Date:	2005-12-26 19:49
Subject:	Holidays
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative
Music:	Oh Christmas Tree

Holidays are a funny thing for me. I grew up with having mixed emotions around the holidays, although Christmas for the most part remained fairly pure in my youth. It was slightly tainted as I grew into a teenager and the underwear I received every year in my stocking became something that the whole family didn't need to see. I never quiet understood why my developing woman-hood was public knowledge for the whole family to enjoy. What is that about exactly?? They don't do that to boys, they don't announce the first time your Mom has to change stained sheets from your little brothers nocturnal emissions, but boy when a certain 'friend' makes it's first glorious appearance, stop the presses and call the papers because how else can we let the whole world know that your a woman now! I digress...

I love the holidays! I do. I love the lights, the music, and let's not forget the food and that unwritten rule that says you get to be as fat as you want to be from Thanksgiving through New Years Eve. I love that part!! I do need to start planning my winter wardrobe a little better if I keep gaining 10lbs in that time and then losing it for the summer bathing suit season (really not that healthy). Maybe I can find some spandex pants left over from the 80's to wear during the holidays, top that with a tunic style sweater, preferably with any kind of metallic thread woven in and whammo we have ourselves a holiday outfit for all to enjoy!

And can someone please tell me why we can't have a Christmas tree up the whole year round? I mean there are other holidays that we can outfit the tree with decorations for...why not take that tree and hang some colored eggs on it for Easter? What else would Easter be for if you have no kids, don't go to Church and aren't sure if you should splurge on a carton of Peeps for yourself even though it's not a 'you are allowed to be fat' sanctioned holiday. At least Easter would have some purpose if there were festive tree decorations involved (hope not to offend anyone with that, but for me...). Just think of all the holidays you could force unto that unsuspecting tree!

The holidays always bring a large buildup for me, since it whole heartedly plays into my shopping addiction only without all that 'buying it for yourself' guilt! It's great to buy for other people, I truly enjoy it (although not nearly as much as my Visa company does). Problem is that once the gifts are given and the food is eaten, I feel a sense of sadness. Almost a mourning of the holiday. It's over and you have a whole year to wait before the next time that same joyous high will be back. I am not one of those people that starts shopping in August, I think that takes all the fun out of it. How can you be in the holiday spirit when its 90 degrees outside and not a blinking reindeer to be found on even the most white trash of lawns. Besides everyone knows that the holidays begin after the Thanksgiving feast, the triptofan (sp?) in the turkey is what gets all those creative shopping juices flowing. Trying to fight that fact only leads to overbuying and gifts purchased months ago being completley forgotten in the back of Grandma's closet.

Well here I sit on the day after and look at all the beautiful decorations that I will need to take down, even though I wait until it's almost uncomfortable to be around the tree because its so late. I will miss the ambient light from the tree, the little snowmen holding up the stockings, and the cinnamon pine cone sleigh. I will take those decorations down, and I will miss them like I do every year, I will do this and just wait for winter to settle in while I fight the natural urge to hibernate and get more fat. I will do this and I will long for Spring...

Date:	2005-03-23 19:09
Subject:	Writing
Security:	Public
Mood:	optimistic
Music:	Ain't No Mountain High Enough!

I had a nice inspiring talk with my lovely yesterday regarding the potential of me writing someday. He of course reminded me that someday is now...thank him for that kick in the pants. Bottom line if you want to write, write...but it's a commitment. It's like I can only dedicate time in my life to work on either my body or my mind and lately it's been the gym getting my attention. The writing bug has been gnawing at me for my entire life. I wrote poems and songs in my youth that are now just the words of an angry adolescent girl hastily scribbled on a page complete with fried chicken grease stains on the notebook paper from Roy Rogers (does anyone remember Roy Rogers??). I digress...

Here is a little bit of a sad (pathetic) story, in my pursuit of writing I was given some invaluable advice that I should read more. Now I have never been much of a reader, always had a hard time reading in school. I could write no problem, but to read that was a different story. I think being forced to read was the issue, not to mention that I needed glasses which didn't come until I was 18 years old. I can't remember what I read in school. I know there were the usual classics, Shakespeare, Poe, To Kill A Mockingbird, etc., but back then my head wasn't in the game. I was too busy reading Anne Rice and Jeane M. Auel, and being all dark with 'The Necronomicon'. With 'The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy' and 'A Wrinkle In Time' thrown in for good measure. That being said, I spent the last 7 years of my life completing my BS in Computer Science and as you might imagine the required reading for computer classes can hardly count as literature, more along the lines of having tiny slivers of balsa wood tapped under your nail-beds! If you can't sleep at night do yourself a favor and pick up any 'How To Program In Assembly Language' book and in less than 2 minutes you will be out like a light, I guarantee it!

Over the years I read things here and there but nothing of any real consequence. Yeah I jumped on Oprah's book club bandwagon, but even those books seemed to mock me for my laziness and lack of interest...I just couldn't get through them. I started 'Memoirs of a Geisha', I started 'I Know This Much Is True', I started 'East of Eden', and 'The Hours'. I started a lot of books, but never seemed to finish anything that really mattered. I have started tech books for work and based on my previouse statements you can tell where the bookmarks are on those. I have started self-help books, exercise books, popular fiction, non-fiction, hell I don't even truly read magazines. I started to think I must have some kind of learning disorder, I mean what grown adult just looks at pictures in a magazine and never really reads anything. I pictured myself drooling in the corner over a copy of 'Where The Wild Things Are' and making statements like 'Look at the scary monster, look monster, look!".

I wanted to change all that and now at 30 having grown out of my 'reading-Daniel-Steel-while-getting-a-tan' era I wanted to embrace something more substantial. So I have been a regular at Borders, well I should say my Visa card is having an affair with one of the cash registers at Borders...actually that slut Visa gets around to all the registers it seems! I have managed to acquire quite a lot of books, notice I said acquire - not read, but acquire. I have probably purchased a good dozen or so books with the intention of reading them "someday". I had started 'The Lovely Bones' by Alice Sebold and it was good but in my typical nature I put it down one day about 1/3 of the way through and just never managed to pick it back up again. I even kept a book that was meant as a Christmas gift titled 'Girls' by Nic Kelman which seemed great at first but after 100+ pages of this authors terrible arrangement of how men feel when they cheat on their wives with 14 year old Korean hookers and chapter breaks designated not by title but by quotations from the Iliad and the Odyssey I was just forcing myself through it to proclaim that I had finally finished a book...I couldn't do it. It is still sitting on my night table with a bookmark about 3/4 of the way through. That was something at least, it was a lot further than I had been reading in any book in years. I was actually angry that the book sucked so bad because I wanted to claim my prize of finishing a book, albeit a bad one. I was truly starting to give some weight to the thought that I should just give up and go back to watching TV because at least that I was good at. I mean I am a professional lazy person, no bush league here! I am a pro baby! If you ever need a spot worn on your couch then I am your girl!

Then on one of my latest trips to Borders I spotted this book 'I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies) : True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl' by Laurie Notaro. Now being somewhat of a loudmouth girl myself (no comments from fallingblossom and kagetsunami) the title intrigued me. I decided to buy it and was sitting in Borders Cafe just 2 pages in laughing out loud! I laughed so hard reading this book I was literally crying at points. I read the entire book in what amounted to two Sunday mornings, and actually finished it! I was so proud of myself I made touchdown arms in my bed when I finished. This is truly a pathetic tale to all the writers in this forum I am sure, but to me it was like climbing Mount Everest...okay so the book wasn't that long, may a smaller hill, but I still made it to the top!

Finishing that one book filled me with a confidence that I haven't felt in years. I looked at the stack of books I had purchased over the years and instead of being tormented by them as they sit spines un-cracked, I felt invigorated. I felt like I was looking at my copy of 'The Joy Luck Club' and saying "you don't scare me, I can read you and you'll like it!" I feel like a kid that just learned how to read, only with the shame of an adult that had to order 'Hooked on Phonics' or something, but nevertheless I did it. I finished a book and I am proud. I can proclaim once again on the top of my hill "I am a reader!!"

Date:	2005-02-12 10:27
Subject:	Sleep and chores
Security:	Public
Mood:	aggravated
Music:	the lunatic is in hall...

Sometimes I wonder why it is that I can make myself feel completely guilty for sleeping? Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I must think sleep is for the week or some sort of guilty pleasure. I am not a morning person and never have been, so I guess it's just that. Maybe it's the chores of an adult that cause me to feel such guilt now..."I have to get this done today...", or "I have to go here tomorrow...". I think one of the most valuable lessons my parents ever taught me (without there knowing they did) was chores. I had so many chores as a kid, but you know what? Chores prepare you for being a damn grown up where most of your day consists not of things you want to do, but of the chores you have to do.

Okay, so I just realized that I am ranting, and basically throwing a tantrum of the "I don't wanna's". Bottom line, woke up late...feeling unmotivated...trying to figure out my day.

I call this "Spinning", I spin myself up and drive myself nuts. At least over the years I have learned to keep other people out of it. Well guess it's time for breakfast, maybe I can eat something bad and feel guilty about that too! LOL!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay better now.

That concludes todays episode of "The Raving Lunatic". Join us again tomorrow for "What I Was Supposed to Get Done on Saturday and Didn't". Have a pleasant day!

Date:	2005-01-12 22:27
Subject:	Lights
Security:	Public
Mood:	artistic
Music:	none at the moment

This is about 5 years old

Lights

I am dying
Not from disease or sickness
But from love
Not from not having someone to love
But from loving too much
What you can’t have
I feel my body shutting down
Closing shop for the night
Slowing taking down the curtains
And dimming the theater lights
I realize the envy and jealousy
I feel these days is not from
Age, but from seeing
Seeing the vibrancy and life
That these young girls have
But I am young too,
Or am I
But they still have their lights on
They still shine so brightly
That even they are blinded by it
Oh, if they only new what they have
They would not waste it
I wish I knew…
How come no one told me
How come some wise woman
Whose light was dimmed long ago
Didn’t come to me in my youth and
Tell me not to waste it
I am sure I wouldn’t have listened
And is that how I got here now?
Why don’t they teach us to listen?
It’s like we are some colony
These women like me,
You can see them in a crowd.
You can tell the ones that know the pain you know
And they see you too, but
There is a silence
Like a vow that is unspoken
No one wants to say it
It’s shame that keeps us quiet
Shame of the choices we have made
Shame in our hearts
I think it’s the shame that snuffs the light
I want my light back
I am not ready to be dark

Date:	2005-01-12 18:52
Subject:	First Post
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired
Music:	I got a date with the night, burning down my finger

Well here I sit fumbling around for better than 20 minutes to come up with a really thought provoking user name and what do I end up with instead of my usual 'gdkarma74'...hold on to your seats...'goodkarma74'! Oh yeah baby really stepping out on this one! I tossed around various sanskrit names of Shakti - the powerful one, or Sarasvati - the goddess of learning and knowledge, even Kamala - which means red...but they all seemed too contrived, too forced, too much like reaching for something that you don't quite deserve yet. So 'goodkarma74' it is...

I pulled out some very old stuff I had written (like middle school old) and plan to poke through it see if there is anything that has stood the test of the past 15+ years and wouldn't be utterly embarrassing to divulge to an anonymous(wink, wink) crowd of spectators. I'll see what I can come up with - for now I must drag myself to the gym to once again try and run away from my ass that has been stalking me for years! Having a stalker could be flattering, but this one follows too close!

Check back in a bit...
PS. Does this mean I am geek now?