Many Words Come To Mind...

... when I see something like this.




As usual, John and Paul are sitting pretty, while George and Ringo are at the bottom of the heap.

I've heard of a crop circle, but a shit circle?

Just another case of the Man holding you down!

Pardon me, but your ass is on my neck.

Are you a top or a bottom?

Another great example of the trickle-down effect.


Any you want to add?

Slow Sunday

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but we have started medicating Baci Dog. The herbal pills weren't cutting it. I really need him calm during the day so I can work on training him on appropriate behavior, and if this is what it's going to take, then this is what we'll have to do. It's like a switch goes off in his head and he can't hear or see anything but what's exciting this over-stressed reaction in him, and there's no way to train him when he's turned off like that. Sigh.

I've started running again, but this time am doing it at the gym rather than on my dreadmill down in the airless cave basement, and it's a lot better. I can see TVs, and outside, and there's a/c and fans. I'm using the c25k DJ Beatsmith podcast, but the one day I forgot my ipod and did a routine on my own, I actually pushed myself harder, so I may alternate not using it and see how I do just listening to my own music, or maybe I'll just move up a week in the program. I've also been using free weights, which I have always preferred for arms. Since I wasn't comfortable using them in Man Land at the Gold's I used to belong to here, I haven't had easy access to them in a few years, and they're just so much better. Legs are still machine-bound for me, but most arm stuff is easier and more comfortable with the weights, since arm machines usually require you to rest your chest against a pad, and there are no boobie-breathing holes. The girls were squooshed. My new gym is a small business owned by a really nice guy, and the atmosphere is good, which is so important. If you feel like crap, or too self-conscious, you're not going to go.

However, I think the yoga instructor hates me. She's a very thin, sober person, and I think it irks her that I always can do the moves as well as she can. A lot of the other people in the classes are older, or new to it, but in our old town, I took a power yoga class twice a week where we did a lot of inverted poses, and she made us work into doing downward dog for five minites. It was tough, and I loved it. So, after the last class I took on 7/3, afterwards I asked her if the gym was thinking of offering a power yoga class at any point. She looked at me, all miffed, and announced that her class *was* a power class. Um, no, it's not, but she looked really, really mad at me for insinuating that her class was too easy!!! Snit. When my ass doesn't jiggle quite so much, I should get certified and teach one my own damn self. Shoot, I could snap her like a twig. She can kiss my cobra.

Literally Booked Announcement

The next book I will host a club discussion for is Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout, which has a 4.5 star rating after 139 reader reviews. Anyone planning to read along should post here to enter a contest to win a copy of the book!

I'm toying with the idea of hosting a live chat meeting rather than simply posting questions this month. How that carries off will depend on how many people sign up to participate! The discussion, in whatever format, will be held around Sept 1.

Also, if anyone read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, thought questions regarding that novel have been posted as well. :)

Friday Photo Follies - Irony Edition

Apparently, they ran out of ideas.

The idea store is officially closed for business.

Sissies Aren't Winners - But Maybe You Are!

My friends, I come to you now to admit something that you will not believe.

Patrick is a sissy.

And, when I say sissy, I mean giant pansy-ass whiner it.

I'll just give you a moment to process this little doo-dad of information.

You need evidence, you say? Fine. I present you with this:

- when we were walking the dogs at the canal, he tripped while we were in the water with them and got a scrape on his finger. I could barely see it. There was no blood, nothing that would even need a scab. No normal person would have cared. My boy, however, screamed like he was in LABOR for fifteen minutes as we walked back towards the car. I'm serious, people stared as they walked by us. The only reason he stopped at ALL was because I finally called back to him (Josie and I were about five yards ahead because I couldn't stand the screeching anymore without wanting to kill him), 'What would your friends think if they saw what you were doing right now?! Patrick Lastname, you are being a sissy, and I want you to stop it right now!' He buttoned up, and after I completely ignored him for about five minutes, he stopped and 'recovered'.

- just now, he came shrieking in from the backyard playset where he scraped his knee. There was maybe two small inch-long scrapes. Again, no bleeding. He screamed like he had had an amputation. I had to let DH deal with it because I couldn't without scolding him, which seemed futile. DH gave him a band-aid. What should have been a minute-long affair was fifteen minutes of drama.

FYI, when I say 'scream', I mean high-pitched, shrill, little-girl-sounding screaming. So high, it's a wonder the glasses in the house aren't broken. It's piercing and painful to be too close to.

I do not know what to do with this. He hates for people to see his emotions, like his karate instructor, when he's frustrated-teary. However, he FREAKS and doesn't care who knows it if he feels there's even the slightest injury to his person. I've explained to him that people aren't blood-balloons, he's not going to bleed to death. I've tried every soothing, calming trick in the book to get him to relax and just accept that life has some scrapes with it. Nothing has worked. He just keeps screaming, 'it hurts so much, I feel like I'm dying, it hurts so bad!!!' Affirming that he has some pain doesn't help. Telling him to man-up doesn't help. I am at a loss. I am NOT like this, and neither is Josie - both of us have gotten some pretty nasty injuries and just gotten up and kept walking.

This has to stop.

Have any of you have any similar experiences? Any suggestions, any at ALL, would be gratefully accepted. I feel bad ignoring any scrapes he has, plus it makes me look like as asshat, but that's the only thing that's worked so far. I want to make it better for him, but any attention at all makes it worse. HELP!

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Now for the fun! The randomly-chosen winner of the bracelet is...... nowheymomma! Yay! Send me your addy and I'll send you your gifty! :)

Medical Update

It's time for the promised Wellbutrin update.

I've been on it for about a month now, and I like it. It doesn't make me sleepy, and I have had fewer cravings and lost a little weight. The dose was too low, though, because I had a lot of trouble controlling the OCD thoughts and random inappropriate tearing up / mood swings. It was *OK*, but I knew I was battling myself all the time, which was tiring in itself. So, starting yesterday I'm going to be on the higher dose, and we'll see what happens. I love my doctor - she actually listens, spends time with you, and is interested in input and conversation about what things mean and where you personally want to be health-wise. That's rare, and I love it even more after that last quack I had.

I've been thinking about the OCD, and I think I know where the thoughts are stemming from. Growing up the way I did, my mother blamed me for everything that ever went wrong in her life, and abused me whenever she was upset about anything at all, whether it was something I did or something she manufactured in order to have an excuse to scream and throw things and choke me. It always made me feel like I had to manage every thing, every emotion, every experience, which was of course impossible since I was just a child, and a micro-managed, ultra-unhealthily-parentally-controlled one at that. Deep down, I really internalized that I was supposed to be in control, but since I wasn't, I felt hopelessly out of control all the time, and afraid of what was going to happen to me as a result of my not being able to do so. I actually used to have little fantasies/hallucinations about things related to that, like an image of a gate opening and closing repeatedly and I couldn't stop it even though I wanted to, or a swing swinging and I couldn't stop it. I was nervous, frustrated, and afraid all the time. Looking back in that way, it only makes sense that, now that I have children, all those fears have come rushing back. I can't control every aspect of their lives, as much as I might want to to keep them safe, and as a result, I have persistent, nightmareish fantasies that they are going to get hurt, and it will be my fault. I think that it's all the anger and fear about this that causes my depression - I constantly fight with myself, knowing that it's not right or possible to be in control of everything, but yet an abusive internal voice demands that I be so.

Another reason I equate a lack of control with violence, which I have never spoken about here, is because I was raped in high school by my first serious boyfriend. It happened after we broke up, and to this day I marvel at how easy it was for him to do that to me, and how I was so conditioned to being completely disregarded and helpless, I couldn't move. I was so tired of fighting all the time, and so betrayed by this person, it was literally like I wasn't even there. I blamed myself for not stopping it, for allowing it to happen, when the truth was, it was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not. The dichotomy of those two things - feeling like I was supposed to be in complete control, and yet also feeling completely personally helpless, is so deeply imprinted in my psyche, I don't know if I will ever be able to sort it all out and get over it.

...and I'm terrified that I've passed on genetic garbage to my kids, and that something in my past could affect them through my inability to process all of this. So, until I can, drugs will be for me, I guess. I would like to not need them, to feel like I'm not damaged goods, but I guess in reality I *am* damaged, and if taking these meds will help to make sure that my kids aren't scarred by my issues, then I'll be on them to the end of my days.

Fresh Babies, Get Your Fresh Babies Here...

Remember *these*?




Well, now, they're THESE!



Aren't they hideously cute?! They can't even cheep yet. The one on top of the peep pile kept lifting up it's little bobble head and opening its tiny beak for food. So sweet!!!

Now I'll have to think of names for them all! :)