home

Two days is just the right amount, I guess. After that, someone starts crying.

Dr. Janet G. Woititz identified in her book, Adult Children of Alcoholics, thirteen primary characteristics of Adult Children of Alcoholics:

• Guessing at what normal behavior is.
• Having difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.
• Lying when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.
• Judging themselves without mercy.
• Having difficulty having fun.
• Taking themselves very seriously.
• Having difficulty with intimate relationships.
• Overreacting to changes over which they have no control.
• Constantly seeking approval and affirmation.
• Usually feeling that they are different from other people.
• Extreme responsibility or irresponsibility.
• Extreme loyalty, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.
• Impulsivity - tending to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess.

slumber

I had the most incredible dream two nights ago.

It was about an old flame, someone I never got very far with. (Surprise.) In the dream, we'd run away together -- left old lives behind and bought a house together, somewhere far away.

Normally, I'd expect the best part of the dream to be whatever dirty parts my brain came up with. (After all, isn't that part of the fun of those dreams?) But it was strange; there was very little physical contact in the dream.

What I remember most, what was nicest about the dream, was putting our shoes away in the closet.

It was a decent closet -- walk-in, carpeted. There was an entire wall of particle-board cubbyholes where a pair of shoes would fit perfectly. Whoever had been in the house before had left behind some shoes, and I was pulling the shoes out of their boxes and trying them on.

But there was something so peaceful, settled, sweet, about putting our shoes away together. Something that said: this is home. I will come home to you. I have chosen you to be my home.

swollen

A terrible day at work today. A terrible, terrible day.

What I did I did because I thought it was the right thing to do. That should count for something, right? What I did I did out of love but also out of ignorance, and for that I had to suffer.

They had meetings about me.

In the end, long conversations. Hiccuping, weeping. Red face, swollen eyes. "Take ownership," "learning experience." And I will never know who cast the stone.

Everyone ignored me for an hour and a half as I cried.

So many people saying they just didn't understand. Why was it bad? And I explained the new truths I'd learned.

Why didn't anyone come to me about it? Why didn't they feel they could ask me to explain?

white horses

I am in love with this. PS 22, a New York City children's choir, covers Tori Amos' "Winter."

work it

I knew I was settling in to my new(ish) job when I developed the strut.

It's the way I show my dominance -- my physical way of saying to the outside world, "Yeeeah. I belong here. I feel good here." And I do! I feel good here; I belong here; life is nice.

I've been noticing it more and more lately. At my last job I had a ton of strut, because I was so comfortable, so effective, so on top of my game. It took a long time to get to that point here; with more responsibilities and all sorts of new things to think about. Unions, reviews, hirings, probations, interns, promotions...it takes a long time to learn to strut with all that on your plate.

But today, routing the alerts. Walking to my boss's office, then the lawyer's, making the rounds of the office. I could feel my hair and my boobs bouncing assertively. The power walk.

Strut, girl, work it out!

twist

More later, but today's tongue twister of the day (courtesy of MJ and today's news clips). Say it out loud three times fast!



"Liberal shibboleth."


Context is from an article in the latest issue of The Economist:

"American Christians have helped expose the Sudanese government's atrocities in Darfur and sex-trafficking in Europe. They have also fought hard to get more aid money for Africa and to fight AIDS—even if cash has come with strings attached (notably preventing any dollars going to abortion). But just as in America, much of their fury is aimed at liberal shibboleths."

LOVE IT.