New Facebook page.

Having weird high school flashbacks.

Need to ponder this.

Trying out Smilebox

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Cut loose!

As of Monday.

Holy crap.

Now what the hell do I do with myself?

And yeah, I got laid off. No offense to me personally, they just can't afford to keep me.

I like to think of it as *me* (and my services) being on the level of Tiffany & Co. or Barney's, and the Town now finding itself having to shop on a Wal-Mart budget.

I can live with that. :)

Beginnings and endings, and the death of hope.

Weirdness. The feeling of standing on a ship and suddenly it keels so far starboard that you're hanging on to a rope, watching your feet dangle above the sea.

I didn't anticipate that this would be a life-changing week. I figured I'd take a couple of days to recover from my trip back East, readjust to the time, and maybe start working out again. I've been very troubled about how the inches I lost have returned, and it's past time to do something about it.

A new situation was sprung on me which is going to mean a major shift in my family's lifestyle, and I realized that I've been putting off growing up in some ways. I mean, sure, that's nice if you can manage it, but perhaps it's time to become a real grownup. Perhaps I no longer have a choice. I hoped briefly that my new situation was fixable, that I could prolong the status quo, but I saw in the eyes of the messenger that my hope was in vain. It's a strange feeling for me--I'm unaccustomed to not being able to find some small nugget of hope in any adversity.

I guess the last time I felt it was when my dad died. Finality.

This afternoon I was also broadsided by news that caught me by surprise, but only because I was nurturing hope that a terrible situation could be fixed. Turns out, hope is lost on that front as well. A tattered friendship seems to be over, and said friend is moving away, and I found out via a public message board posting. Seems to be the way this week is going.

Baby girl had two things happen which moved her into a new phase of her life. . . she lost her last two teeth, on the same day. She went to the dentist two weeks ago, and they said at that point that she had four left to lose, and that although she's 9, she has the mouth of an 11 1/2 or 12 year old. Two teeth fell out last week, then the last two at the same time. My baby. Then the following night, she had a boy call her. The conversation went thusly:
Boy: Hi, is there?
Dad: Yes she is, may I ask who's calling?
Boy: Uhh, yeah, this is . . . uhh . . . someone in her class.
Dad: Does "someone in her class" have a name?
Boy: Oh, yeah. Scott.

Daddy wants to go out and purchase a weapon immediately.

I found out early in the week that my Brotherman has consented to allow my mom to help him investigate condos in the Phoenix area, specifically Tempe. That is stunning news, welcome certainly, but still totally unanticipated. I suppose that nugget of hope for something that would be so incredibly wonderful might make up for other areas where hope is lost. Once I get my feet under me again, that might be a touch clearer.

Demon is fighting with his medications again--they changed, and his reaction is not good. I hate being helpless and having to watch him be in pain.

Change is scary. I try to explain that to the kids when they experience it, and I suppose they should know that it's scary for me as well. This week makes me want to curl up and hang on tightly to everything I have, because I suddenly fear it all being taken away from me. I know that's an illogical response to pain and uncertainty, but it's my gut reaction. Thank God the week's over. Of course, I can only pray that I've suffered all the shocks to my system that are looming, at least for now, and hope that Murphy's Law turns a blind eye to me for a moment or so.

Going out with my Biznitch buddy from work will help. She is a very good and loyal friend, and she knew I needed to blow off some steam, so when I suggested a Girls' Night Out, she made arrangements and made herself available. That kicks ass. She's outrageous and hilarious, and Spouse is going to tote our undoubtedly-drunk asses around tomorrow night. It will give me a moment of respite, even though everything will still be waiting for me when I wake up hung over on Sunday. That moment is desperately needed.

Weirdness.

It would seem that things in my life are changing significantly at a fairly fast clip, and I'm not altogether certain that I'll even recognize the net effects until much later.

I am losing weight. This is by design. Demon is training me (and yes, only I would have a trainer that's a demon) and it's different than other times that I've done a lot of exercise because I'm not doing a lot of cardio. As a result, instead of *everything* shrinking, I think I'm just getting curvier. Arms smaller, waist smaller, hips smoother . . . I will be interested to see how it all comes out. I'm trying to consider my new body to be a Christmas present to myself and use that as impetus to keep not drinking soda and stuff. Coming from someone who used to have Dr. Pepper flowing in her veins, that's a not-inconsiderable task.

Demon is also incredibly supportive and positive about the whole thing which makes it worlds easier. Granted, he abuses and mocks me when we're working out because he has to and it makes me laugh. I don't know *anyone* who could get away with referring to me as, "Pretty, but . . . just not that smart." That makes me howl laughing, which is why he does it.

Today was an interesting day because it was my 2-year anniversary of working for the Town. Hooray. It was also my first official time addressing the Council in a public meeting, since my boss had to conflict out of an issue. One of the parties involved tried to totally reinterpret the fact pattern to suit his purposes, and I happily corrected him and made sure the Council understood the real situation. Somewhere I hope that Bill is smiling. :)

It's also Guitar Boy's 38th birthday. I hope that whatever he's doing, he's found a measure of contentment, because that was a quality that seemed to consistently elude him.

I had a bad emotional night last week which culminated in me getting in my car and driving for a number of hours, like I used to do when I was younger. I haven't felt compelled to do that in a long time. I was feeling really great about this service project that I'm putting together through the Garrison and . . . then I got a message from He Who No Longer Loves Me, and it just ripped my heart out. He made it abundantly clear that he would help me with the project only out of responsibility to the Garrison, and in no way, shape, or form was it for me. Do I wish he couldn't still hurt me? Yes. Does that make it so? No. Time heals. I wish it would hurry up.

Things I Learned Last Night.

Went out to celebrate Mini-Me's birthday, at Graham's Central Station. Learned some things.

1. Mini-Me is hilarious when she's drunk.

2. Demon's older brother Piano Boy is hilarious, period. And isn't nearly the badass that Demon would portray him as.

3. The fact that I'm ticklish is bad information for Mini-Me, Demon, and Piano Boy to have.

4. Spouse *really* likes SoCo shots with lime.

5. Mini-Me *really* dislikes having her camera stolen and used against her. Heh.

6. Demon is making me eat. For real. Or he'll punish me by not throwing me around anymore.

7. Spouse needs 3-4 shots of SoCo to start dancing.

8. Mrs. Maulrat dislikes being paparrazied in a dark bar.

9. Mini-Me equates "playing footsie" with "having sex in the bathroom of Denny's".

10. Never, ever be bratty to your personal trainer when you're sore from workouts, because he knows exactly where to punch you to make it hurt worse.

Well, it's been an interesting couple of weeks. The people who I normally would have gone to for support are not available for number of reasons. They're either not available, distracted... well, mostly not available and in one case, spectacularly angry at me. That one, well, I’m not entirely sure that he is ever going to talk to me again. That makes me very sad, and I hope it's not true, but if it is, I'll just have to get used to it. I've had people I've loved deeply decide to be gone from my life for periods of time (or indefinitely), and I survived that, so presumably the same will apply here. The funny thing is, I've made a connection with someone that I never expected to. The world is a funny place. I suppose I will have to figure out what to call him on this little venting space, since he does not yet have a 501st I.D. number. Pseudo-naming him is actually harder than I would have thought it would be -- perhaps I don't know him well enough yet to have a single word or phrase that I find to be representative. Either that or, there isn't one--not a single one, anyway. I'll have to work on that.

I find myself once again on the verge of taking on a huge amount of responsibility and work over the next several months. I'm not sure how well-prepared, I am for that but... I was trying to remember what movie it was… I think it was the latest Die Hard. Who knows? Anyway, there is discussed the issue of why somebody does something dangerous, volunteers for something unwieldy or difficult, things of that nature. The answer is that in whatever the given situation, there is no one else to do that job or assume that responsibility...so that person just does it. The quote, then becomes, “You're that guy.” I guess what it comes down to is that I'm that guy. The Dark One says that I have been strongly maternal since high school, particularly with my male friends. This may just be the adult extension of that instinct. I was up until the middle of the night the other night, doing an online continuing education program for my Bar license, and it was regarding stress and quality of life and things of that nature. One of the topics discussed was the fact that there will ever be areas where you would like to feel like you're indispensable, like the entire organization would come to a screeching halt if you were not there. The ultimate reality though, no matter how distasteful it is, is that no matter what job each of us does for living to pay the bills or whatever, we are ever eternally replaceable. I could be the greatest attorney in the history of mankind and they could still find a body to put in my place that would be adequate. The lesson was supposed to be that there are areas of our lives where we are not replaceable, where just substituting in another body is not and could not ever be adequate, like in our family units. I guess that I have to figure out which category my work for the Garrison falls into, because right now it seems like a hybrid of the two... I work very hard and I enjoy the work that I do, and I feel that what I do makes a difference to a number of people, but ultimately the truth is that I am likely replaceable, and they could probably find someone else that would do as good a job. As I move through all of this, I should probably keep that in mind.

My I.M. buddy... let's see. Likely associative words would be dark, strong, Evanescence, fighter, writer, protector, demon... I'm sure something will come to me. It's usually easy. Huh.

Heroes.

"He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams."

Contentment.

Hard to come by these days, even in the best of circumstances. Tonight, however, I took a moment to appreciate my particular situation right there, right then.

I slept in today, hung out with the family for a bit, then took the whole posse to see Transformers. Excellent flick, the kids and Spouse and I all loved it. Came home, rested for a bit and read part of a cheesy romance novel. Packed everyone back up and went down to "The Crick" to watch fireworks.

I saw my wonderful, incredibly beautiful children wrapping up a very sweet day, perfectly happy in just sitting in the middle of a field with Mommy and Daddy and watching some fireworks. For me, it was no fretting and no organizing anything and no having to command the 82nd Airborne. It was just time to enjoy my kids, before I turn around one day and realize that they've gone and grown up on me. Girl still needs her mom to be close by, and Boy needs to be in my lap as often as possible. Spouse is happy when we're happy.

I hope I can keep that snapshot of that feeling in my mind for other times when contentment seems so far away.

For the amusement of Brotherman.

She's in the megaphone because her ear looks like a potsticker right now. Long story.

Yeah, brotherman, okay.

So I got GradDork's link wrong. It's the mono! (Isn't that a great all-purpose excuse?)

http://gradgrindian.blogspot.com

My brother and his friends are lame.

But I'm glad they stop in to say hello.

www.jbolli.blogspot.com

www.gradgrind.blogspot.com

Interesting.

There are lots of bells and whistles on this blog deal that are new since I last logged on. I'm experimenting with them without reading the directions--my standard m.o.--so how any of them come out will be completely random.

I like the video bar, I think, although I don't yet have a lot of control over it. I put "Star Wars" into the search box and got what's there now. Don't know how to refine that particular search yet.

One of the many reasons that my life is so good.

I can stay home from work one day to wait for the washing machine repair guy, and watch this out my front window, sitting in front of my computer:

::side note: The formatting on this new version of blogger sucks ween.::

Wee Man, deciding to pull weeds for Mommy, using parts of the silver set we got for our wedding, and a piece of a potato peeler.

Good times.

Been listening to a lot of Nickelback.

The vocal harmonies are very sing-along-able, but some of the stuff makes me want to beat the crap out of someone.

I wonder this week if you know you've hit an unsurmountable obstacle in a marriage when one partner achieves a goal or a new position or gets involved in something and the other partner is legitimately incapable of being happy for the one who has this thrilling new thing.

We are trying to plan a guinea pig set of photos for our official Garrison stuff this weekend. Too bad I feel like all I've done this week is eat and fret and be miserable, which will come together to make me look like a really tired, irritated water buffalo. Then again, if I want my Isard pics to be scary and make me look really mean, that shouldn't be too far a stretch.

I don't know anything. I don't do anything right. The harder I try at something, the more spectacular the crash and burn.

And I put on the "girl-sized" Mando helmet the other night for fit. Yeah, not a snowball's chance in Hell. It came about down to my cheekbones and didn't cover any part of my jaw--The Amazon Warrior Princess rides again.

It's pretty easy to fit me with stuff--just assume that I'm an average-sized man. Inquiry over.

Ye Gods, it's March already.

How did that happen?

I dorked around a lot tonight, talked to a few people on the phone, and didn't get back to this like I planned. Ultimately, the upshot of the Rose Parade was that we were thrown into very close quarters with a couple of hundred strangers that were, by the end of a few days, very good friends. I found myself marvelling at this one afternoon on the bus ride back after rehearsal, since there was a time when I would have been too shy and self-concious to get involved with the DSG at all, much less volunteer for a trip where I'd be surrounded by virtual strangers and have to sleep in a bed with someone I'd never met. There I was, though, trading barbs with a bunch of crazy Brits, harassing my Utah and NC roommates, and getting roundly abused by Skippy the Mad Aussie.

The dynamic is substantially similar, as it turns out, in all of the Garrisons. The camaraderie is there almost instantly once we all stop seeing each other as unfamiliar faces and just use the Star Wars thing as the bridge from which to build a friendship. I love the cross section of people because they are, for the most part, very intelligent and witty, and damned creative (if they made their costumes themselves) or clever (if they found ways to have others make their costumes for them). Yes, we get into lame discussions about details that the average person wouldn't give a rat's ass about, and if that average person were to hear that discussion and nothing else, the assumption would likely be that we're all unemployed and living in our mothers' basements, and that except for our own very narrow pool for hookup selection, generally unf***able. We don't live in some other version of reality where we're scanning the clouds looking for a floating city with an antenna underneath that has a scruffy, sweaty dude hanging on it crying about how his father just hacked his hand off.

I realized too that we of the DSG are incredibly fortunate that we can see each other regularly. Members of the German Garrison (who *rocked*,for the record) live in far distant parts of the country from one another and get to mingle maybe a couple of times a year. Contrast that with me calling 2035 and Pirate Chickie the other night and saying, "Spouse and I just got paid, let's hit the strip club." Man, I drank more that night than I have in . . . quite a while.

I hate to play favorites, in retrospect, but the group I became most fond of had to have been the Italians. "Shocker Boy" and brother "the Quiet One", "Statutory", and "Vain Guy". God, they were fun. I've actually talked to Statutory more since I've been back than I have the others, and as it turns out he has a sister that (1) troops, and (2) is Shocker Boy's girlfriend. How totally excellent is that? We also both have webcams now . . . don't take that the wrong way . . . so when he's up in the middle of the night, I can make silly faces at him and he can see them half a world away. 2035 and 13 have managed to formulate something new to harass me about now, after we hung out with Shocker Boy . . . SB and I share a talent for harmless flirtation, you see, and since he and his brother are very fluent in English, it was GAME ON from moment one. They all had the dark, brooding hotness that seems inherent in that bloodline, so it wasn't exactly painful to run around with them. Anyway, now when we're out and 2035 or 13 needs to make a joke about my . . . "passionate nature", let's say . . . the standard line is something that indicates that I can control myself, except in the presence of Italians . . .

It's okay. They had to come up with something eventually to regularly bang on me about.

More later. Hopefully not three months later.