I'm okay, you're okay. But mostly, I'm okay.

Welcome to the weekend, yet again. It's been, how shall I put this... an eventful week. It's one I'm glad to put to virtual bed, that's for sure. Though I've had worse weeks, I wouldn't want to repeat this last one anytime soon.

And yeah, that's being purposely vague. If you want to know details, buy my memoir! And no, isn't written. Yet.

Homework-intensive weekend here since I'm behind on pretty much everything. Headlining the action is a mini-research project that shouldn't hopefully take more than another hour or so to finish. Then I have another 1,000 hours' worth of other reading for school.

UUC tomorrow, followed by more... you guessed it! Homework.

So, you see, the excitement continues.

Quote: Anna Quindlen

" The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. "

- Anna Quindlen

Today's 7 Bits of Grace

Alright. Gritting my teeth here, but I am determined to find 7 moments of grace from the last day or two since I've not posted on the topic:

1. Got another homework assignment done and turned in for library school.

2. Bill Bryson's recent book on Shakespeare is on audio CD, and I've been listening to that lately. I don't retain facts well, so I'm always due for a good biographical reminder on Mr. S. Shocking how much I'd forgotten.

3. Much of our snow has melted away.

4. Eventually I must be able to sleep again.

5. In a few hours I'll be able to drink coffee.

6. Umm.... Well... I still haven't caught a horrible virus this winter, at least not one that kept me down over a day or two.

7. This weekend we turn the clocks ahead, so it'll stay light later. Thank goodness.

Phew. Made it through. Trying to tell myself it'll get better... It'll get better...

INSOMNIA

Welcome to my sleepless nights.

I'm in an insomnia pattern. Fun! This is night, oh, three or so of getting just about as little sleep as is humanly possible to function.

It's nearly 2:30 a.m. now and I haven't slept a wink. Last night and the night before I had little catnaps through the night. But tonight, nada so far.

The good news is I have plenty to read. Finding something to do isn't problematic, it's just knowing I'll feel like crap tomorrow that makes me a little bummed.

So, may as well report in on what I realized earlier today I still hadn't done, UU lesson # what was it... four?

The topic: what I believe about life. Examples: People are generally good, I have to roll with the punches and enjoy what life gives me, stuff like that. That's what some other people said re: what they feel is true.

But as for me? Hmmm. Let's see. One thing I believe in is karma. The Christians refer to it as the Golden Rule. Basically, how you treat others comes right back to you. It's not supposed to work out in this life that you see the immediate results. That's the stuff of several lifetimes, if you believe in that kind of thing. But I think a version of it is more instant than that. Some of it does come back around. I've seen it. It may not be properly karma, but it's close enough for me.

Other beliefs in life... Well, it's hard to believe people are generally good, at least right now. Actually, it's not a good time for me to even delve too deeply, methinks. I'll stick with a firm belief in something resembling karma, and leave it at that.

Now I'm going to go write a column, since it's nearly 3:00 and I'm still not sleepy. Maybe once I get a rough draft done I'll be able to get some rest. I hope.

Karma's whippin' girl

" I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird. "

- Paul McCartney


" Huh?"

- Lisa Guidarini


In case you aren't getting the drift, I'm a person to whom things just tend to happen. There's something about me that attracts weird and wild things and people, totally against my will. That's always been the case. People on the fringes of society, for example, are attracted to me like it's a magnetic force beyond their power to resist. If you observed it from above, as an apparently sado-masochistic supreme being very possibly does (and I am his/her favorite form of entertainment, obviously), you'd see that when I pass through a crowd, any crowd, all the yahoos gravitate toward me. I can't be angry with them. They can't help it. But it's getting annoying as all hell.

It's not just that, either. Gravity is stronger around me. Compare my frequency of dropping things to the average and you'll see what I mean. Embarrassment happens to me more often, and Murphy's Law? Written for me. Totally for me.

I'm really a fairly unassuming person. I don't go out of my way to attract notice, and in fact I pretty well shun it. Yeah, okay, not online. Online I'm a big publicity hoor. I jump up and down and wave my arms, I fearlessly approach big name authors, I leave no chance untaken. But in real life? Wallflower, baby. Wallflower. You'd so not approach me to ask to sign my dance card at a party. I'd open my mouth and shoot out fire at you, or hypnotize you with eyes that pop out of my head and swirl around and around, transfixing you until you forget what you were going to ask in the first place. Needless to say, I'm a big hit at parties.

So, why exactly it is that action of the most dramatic nature seeks me out I don't know. And I may be just a really big crybaby here. Wah, wah, poor ME. But I could get some sworn affadavits from several people attesting to the fact stuff does happen to me, and it's vastly out of proportion to stuff that happens to other people. It's been verified, people! Verified! And it's making me really tired. Really tired.

I need a vacation. Or maybe even a short retreat. It's been a long, long year, one I wrote masses of pages about, trying to figure at least some of it out. I sat down with my primary journal for a while last night, paging through it looking for insight. Frankly, it reads like something a crack whore would have written while on a roller coaster, while also having a really bad trip. And then the roller coaster car flies off the track and through the air, skimming over the carnival, skipping across the tops of the tents. Meanwhile the crack whore is alternately laughing and gripping the safety bar, white-knuckled. That pretty well describes it.

From entry to entry nothing stays consistent. Well, nothing but my whining. Much like the constant tinnitus I suffer from, the tinnitus that would drive me mad in a totally quiet room, the background refrain of my journal sounds like the noise a mosquito makes when it buzzes your ear in the middle of the night. ANNOYING.

That's not to say none of my points are valid. They are, but it's so obvious I couldn't make up my mind on a goddamn thing. One day it's one thing, the next it's the total opposite. That's what you call a confusing time. And in the midst of it, THE OTHER, the controlling friend who maybe wasn't such a great friend. The great chimera, the force that nearly destroyed me. And I totally bought into it, like I was born yesterday. Idiot.

So now I'm left thinking am I the one attracting all this chaos without realizing I'm doing it? Or are there outside forces fucking with me, just for the sheer entertainment of it all. If so, that's so not nice, and it's one of the very biggest reasons I have such a problem with all of this higher power stuff. Bad things happening to good people (and I don't just mean me here), horrible things and not just annoyances, while nasty people glide along through life. Why?

Just one of the many things I grapple with on a daily basis. Or, well, sometimes just weekly. I keep pretty well occupied. But this one's a biggie. A veritable hugie. It's one I can't find an answer for, at least not one that satisfies or even satisfices. Some things I can content myself with just not knowing. I don't have a problem with open-ended questions. Things like the Universe, that I can deal with (though it freaks the hell out of my kids). But this one? This one I just don't get. I don't know why it all has to be such a challenge. Why it's all so hard, more so for some than others. Why do so many bad things happen to people who've already been loaded down with crap?

Why?

If anyone can "riddle me this" I'd be so appreciative.

Toxic Shock

"Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength."

- August Wilson (1945-2005)

There are people on this earth who, no matter how much credit you try to give them, constantly disappoint. But not only do they disappoint, they also have the destructive potential to wreak havoc on your life, and cause grave harm and hurt to you and others you care about.

Naturally, we'd love to give people the benefit of the doubt in every instance. Most people would like to think the best of others. I think that's so. But much life experience has taught me otherwise. Not everyone is good. So many are selfish, deceptive and awful no matter how much we'd like to think well of them. Some people are simply toxic to the soul.

In some cases it may be that it's a certain combination of individuals that makes the toxicity, that there's something about the mixture of the two that turns corrosive, no matter how hard they may try to get along. Separately the two are fine and good but together the mixture is awful. Or it could be that one of the individuals is just a genuinely bad person. It can be hard to discern the difference when you're in the midst of it all; it's only afterward that you can look back coolly and rationally and see how it really was.

There come times in all our lives we find we have to break from people who have the capacity to destroy us, from these toxic people who would be ruinous to our lives if we let them be. Especially those of us with a self-destructive impulse, we have to be even more vigilant because it isn't in our nature not to be self-shielding. It's much more dangerous in cases like this, and much more crucial to break the cycle. And it's better not to go this alone, without help from caring people who honestly have our best interests at heart. Discerning who these good people are can sometimes be a challenge, but they are out there.

I had to break from a toxic person recently, from someone who seemed intent on destroying me through a series of manipulations I didn't even see as manipulative for so long it's almost embarrassing. I have my share of blame, too. I'm not saying I don't. Nothing is ever just one person's doing, but it's usually one person who has to stand up and say ENOUGH. This has gone on too long. It's been a difficult and emotionally draining thing, but with every day that goes by I feel that much stronger, more certain I've taken the right action.

Life has so many rites of passage, some we know to expect and others, like this, that are unpleasantly unexpected bumps in the road. Like everything that happens to us, the important thing to take away is how you'll use the experience going into the future. What's past is past. You can't change any of that, no matter how much wishing and wanting you do. All you can do is look at what positives you can draw, and how you can use the experience to go forward with your life.

The positives won't always be obvious. Sometimes you'll have to dig for them, but they'll always be there in some form. At times the only positive you'll find is the added wisdom the event gave you, the lesson being the lesson in itself. Though it's tough, that may be the only take-away grace from a really bad experience.

But in any event, grace it is.

Today's 7 Bits of Grace

Some days this exercise is so easy. Other days? Not so much.

Today's a not so much.

1. My new haircut is positively PERKY!

2. For my grad school homework I need to read a novel. I'll repeat that: READ A NOVEL.

3. It was 50 degrees today, even if it is grey and drizzly.

4. Ummmm.... I mentioned the hair, mentioned the reading... weather... Oh, I finished another homework assignment and got it turned in.

5. Bagel and lox for breakfast this morning, from Einstein bagels. YUM.

6. The kids have been pretty quiet today, no fights to mention.

7. The choice in the 2008 election will be between a Democrat and a pro-choice, liberal, non Bible-thumping Republican. That's about as good as it gets, people.