Theory: The Critical Mass of Therapy

"When you are working more on yourself than you have self to work on." --jeneane sessum

thank you very much.
Elvis has left the building.

one more for the road

He was mostly a pest. He showed up on my doorstep while George was in Hong Kong, you remember, an interlude between all those love poems and self-exploration I was doing. I didn't need a tom cat around. He was needy and bit when he didn't get just what he wanted. I'd have to fill his food dish on the outside step three times a day just to keep him from nipping at my heel when I stepped outside for a smoke.

Still...

He hasn't been around in three or four days. Not like him--he usually shows up a few times a day -- coming from wherever he came from. I never did figure out if he was someone's cat just looking for an extra bowl of food, or a stray, or just a lost little cat soul.

I saw him today, not on my step, but on the main road. I didn't look closely as I approached the run-of-the-mill roadkill that seems to haunt these streets. I knew though, not from the guts and innards I saw first, but from the unusual tiger grey fur that had opened up to let his life force go, it was him. My wheels straddled him as I continued on -- had to get Jenna to school in time for french toast sticks. I blocked it for most of the day. But tonight, when the little sister cats next door had the courage to come up my steps like they used to--before him--and see what was left in his food bowl, I said good bye to Ashes.

Glad I could give you a bowl of cat chow and fresh water when you were in need. Sorry I couldn't do more.

Ashes to ashes...

Taking time

Still not well -- taking some time to re-focus energies and spirit on the positive, the truly meaningful. Above all, do no harm.

Peace, y'all.

Or then...

Well, I felt fine. But now I'm getting sick--catching Jenna's cough and head cold. I'm worn out. It sure felt good to feel good for a minute! Remind me about that in a couple days, will ya?

Going to rest.

if someone had ever told me

I wouldn't have believed them. If they told me I'd be here at 40 at this very odd place on the precipice of losing nearly everything I've held dear--rewind, replay, repeat--I wouldn't have believed them. My family, my self, my future--all resting on unsteady ground.

I thought I had the biggest loss once upon a time, when I was very young, and I thought no other empty space would ever compare to that. With my dad dead, the only loss I could imagine being greater than that, at six, was my mother. Things would get bad, very bad, and I had my mantra: at least my mother's alive. I would watch others die, move away, go away, and I would repeat the mantra: I still have my mother.

At the same time, I watched my mother and step-father drink, retreated from the odd and uncomfortable situations that resulted from their nightly insobriety, and my mantra became just as uncomfortable to me. It was starting to not work. I wasn't hers; I wasn't mine. I was just incomplete. I tried to complete myself with my worthy spouse, then a deacde later with a child. But, big surprise, that doesn't work. Not for long. At least not forever. Joke's on me.

I did not come to this mother mantra all alone, I now realize. It's something that she nurtured in me--she needed me to be hers. She herself had been through great trauma. And so, it was fed to me. An unhealthy diet of "love" by control, and me willing to eat and repeat, knowing no other way.

It's not all her fault. And I love her still. But I hate what she's done. She takes no responsibility--she won't look at this.

Not won't. Can't.

Did I mention I haven't spoken to my mother in nearly a month now? Yes. Well. To you that may seem like no big deal. To me, it's nothing short of miraculous. I have never gone more than a week--two during a particularly nasty family blow up--without hearing her voice. We were once so close. The problem was, we were mostly always way too close. I let myself subsist on her. And she let me. To the detriment of all other relationships.

And so I've asked her for space, now--time to be with me. And I've gotten it, and a month has ticked by.

George away. Jenna in school. No mother to direct and intercept my feelings. I'm here with me. Really here with me.

And I've discovered why I never tried this before: The movies that play backward in my head are not very comforting. I'm seeing them for the first time. They are unraveling what I thought was so, a little at a time, and in their place I'm left with what really was. Freeze frame:

He's behind the wheel for the hundredth time in a condition that by any account, even in the 70s, is illegal. And she is in the front seat, staring straight ahead, no seat belt--her role is not to challenge him, only to control him through her reactions. I whisper to her, "Why don't YOU drive?" Even I know, from car rides past, weaving in and out of his lane of choice, me gripping the side door, that it will be a dicey ride home. She doesn't ever take the keys from him.

This is the part of this backwards movie I'd like to remember a different way: A police car pulls us over, he blows, he goes to jail, something. Something to change what was. But that never happened. We always made it home. See, she was right to let him drive. Everything turned out fine.

Nothing was ever fine.

But me, I am going to be fine.

I am going to be FUCKING fine because I'm finding me, and I'm finding out.

deux intervieux

See if you can follow this--not sure I've gotten it down yet: Sandhill's Frank Paynter interviews the barely downloadable Mike Golby (not once, but a couple of times), and Blogaria's quickest study George Partington interviews Frank Paynter, who has earned my respect for his ability to churn out these great interviews, for just being Frank, and for quoting Alphonso Johnson--a great guy and colleague of George's.

Backstage Riders

I've seen backstage/tour riders before and have heard some amazing stories from George, but these are pretty interesting.

Like, Ozzy Osbourn and Frank Sinatra required Decadron (a steroid); Aerosmith says no alcohol backstage at any time; Black Crows say LOTS of alcohol backstage; Busta Rhymes says NO to pork and beef, yes to KFC, and bring it on to the obligatory box of Rough Rider or Lifestyle ribbed condoms. Busta, with all that dough, you can't supply your own rubbers?

My Mother Needed No One

Here's the thing about my mother. Married at 19, three kids by 28, and a dead husband by 35, followed two weeks afterward by her own father's surprise death (today they would call it negligent homocide), a widow raising 3 kids alone for six years in the 60s and 70s, where, in suburban Irondequoit, that made her a freak and us the "freak" family--she didn't have it easy. The whole time, me as the youngest, looked at how she did it and thought: She doesn't need anyone. She is so strong.

But that strength went awry somewhere. If someone made her angry, or looked to be contradicting how she was raising us, she'd cut them out of her life like most people slice cheese. They were there one minute, gone the next. Relatives, friends, no one dared mess with my mom. They all knew the consequences.

So, I'm finding out, did I.

She was and is in the eyes of most who know her one of the strongest, most together woman walking the planet. Then the undercurrent rushes in. Me the mirror. And I remember so vividly my thought process that went: Maternal Strength = Mother loves X + X made Mother mad + bye bye X.

What I saw as great strength then, I now see as a weakness, and a life lesson that has left me a little skewed. Turning people on and off like light switches isn't a strength--it's cruel, it's selfish, and it's false. It was a way for her to avoid confronting the things she should have been and should still be confronting. It was her way of hiding.

And so I learn little things about who I am and why--these snags in me that are caught on the rough edges of my insides.

One thing is for sure: this apple has begun her roll.

No Deposit, No Return

Today was a delightful day. Believe me? Consider this: A good two hours of it, on and off, was spent with my daughter sobbing for her daddy. "Two more days--that's all I can do! Daddy, please come back nooooooow. DaaaDeee! DAAADEEE!"

Having sat with this for what is now close to five months with him out of the U.S., my nerves are wilted, not frayed. I have no more tears to cry in the bathroom, alone, hoping she won't hear me--that I won't feed that need in her that is usually just south of the surface in me. So I have no more tears for it now. I'm fine. I hold her and say, "I know. I know. Soon, baby. Soon. Way sooner than last time." And she says, "Not soon, Now!" And I wipe tears away some more, wishing I had some to give her, let me cry instead of her. But they don't come.

I took her to my sister's house for a cookout, which brightened her mood some, until it was time to leave, and leaving reminded her, and again all the way home, more tears.

Then I went about the business of trying to get a $500 tuition deposit back from a school she's not going to. Mind you, I raised the flag right after I gave them the check--before the deadline for admission. Also asked if this money was a deposit or if it was part of the tuition. I was assured this went toward the tuition. It's a new school, so they weren't bothering with admission fees. They needed bodies. If I'm right no tuition, no attendance, withdrawl before the August 1st deposit deadline--I should get the money back, right? I know most schools keep the $75 admission fee if you don't attend, but $500???

And to think, around the end of July, I had a flash that I should put a stop payment on that check. Why didn't I? I thought it was unnecessary. People are ethical. People live up to their agreements. I'm such a stupid fuck.

Two days ago, I called the administrator again--he said his checkbook was at home and that I should finish talking it over with the directress. So today, I call the teacher/directress, whom I really do love (she is not the administrator--i.e. money man), and she is still trying to get me to enroll Jenna there, but we can't afford it. And I say what George said to the administrator: "Let's get the money back in my hands--then we can talk about it--maybe for January. But right now we can't do it."

So SHE says that according to what she was told, the $500 is non-refundable. There go my ears, filling up with blood again. Ouch, that was my neck. I'm about go balistic. Then I back off, thinking of my sister's lawyer who will write a letter for $90 if I want her to. At this point, the teacher offers me another deal (discounted tuition) that I said I'd talk with George about, but I can't really, because he's not here, so there I am. Back where I started from.

No deposit, no return, a grieving daughter, and only me-myself-I and the blog universe to whine to about it.

Here's to Monday!

waxing and waning

I've figured it out. Not me alone. You know. But I think I figured out the problem with the planet, world, country, region, neighborhood, family, and people in general. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

That problem being that too few of us understand what it means to love. Simply to love and to love simply. At the heart of the matter, too many (for my liking) are missing heart--a passion that transcends the feelings we have for ourselves (our own individuality, needs, and so on) and that transcends even the feeling we have for the other person involved (the recipient of our love).

That "beyond" place is a place where love loves itself--driven by an undeniable instinct to protect and honor itself at all costs. Suddenly, there, if you're lucky enough to get there, love carries you and yours. You are no longer under your own power--things become more effortless, a moving sidewalk. If you're there, hang on. Don't leave that place, even for a minute. It's like a good concert--if you go outside, you'll have a hell of a time getting back in. Do not pass go, do not leave your spot on the love line.

To lose that place is to be truly lost.

alone again, naturally

George is off to Germany to record for a couple of weeks. I'm back to the familiar alone-with-jenna life I've become accustomed to over the last six months. It's just wonderful. Really. You believe me? Well, then. Don't. I'm not having fun yet. Feeling very family-less. I miss him--I miss "us" the family of three. My life suddenly isn't what it was.

It's funny, when you're growing up you long for that family that will be better than the family you were raised in--in one way or ten.

When you're six, it's "When I have a family of my own, I won't make MY kids go to bed at 8:30."

When you're sixteen, it's "When I have a family of my own I won't run my kids' lives the way my mom tries to run mine."

For me, as a teenager, it was, "When I have a family of my own, no one will ever leave or die." (okay, so I had a little baggage.)

When I was 24, and I heard myself thinking, "This is my husband, this is our house, we're a team ready to take on the world. No one can stop us now."

When I was 36 I thought, "I have a family of my own--this is our baby girl--we're three now. We'll be together always and laugh and joke and play stupid games."

Now I'm 40 and three months, and I hear myself thinking, "Where did my family of my own go?"

skewered

it is sharper
than the edge
of a blade
turned inward
feels like
blood pooling
around my
heart

wretch
to purge
the agony
a feeling
I know
a familiar
letting go,

getting to
emptiness.

vow

From two lips
until forever
spoken on leaves
that drip promise
or is it the surprise
morning shower
that soaks
the day
with heat.

One now
not two
the thickness
of the air
carries the music,
a slow cadence
purposeful,
the notes
have time
to lick my ear
remind me
this day
happens
only once.

Unwrap a lifetime
look at it up close
meaning gives
way to knots, bumps
the bee hive disturbed
children in suits
and party dresses
scatter, crying,
stung
welts rising
eyes
wet with tears
the grownups kiss
away.

step down

Cixous says
climb the
ladder down
step down
into writing
where pain
and grief
bring strange
joy -- relief
if not because,
then because not.

I step down
into pain
again
that doesn't
go away
eases up
for a year
two, five,
minutes
another
step down
now into it
and how do I know
when I'm at the
bottom
my foot
reaches ahead
of me
my toes
feel only air

I am afraid
to know
I'm not there
yet.

more on relateivity

back to relationshipping for a minute, or relationtrips, because they are a trip, right?

tripp-fucking-y.

Elaine had a really good comment (that's now gone because of my disappearing/reappearing previous post) that said some stuff about the power of coming to a relationship already formed, complete, good with yourself, individually together BEFORE you delve into the long-term relationship, not struggling to get there after you've made the commitment. But I think you can't do that, or at least mostly you can't. I think it takes relationships to make you relate. I shouldn't use "you." Or should I? Are we relating? I guess I should use we.

Maybe folks who wait until they're 30 or 40 to get serious about a relationship do bring their more fully-formed individual selves into their eventual relationship. But don't they bring extra baggage too? Because how did they get fully formed? Not by sitting on a rock alone shouting into the wind? By relating, no? I think.

Does it take that kind of thing--that individuality of being completely alone by and with yourself for some I-don't-know-how-long length of time before you become that complete/solid individual who can better fulfill his or her end of a relationship? And if so, where do you run into another individual just like you? Someone who's also been sitting alone on their rock getting good with themselves before they get good with you? Like, how would you two ever run into one another? Because you wouldn't want to waste your solid self on someone who hasn't been doing their own deep interpersonal work--otherwise, aren't you doomed to a failed relationship?

Fascinating to me. Really. Because I'm pretty sure I just don't get it. It's like some mystery novel for me with the back half of the book torn off.

I say that we say this: I fucking love you, that's first, then second, I love us, what we are together, and yes of course, third--this is where last but certainly not least comes from--I love me because if I didn't love me, how could I love you? or Us? And if I happen to not love all of me, then show me how you do. And I'll do that for you too. Look, you love me. That's amazing. What do you feel like inside, now, this minute, no, do you see me? look at me. see my eyes. know them? you do know them. And they love you. It's more than my "self" that loves you--bigger than that. It's my skin on yours, my eyes shining out from yours, my finger tips on your cheek that love you. It's your brain on my funny bone. It's my head tucked under your chin.

It's the wierd places of me that I wouldn't know I had unless they were bouncing off of you.

okay my relate-ivity post got gone, so I copied it and pasted it in again

but... comments from elaine, marek, and ray went away. sorry.... wha happend???

my theory of relate-ivity

Relationships aren't individuals.
Individuals aren't relationships.
You don't relate individually, except, to yourself.

yourself. yourself. yourself.
(that's an echo)

You relate in relationships. ONLY. period.

So, I'm asking. How does it work?

Is there ever or always a third and fourth person in relationships?
You bring yourself in.
The other person brings himself/herself in.
Then each of you brings the self who works on the relationship TO the relationship -- that's the entire job of these third and fourth relationship selves. Because you need them. It's that hard.

Individually it is much easier to remain an individual. Separate from a relationship. No?

Maybe...
Individual self says:
I want my needs met = Meet them for me or I will have to meet them myself.
Relationship self says:
I want my needs met = I want to meet your needs too.

I dunno. This isn't all about love/romantic relationships. I think it stretches across friendships and blogging and work/business and all of that. Our boundaries are ever more interesting. This relating thing is getting more and more complicated as our understanding of our "selves" and "our world," and their limits or lack thereof, continue to morph.

good night.

never mind.

why i don't hit publish right away.

artist+realist=progeny

Getting Jenna to wind down for bed is never easy. I could tell you all of the "conversation"--a demand she makes nightly, no matter how many books, no matter how many stories--that we had tonight, but it would embarass her well into her 30s. This nugget deserves to be told, though. Aunt Net is Annette, our next door neighbor. And for those playing the home game, Jenna is 4.

Jenna: "I love all the arts and crafts Aunt Net does. Those are the kind of things I like to do. Do you know if she painted the pine cones for me yet? I will ask her. Tomorrow. I still want to be an artist when I grow up. When I have my own house, I'll paint and draw all the things I want to, and I'll paint my bathroom any colors I want. I'll draw pictures for it too."

Mom: "That sounds fun--and can I come over and watch you?"

Jenna: "Sure, if you're not dead."

BB votes to amputate RB's lips

Shelley is tired of them. I'm tired of them. We're all tired of them. THOSE FUCKING LIPS! Join Shelley's email campign to nudge the God of Gonzo on to other body parts. No more teeth. No more lips. No more teeth and lips. Say it loud. Say it like you mean it: "Lose the Lips TODAY, RB!"

My body part replacement suggestion was the middle finger. I know, it's been done. But it still seemed fitting. So hands off the middle finger, Paynter. ;-)

the return

mountains good
city bad
deer good
stray cat bad
pontoon boat good
blue minivan bad
hotel good
house bad
service good
no service bad
eating out good
cooking bad
fishing good
PR bad
sun good
flourescent lights bad
swimming good
typing bad

guess where I'd rather be.

Gone fishing

Headed to Red Top Mountain for a day or so to fish, swim, and celebrate our 16th Wedding Anniversary, with Jenna in tow, of course. Will reflect upon our return. Hard copy blogging while gone. Film at 11.

Skeleton Keys

Before I happened upon yesterday's metro carnage, I was taking one of those naps--a three hour doosey during which I never slept at all, rather lay there paralyzed by visions hell bent on attacking me. Those are fast dreams. It's like being pummeled by a stronger oponent with bigger boxing gloves than you. I always "wake up" from those kind of naps more tired than I was before, and generally suicidal. It's a long standing thing with me--DON'T NAP.

You see, I tricked myself after having a baby. I became a pretty good napper. A champion napper. You have no choice but to nap when you have a baby. Our little chow hound demanded milk every hour and a half. Her shrill scream would snap me out of slumber, wouldn't hush until her mouth was busy on my breast, where it gnawed for a half hour, which meant, I spent three months sleeping one hour at a time. That's some major nap mileage. Yeah. I learned to nap. I really can be like normal people.

No, sorry. Not so. That was just exhaustion talking. I still can't nap. Not without waking up feeling like I need to crawl out of my skin, like nothing could ever possibly be okay again.

Where does that come from? It's not a fear of napping--I like the idea of napping. It's the fear of waking up into chaos. I got a glimpse of it tonight, as I thought and thought about it, and almost got back there, to the morning after my father died, the first coming awake with the knowledge that nothing would ever be okay again, and I think my wake phobia may have roots to that very morning. The day of the news, I did what any six year old would do, I think. I asked to go outside and play. I wasn't allowed to. Understandable. Now. Not then. Okay, you guys have a stiff drink and I'll sit here twidling my thumbs--what about my relief? Play was my relief. But not this day.

Still, the day he died, as I remember it, wasn't that bad after the initial shock wore off. Used to being helpless, children come to acceptance faster than adults do. You have been trained by six to accept what you have no control over.

The next day. The waking to find everything still undone. That's where it is. That's where I am.

So yesterday's nap was one of those three hour paralysis sessions that I guess other people call naps, and one of the wake-dreams I had was about skeleton keys.

Growing up in western New York, the houses were old. Not like here. City houses in Rochester are big, huge, old, structures with lots of oak and wood inside and a whole lot of character, some good, some not so good. The doors in the houses I remember aren't these hollow pre-fabs. They're solid. They're massive. And all the ones I knew had skeleton keys.

That's what parents had back then that we don't have now. Skeleton Keys. For all the inside doors, the bedroom doors. One worked pretty much like the rest. All you needed was one good skeleton key. You know why skeleton keys are different than regular keys? Why those locks are different than the spin-the-handle knob locks we have here? Because skeleton keys worked from both sides. Lock in / lock out. That's how good Rochester Catholics kept all twelve kids on regular nap and bedtime schedules. That's how they kept kids in line, out of their hair. That was discipline. That's when "Go to your room" meant you were going to your room, and if you came out, the skeleton key would make sure you didn't do it twice. Lock us out, lock us in. Privacy. Order. Enforced loneliness.

Something to be said for that. Or is it just time for me to take another nap?

metro carnage

It seems that every time I go out in this metropolis that is Atlanta, trauma is waiting. Maybe it's the size of this overgrown and mostly annoying city. Or maybe it's haunted. Something about everything being so new--burned down once to rise again with a vengence. What's under the layers of bulldozed earth, made so pristine by hired-hand landscaping and clean brick fronts. I think of Shelley telling me to peel back the layers of the onion. Be careful how far you go.

I'm on my way to pick up Jenna from afternoon summer camp. Forgetting the cell phone, I head back upstairs to get it. Those are the 30 seconds, a minute maybe, the ticking of the clock you become thankful for later, after you happen on an accident that just happened, one you would have been in if you hadn't forgotten something, hadn't stopped to wipe down the counter before leaving.

I'm one of the first cars there--neighbors are already rushing out of their houses doing the thing that makes people feel connected--we're at war you know--and God bless them, they try to direct traffic, call 911, wonder how the hell they'll get out of their driveways now.

Like an exclamation point at the nucleus of the wreckage, I see the perfect, shining coat, amazing muscular body lying on its side, part of him still under one of the cars, three cars in all in various stages of being forever mangled, interrupted from the daily rush by the simple and innocent instinct of this purebred Rottweiler who decided to cross the road at the wrong instant. He's still--I know he's dead. A petite blonde with bad hair kneels by his belly, strokes his face. She isn't crying. I wonder if this is his owner, or one of the unhurt from the mangled cars feeling just as crushed.

I've seen accidents with semi-trucks where the unlucky participants didn't look as bad as these cars. What the hell happened? I can only imagine the white car turning off the side street, seeing the romping mass of life charging across the street, then slamming on the breaks just in time for the two cars barreling down the main road to smash him and this beautiful creature to bits.

You didn't have to be there. Officer, would you like me to tell you what happened? I've just watched the replay in my mind a dozen times, and I didn't even see it happen.

I sit two, three minutes waiting for the police to come, which they do, and clear an imaginary path so that the growing line of traffic can get around the mess, which is taking up the entire road. While I wait for them, I get to stare at the dead-or-dying rottie, the man in the driver's seat of the first car in the line of wreckage with his head tilted back in a way that clues me in: he has no other option. Neighbors are reaching inside another car and shouting to one another. Everyone is in motion, except the dog.

Sacrifice. That's what I named him, there, this day.

Happy Blogday, Marek

Marek's two today! Marek, I think that makes you old. Or else terrible. I dunno. But I do know you have been an inspiration to me both as blogger, and more importantly as a human being. Struggle, climb, fall, struggle, climb, fall, struggle, climb, summit. We will. Have a great blogday Marek!

swallow

Find out too late
maybe never
the swallow in the
garage yesterday,
drawn to the
shine of the
black truck,
what he saw there,
himself.

the sudden sound
of damage
wings meet metal
flight interrupted
by panes of glass
he doesn't know how
to stop trying
to break free.

How long did it
take me
to open the door
watch him fly off
touch down
on the highest branch
the nearest tree,
his rapid altitude saying
no thanks to you.

I pick up a feather
study its fine lines
play tricks with
patterns
wonder
is this all
he lost?

For Immediate Release

Make it Digiorno, Or Make It Yourself
But Don't Let RageBoy Make It

Boulder, CO., August 5, 2002... Digiorno Pizza today announced an improved method for cooking its fast-rising-crust Supreme pizzas. Next week the company will make a correction to its label, which previously instructed "users" to remove pizza from the plastic wrapper and cardboard before cooking. Digiorno now advises that cooking the pizza with the cardboard backing still in place is safe, and in some instances advised.

The correction was based on recommendataions from the R&D department, headed by Dr. Rage Boy, (RB) PhD, who made the discovery late yesterday that Digiorno cardboard is inflamable.

"I never knew you were supposed to take the fucking cardboard off in the first place," he said. "I put the za in the oven with the cardboard on the bottom, and when the timer went ding 20 minutes later, I'm asking myself, with blogger friend Jeneane Sessum listening in by phone, what the fuck do I put the pizza on? OUCH! Shit, I burned myself. So she goes, put it back on the cardboard, goofball. And I go, it's already on the cardboard. And she goes, already on the cardboard? What, you cooked the fucking cardboard? And I go, um, yeah. Aren't you supposed to? And she goes, you're the head of R&D, don't you know? And I go, no."

Sessum expressed immediate concern that dangerous carcinogens may have leached into the pizza from cooking the cardboard at the extra-crunchy-crust 425-degree recommended temperature.

"I was pretty sure he'd be dead," Sessum said. "I figured, either his place was burning to the ground and he had no idea--he's on these medicnes, you know--or that he'd be taking a dirt nap after one bite of that bigass fast-rising crust laced with poisonous cardboard shavings."

In a surprise move, RB pulled the cardboard off the bottom of the pizza, threw it in the trash, and downed the first piping hot piece in 30 seconds flat.

"It fucking tasted better," he said. "Tender, chewy and crunchy all at the same time, with a nice wood smoked flavor to boot. I'm thinking that this is the Reeses Fucking Peanut Butter Cup story all over again. Peanut butter in my chocolate, cardboard in my crust. EUREKA! So I call the boss right away and I says to him, Papa Digiorno, I gotta some news! Tell marketing to call me--I gotta newa crust idea!"

The company intends to add the cardboard-ready fast rising supreme pizza crust to its product line sometime next fall. Currently, packaging on the full line of Digiorno products will be revised to include instructions for the with-cardboard preparation method.

Digiorno's move shook the already volitile market, with Dominos' stock up $8.70 on the news.

###

Welcome Mary to the blogging scene

Welcome Mary Brotherton to Blogaria. I've been giving her prods and hints all along, after reading many emails from her that were worthy of blog posts. We met Mary, who works for our accupuncturist, about a year ago. Knowing that she loves to write, George and I both told her, MARY YOU SHOULD BLOG! Well, she finally gave into the temptation. Watch how quickly it becomes an addiction, Mary. She's new, so any hints you can give her, I know she'd welcome. Hey Mary, put your email in my comment field if you want some extra advice from the crew.

Taking a Chance on Me

I've been working full time for 20 years now. And for me--well you all know me well enough to know that full time is full time plus pulling all the stops out, doing whatever it takes for a cause or colleage--which means that full time is more like 50-60 hours a week. Sometimes more. Not all my dutiful nature, mind you. I got a lot out of my work--I always have since writing has always been involved. So I loved work as much as work loved me. The star performer, the one the client always wants to work with. Meantime, have a baby why don't you, and raise her at home while you work full-plus time, trading care for her off in random intervals with your husband, who is also trying to further his career and take care of business, and suddenly project after project after project, goal after goal after goal, time ticks by. And where did you go? We go?

So I made a decision yesterday, and my employer was kind enough to accommodate me. I'm going part-time. Starting with 30 hours a week, which will give me the freedom to work just the hours Jenna's in school when Pre-K starts August 12th. Doesn't sound like much of a cutback, but when you realize I was working 50 just to be able to bill 40, it could mean a lot. What that means I think, first, is nights and weekends without work. Wow.

Wow. I can't remember the last time I didn't work a weekend to try to keep up, bill the hours. Be the star. The one they think kindly of. That's the wonderful world of consulting. Billability, the double-edged sword. It's sweet when times are good--look how valuable I am = see how much I bill. But in tough times, both economically and personally, the struggle to fulfill your commitment to the organization (when you're an overly consciensous worker like me) can wear you down, wear you out. burn you out.

I'm worn out. And I'm doing my best to change one part of the equation that's burned out my passion. By going part time I think I can give the BEST of me to work and the BEST of me to myself and my family. It's a start anyway. One change at a time, so to speak.

Next week, for the first time in my grown up years, I am a part-timer.

yikes.

wow.

That's all for now.

looking for me

It's not that I got lost along the way; it's that in some fundamental ways, I never formed. I'm talking origins, the origins of damage--not of damaging things done or said, but of the most important thing that never happened at all.

I've been running for a long time--making my life one big project, one activity-packed week at a time, living my days in billable hours, pushing along, trying to make progress for me and my family--in short, hiding. Hiding from what? Noticing. Noticing that I'm not here. Anywhere.

You've heard people say, "I spent a year in Alaska trying to find myself." That'd be nice. I wish that would work for me. The point is, I'm not out there. I could go to Alaska, Australia, to the corner smoke shop to get a pack of American Spirits, and guess who wouldn't be there. Me.

So begins my odyssey. Unraveling and digging into really hurtful places, empty spaces, terrifying to me, and coming out of it with I don't know who, hopefully coming out of it alive. Hopefully coming out of it with my family still there. And even more--hopefully making myself do it. I have to start. No other way through but in.