I'm Rabid For Therapy

I'm really really bad about checking my voicemail at home. For some reason, I hadn't picked up voicemail in almost a month but listened to it last night on my way to therapy. There were a few messages from my mom around the time LOST's new season kicked off, a message from KJ, and a really strange message from my vet's office. I heard the words "Kaiser" and "rabies" and for a second, I thought they were saying that Kaiser had called them and told them that I have rabies. But it was actually that I somehow left Kiki's rabies shot tag at Kaiser last week, as confirmed by the following message from Kaiser. Since the tag doesn't have any contact info but the vet's office's, they called them first and got the name of who the tag belongs to. When I checked in for therapy last night, I asked about the tag. And the receptionist was very amused, oh you are the one with that tag, we had no idea how to contact you. And she gave it to me, in an envelope, that said Rabies Tag in big letters, and in smaller letters my name and the word "kitty" in parenthesis after it. I suppose this was to show that it wasn't in fact MY rabies shot tag, but my kitty's.

Therapy was interesting last night because all the usual suspects were out, and it was a bunch of new people. That can be difficult because I've been there so long and there is so much history to my story that I need to reiterate quickly for the new people. And trying to trace the story of how I've been attending this group for over two years, back to the roots of my issues, well, that's a lot of crap to go into.

The issue I talked about last night was something I've noticed for the last week or two. I've been really angry at my ex. I'm not really sure where that has come from, because I haven't talked to him at all since November when he moved all his stuff out. Wow, that's been over three months. And since his stuff is gone (for the most part, and well, everything left is officially mine), it's not like I'm walking around looking at his crap and thinking about him. I was trying to figure out where this anger was coming from. And I didn't really get my answer in therapy, because we talked more about what anger is, and how it's just a surface for other issues like shame, pain, guilt, and embarrassment. That word "shame" hit me like a ton of bricks, because I do feel ashamed that I put up with all I did, that I believed the mean things he used to say to me, that I put up with his constantly criticizing me despite the fact that I was supporting him financially and emotionally.

Someone in therapy suggested that I write him a letter, not to send, but just for myself, to get things situation in my head. My immediate thought was, oh I'll write a blog post. When I said that out loud, all the women were like "oh no it's something for yourself." And I was wondering if this is a generational thing, if my generation is just more likely to do blogging without boundaries. Maybe some reaction against our parents, not keeping our vile feelings bottled up until they explode? I don't know if I'm really ready to write that letter yet, or publish it on here. But I'm thinking about it.

I'm Seriously Nerdy

I was watching the news this morning before going to work, and they reported this story as, "Man shoots two servers," and all I could think was, I bet a lot of data is going to be lost.

IKEA Throw

I got this throw that Kiki is sleeping on for $10 at IKEA at their big sale in January, and when I went to IKEA yesterday, it was back to the normal price of $40. I got a great bargain and Kiki loves it. Teddy likes it to, but he got his claws caught in it once so he's a bit wary.

I've been going through a weird mental process lately, nothing really exciting to blog about. I wrote the entry below last week and never got around to editing it, and now too much time passed so I just published it.

I just finished Within A Budding Grove, the second book of Remembrance of Things Past. Even though it is so long, so long-winded, and I think the narrator is an idiot, I loved reading it. I'm glad I can take a break until I read the third section next month. It requires a level of intense concentration that I'm not always capable of.

Back To School

I remember when I was in college, there would occasionally be these "re-entry" students in my classes. They were almost exclusively middle-aged women and they would always be talking in class, offering their opinions. When I was in college, I only talked if I had something great to say. It's only been a latter day habit of mine to not censor myself as much in big groups and just shout out whatever I want. So the re-entry students used to annoy me, because I was jealous they felt so free talking, and because they seemed like outsiders to the whole college process. Not to mention that they always seemed "square" to me, like people who had priorities of getting an education and not just smoking pot and drinking booze and slutting it up. (I pretty much think that as the South Park episode said, there is a time and a place for such things, and it's called college. So, um, there you go. I had fun.)

Now that my mom has retired, she is one of those re-entry students. She is taking classes at her local community college, Statistics, Spanish, and some Philosophy class that deals with ethics. She just signed up for whatever interested her and is just throwing herself into it. My mom already has a bachelors and a masters, so I don't think she's really interested in getting a further degree, but who knows where this is going.

I was talking to her last night, and she brought up how everyone (meaning me, my brother, my stepfather, and assorted other friends) talks about how she shouldn't talk so much in class, how she's kind of a yenta there. But a friend of hers who was formerly her work protege talked about how my mom is just offering "diversity" to her class, and my mom really liked that idea. I asked Mom if she really thought that me and others were telling her she shouldn't talk as much in class, and she said, well, no one had said anything but she got the impression we felt that way.

Dating Redux

I hadn't posted yet about my meet on Valentine's Day, and really, I wasn't sure that there was that much to say. Because I met this guy and just felt "meh" about it. He's too old for me, not attractive to me, didn't have that spark, etc. But really, there was some hesitation on my part because this guy REALLY liked me. I could tell. You know how you can tell, when they drop a few random compliments (on my hair, no less), and talk too much because they are nervous. So, I wavered a little, thought about it, maybe maybe. Then, he sent me a psycho message on Friday, basically saying he hadn't slept because he was thinking about me. Ugh. This was after a one hour coffee date where he talked nonstop and I left early because I had a headache, without making any physical contact at all. Then, two days letter, he sent me another IM asking why I hadn't responded to his IM. I know, maybe it's bad, but I just didn't want to get into it with him, because he seems to be lacking boundaries and people lacking boundaries are apt to say all kinds of shit when they feel rejected, and I just didn't want to deal with it.

Talking about it in therapy last night, my therapist brought up what I didn't realize, that all along, I was going with my gut on this situation. I just didn't feel right about it, didn't know exactly why, but I was still torn. Because some part of me still seeks approval through finding a boyfriend, through men finding me attractive. And that part of me was jumping up and down at this guy being so into me. But so many rational parts of my mind were shouting, danger danger. And I listened to those parts.

The worst thing he said, was that he talked about how he just moved into the area, and how he had to give his cat away because "it's so much easier to find an apartment without a pet" and THEN he bitched about having to pay the Humane Society to take his cat back, after having to pay them for the cat in the first place. Uh, yeah, I had mentioned to him that I volunteer at a Humane Society, so it might have occurred to him that I was on the HS's side on this one. Or that I hate people that give away their pets for stupid reasons, because I see it all the time, and really, I'd take my pets with me anywhere. They might not like it, but they are still my pets and I've made a vow to take care of them. I know not everyone sees their pets that way, but I do, and I can't imagine dating someone who would give their cat away that casually and then bitch about having to pay for it.

Anyway, this is becoming a massive rant about some guy I met once whom I don't really know and don't really want to know more about. I just removed him from my IM list today. Thankfully he stopped with the insecure IMs, and didn't keep sending me the "why aren't you writing me" IM like some other guy I talked to a month ago. Shit. Figure it out.

This all makes me feel very hopeful that my instincts for self-preservation and getting into a good relationship are embedded in my brain somewhere. I might not always understand that feeling in my gut that is saying "no no no" but I can at least honor it and try to figure out what it's all about. And I realize that I just can't date a guy who is twelve years older than me, because that's too much of a difference. The only time it isn't a difference is with someone like my ex who has no income or MB who was emotionally insecure. I want someone who has an income and is emotionally secure and close to my age. Too much to ask? I hope not.

Where Is My Parade?

I've heard that the real result of doing a good deed is doing the deed itself, not the recognition. But still, I can't help wanting some recognition for what I did on Saturday. I managed to get three cats adopted out to one family. This couple came in, looking for a bonded pair of two cats, and I talked them into taking a third one. Well, the cat herself had a lot to do with it. She was in the room with the two cats she liked, and at one point, just plopped herself on the husband's lap like, "okay this is my spot!" and pretty much sold herself. Still, I did a lot of running around, making sure these people were seen, that they got an appointment, talking to them about what they'd need, making small talk, whatever. And if I hadn't been there to show them the cats, they might not have adopted any of them. I've actually had a really good run of being able to adopt out bonded pairs lately. In the last few months, this is my third, and well, good to get an additional cat thrown in there. And I did get a lot of recognition for the first two.

I realize that it's really much easier to "sell" the cats when I already love them. And generally, I love a lot of the cats. They are mostly lovable, sweet, and cute. Sometimes I love the ones that are difficult and bitchy, because I think they are intelligent, and really, if I were a cat, I would be difficult and bitchy, abandoned at the Humane Society by my previous owners. What always amazes me is what a great range there is between the personality of cats, and also the personalities of the people looking for them. Some people want really shy quiet cats. Some people want really rambunctious cats. Some people want those cats that meow all the time (which would drive me bonkers). Everyone is different, every cat is different.

I'm sitting at home on a Monday, it's after 1 PM, and I'm still wearing my PJs. Yay for slacking on the three-day weekends. Saturday night, I went out with my friend Jennie from the Humane Society, and we saw Definitely, Maybe which was surprisingly good. I'm not a big fan of romantic comedies, but this one was well-paced and interesting. Then last night, I went out with Heather and we had a delicious nachos and beer experience. Initially we'd been talking about going to La Fondue, but went for something more casual instead. And today, well, I have today off, and I already did my house-cleaning yesterday, so I'm going to go do some shopping at Target and Costco.

Proust, The Love-Killer

Thanks again for your nice comments in my previous post.

I am pretty sure that reading Proust and working on dating are mutually exclusive. I also think that if you are having problems with insomnia, Proust will be good with that. Seriously, I am enjoying book 2, Within a Budding Grove, a lot more than I enjoyed the first book, but it's still slightly mind-numbing if I read too much at once. There are these paragraphs that literally go on for pages, no breaks. I want a little white space. I don't know if the Proust is really killing my desire to date, but the two seem to be not co-existing at the moment. Then again, who reads books in hopes of getting lucky?

Thankfully it's a long weekend with Monday off. You'd think this would be the usual Friday before a long weekend with nothing going on, but since they are doing some massive networking work over the weekend, there are a lot of people here running around like headless chickens. Yours truly is not going to be working over the weekend, but will probably be dealing with calls about all the fuckups on Tuesday. That is, unless I call in sick. Because I guarantee, there will be fuckups.

Love of the Self

Hilly has been advertising this whole "Self Love Day" and I wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Because, let's face it, blogging for me is nothing more than navel gazing and self love. Ha. Not exactly. But true enough.

Here are the rules:

1.) You're gonna grab yourself a banner. If you don't like the one I've used in this post, you can find another one here.

2.) You're gonna post that banner and with it tell us all something that you really like love about yourself (thus, the "self-love" portion of our program).

3.) Ask or beg your readers to post one thing that they too love about you!!! If your blog friends are nice, you shouldn't have to beg...much.

4.) Enjoy yourself and spread the love by doing this on your blog! You can optionally stop by and let me know you did it

Hrm. One of the things I love about myself. I'm really brave. I don't think about this a lot, but I do a lot of brave things. Like confronting my fears and depression, questioning my bad self image and turning it into something good. I'm not afraid to recognize that I'm going in the wrong direction and admit my mistakes. Or go off to another state to meet someone. Breaking up with my ex last year, well, I was scared of what would become of me. But it's all been fine. Whenever I think of fear, I think of this quote from Dune:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

One Day, At A Time

For the last ten years or so, I have always watched some show in the morning while I eat breakfast and drink coffee. I just hate watching the news or early-morning shows. They seem so insipid to me, and I find I'm much more fond of being able to "pull" news instead of having it "pushed" out to me. Up until a few months ago, I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-runs on FX, but they started showing something else. I would occasionally watch Angel, the Buffy spin-off, but it didn't really hold up to as many repeated viewings as the original. Recently, I started watching Xena: The Warrior Princess which basically kicks ass. I thought I had seen every episode back when it was on new, but I guess I hadn't since many of the episodes seemed new to me. But the last few days, Xena hasn't been on, and I've been forced to find something else to watch.

Today, I clicked through Comcast's On Demand and found they have a bunch of shows under TV Favorites or something, including One Day at a Time, which I watched this morning. This was one of the first sitcoms to portray a divorced mom raising her kids, which was exactly how my childhood was. Well, admittedly we lived pretty nicely compared to them, that is, not living in a run-down apartment with an oversexed superintendent like Schneider, and my mom had had a job before my parents split up. But still, I saw a lot of my own family life in this show, and since one of the characters even had the same first name as me, it seemed like a total fit. The thing that I found the weirdest about the show this morning? The mom is supposed to be 34, same age I am now. It's too weird to think about having been a wife and mother for years, and I'm assuming since 18 for her, since the older daughter is about 16? Also, it was cool how the girls on the show did in fact look like teenagers, and they didn't have gobs of makeup on.

Despite my best efforts at being totally anti-social, it seems that I have a coffee date for tomorrow night. Hrm.

Monkey Style

In thinking about things that I used to like as a child, I just had a delicious banana. I always preferred eating them "monkey style" meaning, peeling half of the banana and eating it while it's still half in its peel. Someone tried to talk me out of this as a kid, claiming that is how monkeys eat their bananas. But really, seems like the neatest way to eat them to me. Them monkeys are smart, eh?

Other weird eating habits that I have today, well the one off the top of my head is when I have waffles (Belgian or Eggo) and I'm putting syrup on them, the syrup has to be evenly in every square. If there are a few uncovered squares on the edges, I'll push the syrup in with my fork. But I don't want there to be too much in any one square, just enough for all of them.

I had a dream the other day about a sad memory as a child. My elementary school (which was an incredibly cool place) used to let the oldest kids out at lunch. We could take a walk and grab lunch at one of the local places, either Big Jo's or Lucy's. Lucy's was a standard Mexican restaurant, but they also had a drugstore type place and I remember often getting candy for lunch. (Thinking about that now, the thought of running on nothing but candy all day, seems awfully disturbing to me. Like if I did that now, I'd pass out by teatime.) Big Jo's was a typical "American" place with burgers and fries. I remember going there when I was eleven or twelve, and being embarrassed about ordering because I was overweight. I don't even know how overweight I was at that age, really, more that I just got crap about my weight from family members. Anyway, in the dream, I was back at Big Jo's and feeling the same embarrassment. And it made me really sad for my young self, who was just fine the way she was, and I wonder how I would have grown up without those negative messages from my family.

I Has It

moar funny pictures

That photo just cracks me up way too much, and I switched my yahoo icon to that.

I'm just feeling wiped out today. Woke up feeling like I had a cold, but it's all just my period. Does this just get worse and worse until menopause? Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know.

Today, I did my gig at the Humane Society and now I'm up for nothing more than vegetating on the couch, for the rest of the weekend. One bonus, they were doing a Valentine's Day event and they had chocolate fondue with some of the best strawberries I've ever had. I still haven't figured out the perfectly ripe strawberries in February, but it was awesome. And since I'm a volunteer with "hudspa," I reached behind the counter and grabbed as many strawberries as I wanted and put chocolate on top. And even if my stomach hurts a little now, well, it was worth it.

I'm Super, Thanks For Asking!

Jokingly, I put that title, but I am feeling a hell of a lot better. I guess this kind of answers the question, "will I ever be cured?" I ask this all the time in therapy. The answer is vague, because quite frankly, who can predict the future, particularly one dependent on me and what I do. I realized this last week, even if I'm not "cured," there is a lot I can do to make myself feel better, faster, than sitting around drowning in the doldrums for months. Months? I've done it for years, in my mid-20s. Never again. Talk about "lost time."

Therapy was pretty funny last night. Despite me announcing myself as being depressed, my therapist went after me a little. I realize that I'm just not that fragile and her opinion of me isn't as important as my own opinion of myself. I was talking about making some photocopies at work of some websites I've seen online and bringing them to group, and my leader was talking about that being of a "scarcity" mentality, "stealing" from work. I said that I'm actually just supplementing my salary by stealing office supplies, because I don't think I'm paid enough. She actually called that passive aggressive. Sheesh. I will say that I don't really take anything from work, but I do print things out or copy things on occasion. Doesn't everyone?

Also, my therapist suggested that we think of those things that made us happy as children, and try repeating them. I don't know what most people think of when they think of happy childhood, but the first thought that came to my mind was, "I should fly to Southern California and hit my brother," which amused everyone in the room. I don't think that hitting my brother actually made me happy, but it was definitely one of my more common childhood activities.

... But The Truth Is, I'm Not Social At All

Bleh. I've just been feeling bleh, bordering on depressed. I don't know why. I am pretty sure there's not a "why" behind it so much as just a bad combination of chemicals in my brain hitting me at the wrong time, when the weather is shit, and so many things in my life are just blah. I was feeling weird all week, and started realizing I was in fact depressed by the end of the week.

I started self-medicating, well, taking a larger dose of Wellbutrin. And that seems to be helping, a lot. I had a lot of energy yesterday, and used it to clean my house and do my laundry. And I watched a bit of the Puppy Bowl with Kiki, who seemed to really enjoy it. In fact, she liked looking at the dogs more than at the Kitten Halftime show. I was actually kind of surprised how homogeneous the kittens did look because they were almost all tabbies. Where are the sleek black cats? The siamese mixes? The torties? I know it's not really kitten season and it was probably hard for them to get a good selection, but I would have liked to have seen more variety.

Anyway, I'm working on it. I recognize the problem and am dealing with it as best I can. I'm glad I have therapy tomorrow. I'm still not feeling like contacting people I don't know, but I'm not cutting myself off from my friends.