I give.

Won’t do…say…that any more.

My Own Personal Nirvana

I have a secret time of the week that is all my own.  No one can touch it.  No one can invade it.  It is impossible to ruin. It is the very best part of the weeked for me.  It is my own personal holiday in a busy life. This is the time right after I’ve dropped my bags by the door, kicked off the work shoes, hugged and kissed the little one and said “Good-bye, have fun and be safe!” to her for the every other weekend that she goes to be with her dad.  It is the time right before I head out for evening festivities to blow off steam from a stressful week with other adults who’ve also had a stressful week and need some adult time as well.  I might not even go out.  I might stay in and simply revel in the silence (except for the stereo, always the stereo!) and enjoy the blissful solitude of not having to answer to anyone, of not having to be completely cheery,animated and confident when I really feel exhausted,  frazzled, uncertain and unprepared.  I don’t have to try to carry a conversation, diagnose a learning problem or strategize or organize anything. I don’t have the constant buzz of young voices in the background. I don’t have to be “on”.  I don’t have to be anything.  It is that time of the week that I do not have to do anything I do not want to do.  I don’t have to show up…or I can.  It is my choice. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea of choice lately.  We all want it. In the U.S., it is an inalienable right. Some enjoy it more than others.  We have it and yet we don’t.  We make choices and those choices completely remove certain other choices from our plate of options.  Sometimes we make choices and the results of those choices take us down roads where we end up completely without any options whatsoever.  Being without options is not necessarily a bad thing either, but mostly, being without options in many cases and for many people translates as “trapped”, “caught”, “stuck”.  It can happen when choosing living arrangements, universities or vocational schools, relational partners, careers or geographical areas to settle in.  The tough thing about choice is that you can’t always tell whether the choice you make today will end you up in your own personal prison years down the road.

One thing I’ve noticed about myself  lately, and by lately I mean over the last couple of years, not just the last few weeks, is that more and more I want to create my own hoops to jump through.  I’m less inclined to want to jump through someone else’s hoops.  For example, when considering whether or not to return to grad school for that prized doctorate, I decided that I really just don’t want to go back to school (at least right now) in order to jump through someone else’s hoops to get a piece of paper that says I can now put a few additional letters behind my name. The degree wouldn’t necessarily give me many more options than I have now and it might even be one of those choices that lands me in the place where I feel very “trapped”, “caught”, “stuck”.  I decided to wait on the PhD. 

On the other hand, I enjoy jumping through certain hoops. My job for example is one area where I will jump through hoops.  I do this because I like the reward of the paycheck every month for doing so and I also like this because right now the idea of jumping through my own hoops in a self-employed sort of way presents far too much choice for me and far too much instability.  Choice, in that way, is not desirable to me.

Being trapped or caught or stuck by our choices can be an incredibly rewarding experience as in the context of relationship, for example.  Consider that rare relationship where you and your partner fit so amazingly well together in more ways than just the physical.  There is the right amount of closeness, intimacy and connection perfectly balanced with the exact amount of respect for each others’ differences and individual preferences and need for solitude or separateness. You can see doing life with this person and it is an exciting vision not an  uncertain venture.  In this case, the choice made leads to being limited in ways that are fulfilling and rewarding. The reality is, you are in a place that you are, to some degree, very limited in the range of certain kinds of choices you can make while certain other options have been completely eliminated.  Being without options in this scenario is not necessarily a bad thing.

Choice.  How to spend our money.  How to spend our time.  How to spend our lives.  Choice. 

Freedom.  Freedom from having to make choices.  Freedom to make choices.  Freedom to freefall.  Those are Friday afternoons for me.

Friday afternoon: those moments after the breakneck speed of a whirlwind week and right before the weekend is officially underway.  The entire weekend stretches before me filled with free choice and choosing my own hoops to jump through in the order in which I choose to jump them.  No schedules to keep except those I implement.  No obligations to fulfill except ones I’ve chosen.  On Friday afternoon the weekend looms large and I don’t have to commit to any of it just yet. 

Choice and freedom.

To do…or not…as I choose.

This is my own personal Nirvana.

Kip’s Challenge

My last little benign (or so I thought) post elicited some pointed discussion from a long time reader, Kip. I encourage you to scroll back read the post and his comments and my initial response.  His follow up comment, I will deal with here.  He’s been enough of a burr under my saddle ( I do mean that affectionately)  to earn his own post in response to his last comment.

First his entire comment:

Yes, well, there’s no mystery about the hose attraction, is there? When in doubt, introduce prurience and the mob will take it from there (present company included).

And drama, well, of course. That’s why we read novels and go to plays and watch the tube and if we can’t find it there we create our own.

I expect you’ll keep doing with this blog what you’ve been doing all along. Doing your brain dumps, sifting and sorting the experience of your life, putting it out there for better or worse. Which is fine. But what do you really really want to achieve by doing this in a blog? What role to you want your audience to play, if any? If you want them to acknowledge their presence by talking back, you’re darn well gonna have to provoke them. Get out the big guns. Start spilling out the things we all think about but never say. The things we all want but never acquire. The things we’ve all suffered in silence. Sex, love, death, money. All the biggies. You go girl, I’ll be watching.

*The Wild Mind raps her fingers on the desk in a monotonous pattern while staring pensively at Kip’s comments*

I expect you’ll keep doing with this blog what you’ve been doing all along. Doing your brain dumps, sifting and sorting the experience of your life, putting it out there for better or worse. Which is fine. But what do you really really want to achieve by doing this in a blog?

I originally began this blog to play with writing.  My goals for writing were to improve my writing and to play with a variety of topics and approaches.  This I stated up front.  Another goal, though unstated, was to improve my confidence in my own writing.  I have achieved both these goals to some degree though they are goals that are by nature never completely achievable. While it might not show it here, my writing in other venues has improved tremendously to the point that I am routinely called on to write and edit materials others create before they go to print.  My confidence in my ability to write has improved as well.  Writing for an audience and getting audience feedback albeit sporadically through this blog was a bonus.

I admit, I do not write to intentionally arouse debate or discussion.  I have reasons for this.  Reasons I am scrutinizing myself right now.  It is true that comments are the life of a blog.

Another added benefit of writing on this blog was the sifting sorting process I undertook which Kip refers to in his comment.  Unplanned but valuable to me personally.  I don’t apologize for that, because in the end I don’t write to please others here, I write for my own purposes. I have achieved those purposes with this blog so far.  If it seems less than interesting or meaningful to others based on the presence or absence of comments or interesting content then so be it.  This is my personal journey and it has been valuable to me to sort through the crap I’ve encountered along the way in this format.  Whether I continue in this vein is something I’m weighing.  If I do, I will have achieved my own humble purposes in doing so, audience participation or not.  I am decisively undecided about the direction I want to go with this.

Kip brings up a good point.  What the hell is my purpose here?  Writers generally always write for a purpose. What is mine?  It is a fair question and one I must address.

Next….

What role to you want your audience to play, if any? If you want them to acknowledge their presence by talking back, you’re darn well gonna have to provoke them.

I haven’t decided about this either.  Provoking kind of puts me on the line and I’m not sure I want to take the heat…I’m also not sure I don’t want to either. It is an investment in time and energy which quite frankly I’m not entirely certain I have loads of either to invest in order to present a quality forum.  Certainly not on a daily schedule for sure.  Again, I’m pondering this direction too.

It seems the real question here is not can I or do I want to take the heat, it is, am I up for the mental challenge?  Face it.  It just requires some clarity of thought and some conviction.  While I at times have both of these in spades, I’m not sure I want to put it out there just yet.  On the other hand, maybe it is time I quit lurking in the sidelines and really begin to bring it.

Sigh. This is almost as painful as deciding what to do for a graduate research project.

Start spilling out the things we all think about but never say. The things we all want but never acquire. The things we’ve all suffered in silence. Sex, love, death, money. All the biggies.

Now this is the most interesting thing you’ve said yet.  By that I mean, this is the the statment that has me staring blankly at the screen pondering…pondering…pondering.

Because…

Because if they are the things we all think about but never say there is a reason we never say them!  Maybe they shouldn’t be said? Maybe they can’t be articulated adequately.  Or maybe it would be very healthy to say them. 

And, yes, there is a bit of the chickensh*t in me that says I really don’t want to face the heat!

I get that there’s a challenge that’s been laid down.  Picture me quizzically analyzing said challenge, weighing the costs in terms of time to research, write and respond and then where to focus in light of the many other things I’m also considering.  Plus, there is the knowledge that even after a great deal of time and energy expended my efforts will be lame and weak at best. 

You see, in the end, it isn’t an issue of the quality of writing here, it is a reflection of the quality of my thinking and it is this component I am evaluating and dealing with right now. I simply cannot write anything of quality if I’m not thinking those really wild thoughts and these days, thinking is tough when just as I’m beginning to formulate a thesis statement I’m beset with sibling rivalries, dirty laundry, leaves in the pool and the eternally nagging question of what to fix for dinner.  I hate it, but it is my reality for now.  While I’m fighting it ever so valiantly, sometimes it all just gets me stuck.

Then again, maybe I am just the little podunk cowgirl who really doesn’t have the mental abilities to tango with the big boys. 

Okay, now them’s fightin’ words!

And now, after reading this post,  you must have no doubt that the moniker, “The Wild Mind”, refers not to the bizarre quality and content of the thoughts occurring within said Mind, but instead to the undisciplined and untamed nature of that Mind.

The Stupidest Email I’ve Ever Received…Recently Anyway

Okay, I’ve recieved stupider and funnier ones than this one.  Like the convict who dared accuse me of stalking him just because of a stupid Facebook comment I made where I repeated verbatim something he told me.  Yeah, I’ll have to tell you about that sometime.  Tonight’s email was so much more benign…almost boring…but ridiculous in the unfounded assumptions the author made about me and my interest level toward him.  I mean, since I never really responded to his digital advances, I guess I couldn’t exactly be labled “interested” let alone a stalker.  I just don’t get it sometimes.  I just don’t get how guys think sometimes.

Online dating is such a freaking joke.

I’ve dabbled in this venue on and off for the last year, mostly off with a month or two on when I get bored and have nothing better to do…which…seriously…is not often.  This equates to me being on an online dating site, maybe, three times for a month each, in the last year and a half.

About a six months ago a fairly attractive man contacted me and we began communicating.  Okay he emailed me, I responded, we got to the first phone call, after that he went silent. 

BFD.  His loss I figured.  I was spinning about 10 online plates at the time so what did I care.  He easily slipped from my mind.

About a month and a half ago after being “offline” for about 5 months (yes, one month online can easily net me the next six months in dates, get over it!) I went back online again. 

The same go silent BFD dude contacted me again.

Hesitantly, meaning I waited about a week before responding, I responded.

He emailed me once.

I waited, he emailed me back.

I emailed him and you guessed it…he went silent again.  Never to hear from him again until tonight.  (Seriously, I missed no sleep over this.  I’ve really so changed my perspective on the go silent thing.  It is now actually a favor.  He goes silent.  I know all I need to know, I move on.  Over and out.  Next!)

That was nearly two months ago.  I haven’t contacted him.  I haven’t spent any time thinking about him.  Seriously?  I’ve been having way too much fun in my little corner of the world to wonder why the heck he doesn’t have the good sense to follow up on a good thing when he stumbles across it and…stumble he has.  His loss.  My response?  Next!  (Well, not even that…he didn’t even make it to the plate!)

Tonight, after two months of silence and no follow up from me I get the following email:

“Cat, just wanted you to know I met some one and am off the radar.”

Hahahahahaha!  The freaking arrogance of it all. 

*she rolls eyes and clicks delete while thinking, “Dodged an arrogant self-absorbed bullet there!”

Off the radar?!?  Dude, you never even created a blip on the radar, so yeah, I guess you’re right,  you are off the radar! 

I mean, really, I have to laugh, if I was stalking him, I’d understand, but this is a guy who initiated contact with me every time, spoke on the  phone with me once, and I never really made any big effort to respond or encourage him.  I mean, I just don’t get it.

Ah, well, chalk it up to comic relief.  I was, at least, able to squeeze a lame blog post out of it.

75 Degrees & Crazy April

See Cat Stressed

Today it is a rockin’ 75 degrees outside.  This is the first in a series of really brutal weeks that will make up my April.  I’m calling it Crazy April. If  I make it successfully through this week, I will be nothing short of very impressed with me. If I make it through the month, I am going to celebrate.

First, grades are due this week, by the end of the day Wednesday.  I was busy straight through the weekend, unable to get much grading done and none today.  That means that tomorrow and Wednesday, are the only two days I have to get grades in and I can’t do this during school hours because usually I’m sitting back watching t.v. and eating bon bons teaching.  I say, usually, because I have a student teacher in my room who is doing her practicum and thus, I am relieved of most of my teaching duties, but none of my grunt labor supervisory duties. 

Today,  all by my lonesome, I had to make sure all the invitations to our Math After School Club for 140 students were printed, folded, labeled and delivered to classrooms so teachers could send them out today.  That Club starts next week and will run through the end of the month. I’m in charge of organizing it.  This means I’m scheduling nine teachers and four aides, coordinating schedules, gathering materials, training, communicating and basically running my butt off (this is a good thing) to make this thing happen. Oh, yeah, and I’m also responsible for coordinating the snack.  Yeah, this ought to be good!

Today, was the start of our After School Science Club which will run all week.  I am teaching a play with stuff and get pretty messy Hands On Science Inquiry segment.  This, like the Math Club, will take up all my after school planning time.  Fortunately, I can rely on my student teacher for some of that.  I’m glad she’s so competent.  This entire scenario would be a nightmare if she were not.  I must make a point to thank her and tell her how wonderful she really is.

The big finale is the Professional Development Class that I will crash and burn teach on May First.  This one has me in fits…well…it just does.  There’s nothing worse than teaching teachers.

Of course, in addition to all these things, life’s normal demands still exist.  For example, tonight, my second oldest daughter told me her play rehearsals changed from being over at 6 to starting at 6 and going till 8.  This completely wipes out the plans I made with my oldest daughter to go shopping for a prom dress after she gets off at 6.  Somewhere in all this mess I have to fit in dinner. 

So, it is a rockin’ 75 degrees outside and I am not able to be out in it grading papers.  Instead, I’m here, offgassing some of the stress of my week and celebrating the fact that I made it through Day 1 of Crazy April. 

When it is all over, I’ll have a few additional dollars in my paycheck and this will be a great thing.  I’ve already decided that I’m buying 2 tickets to the Special Olympics Wine, Food & Chocolate tasting event on May 2nd which is the day after all this ends.  I’m going to treat a special friend ( identity yet to be determined) and I’m just going to go and celebrate a month well done.  But I have to get there first! 🙂

The Junkie In Me Returns…Sort Of?

In the past I likened myself to an online dating junkie.  While this was certainly true in the days immediately preceeding the final divorce judgement and for about 6 to 9 months after, I must say my tendency to “need” to be online and meeting up with people has definitely waned.  In fact, early last summer, I took my profiles down only to put them up again right before school started.  (WTF is up with that????)

I’ve mentioned before what an impulsive mistake that was.  I’m actually still corresponding with people from that little episode that, believe it or not, I have yet to meet.  I may never meet them.  I don’t really care…if I did, I would have met them by now.

But then last night I did a really silly, stupid, actually, thing.  I signed up and even paid money (that’s the stupidest part) for a one month membership on a site I have not been on before.  Now, granted, it wasn’t much money at all.  It really only equated to about two bottles of cheap wine, probably the amount I could finagle out of  just meeting half the people who have already crammed my inbox full of emails insisting they are crazy about me and can’t get me out of their minds after seeing my few lame, poorly lit, and face shot only photos. Well, that is, if I was at all the finagling type. Yeah, sure.  We’ll go with that.

So, this bizarre behavior on my part certainly deserves some closer attention.  Now, it isn’t bizarre to want to sign up on an online site, especially, if you, like me, don’t encounter a single dateable soul in your day to day interactions.  Unfortunately, day to day stretches into week to week and then month to month until one wakes up and realizes they’ve spent a great deal more Friday and Saturday nights home alone than they really ever intended or wanted to spend in solitary confinement.

[So, I must digress and define dateable.  Dateable for me in a nutshell is a.) male, b.) intelligent enough to hold his own in a conversation and c.) emotionally, financially and legally available.  Okay, a bit about the financially available part.  Financially available in my mind doesn’t mean “without obligations”, but if the guy is still part owner in some very big real estate deals that could end him up being taken by the short hairs by an ex, then I’m not really into that drama much. Enough about dateable and available.]

So, going online in and of itself, is not bizarre, though it is incredibly crazy making and painful.  I don’t understand why people do it.  I do not understand why I just recently did this. Especially since I have so much else I want and need to do besides date a bunch of people one time only to find out that they, like my last year and a half of dating episodes are somehow just not that into me or are completely unavailable somehow.  I’d rather have electric shock treatments than endure any more of that.

And yet….

it’s the “and yet” that always gets ya…

And yet, there are a couple of things here at war within me.  First, I do believe Winston Churchill’s statement.  I posted it last December, I’m posting it again:

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”

 

~~ Sir Winston Churchill

 

There have been a number of failures in the last couple of years.  Now, failure, of course, is a relative term and I don’t want to get into the fact that there have been many positive outcomes to those failures.  Like, I am  no longer and still not in a disastrous marriage or a relationship where the guy really just isn’t that into me. This is definitely positive and I have no regrets.  But if I define failure as the lack of a quality relationship with a significant other then, I have to say there have been some failures to move toward this goal  in the recent past.  False starts is probably a more accurate term but we’ll go with Winston’s failure…just for fun. Anyway, Churchill’s statement is sound for work, school and romance.  One’s enthusiasm must never wane if one is to ultimately be successful.  I get that.  So, that’s one element:  remaining positive and keeping one’s enthusiasm when it seems that with each passing day the odds get lower and lower that there will be any viable candidate to date. (And, if you lived where I live, you’d consider my attitude one of complete optimism rather than borderline disgust and despair.)   After all, as I’ve said before, I’d like to spend some life with the dude, I don’t exactly want to meet him in the retirement center.  (Okay, all you literalists, take that last statement with a grain of salt and chill.  It was a slight exaggeration to make a point.)

 

This idea that it is important to “keep myself open” to whatever might occur…is at war with the part of me that really doesn’t want to take the risks.  (Okay, yes, I’m being a tad bit vulnerable and honest there so chill about that too.  It DOES NOT MEAN I am needy or insecure.  It simply means I am trying (albeit feebly, I think) to be emotionally honest. 

 

So, my dilemma:  intellectually I know I should remain social, keep doing things I like and enjoy and keep active and meeting people.  The reality is, the things I enjoy right now, are completely centered around my home, my children, and improving me, my financial situation, my fitness, my living situation.  It’s a bit self focused I think. I’m wondering if it might be a bit of a defense mechanism and a retreatist approach.   I’m trying to figure out if it is an unhealthy self focus or a taking care of me right now focus.  Here’s the even stranger part to all this, anyone, and I do mean anyone who meets me receives me as a warm and fun person.  You would think me the introvert to look at me…though…introvert…I do tend to be…especially lately.

 

 

So about signing up for the online thing…it again happened out of curiosity, I think.  But feel free to share your thoughts.  After all, it was a site I hadn’t ever participated in (and I’ve explored a few).  I think it is also the concern I have that if I don’t make opportunities to connect with others and stay social, I will completely retreat from the world and like Rapunzel in her tall tower become completely isolated.  Truly, I could do this.  I can be alone for endless amounts of time and not even have it bother me.  I’m not sure that this tendency, if allowed to go unchecked is entirely healthy either.  That introvert thing again.  But then, I’m really not that into it at all so why do I even bother?  Is really curiosity.  What do you think?  Take a whack at it all you who know just enough about the workings of the human psyche to be dangerous. 

Sigh. I better wrap this up and go count up my statistics and find out how many men out there are really brave enough to actually make a contact with a message rather than the canned, “I liked your profile!” flirt message.  *rolls eyes and heads for bed instead*

 

 

 

 

 

Craziness Getting Worse!!!

Okay, a brief break from the silliness to get a tiny bit real.  So much has happened this week I can’t even begin to sort it out without laying it all out and then coming back to it later.

First, signed up on an online dating site last night (DO NOT even ask me why!).  I had a post written about this bizarre thing I did and why, but other things pre-empted that and so that post will be showing up tomorrow probably.

I now have enough material based on the events in my life in the last two days to keep me writing for at least a week without having to resort to Youtube videos, unless, of course, I get bombarded by hate mail (read the likes of The Ghost) which really just makes any kind of self-disclosure or personal introspection an exercise in futility.  Then I may have to either get back in said person’s face big time or chill with the Youtubes again for a bit.

On the Romance front, (read even as the Beau was bidding adieu…hahahaha!) I’ve fallen in love, gotten over it…I think…and had a past relationship (if you could call it that) reenter the picture, though not in any serious kind of way.  However, the fact that we both met tonight for drinks (well I had one and he had water), after a year and a half, was fairly astounding by itself.  But I only categorize that in romance because that’s where it started.  It is sooo not there for me now.

My oldest was awarded some big money from a fairly big name university and even though it isn’t located on the East Coast like she wants it is big money to a reputable institution which will probably be her meal ticket to any grad school she wants to go to for Law or Poly Sci or Journalism.  This is most definitely big news for us.

Finally, the ex got married at a little drive thru chapel this week in Las Vegas.  My youngest,  who is his daughter,  has met this person one time.  This person she must now relate to as “Step Mom”. You can read about how I feel about that in more detail here.

So you can look forward to the following posts in the near future:

• My thoughts about why on earth I even signed up on an online dating site when, after 1 day and over 20+  very uninteresting emails in my inbox, I still am just not into it, but why maybe I feel I should be?
• My experiences with Rampant Monkey Sex Man and his re-entering the stage of my life after over a year of no communication.
• and maybe even a bunch more silliness about how women view tools differently than men do…or something.  
• I might even make a bra out of men’s underwear and model it online, but don’t hold your breath. 

In any event, it might be completely possible that one day soon I post nothing  just because I need a night off…but that would ruin the writing streak I have going, so don’t hold your breath on that one either.