response to Sophie

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:31:27 GMT

My instructions ...

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"There's no magic bullet for ADHD, or even a tidy little treatment that works equally well for all individuals."

Saturday Night Live - Palin / Hillary Open

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:51:13 GMT

Saturday Night Live - Palin / Hillary Open

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:51:00 GMT

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:28:39 GMT

So, I'm finally making a post. Funny, but I thought when and if I ever did record my thoughts here that the words I'd leave would somehow be so witty, or profound, or delightfully entertaining, that I'd come away from my keyboard feeling a sense of pride. It isn't working out that way. Today is my birthday. I am older today than yesterday. I don't know what to do about it. I know that birthdays in general are cause for celebration among my friends and with other people too, but I haven't much experienced that side of things myself.
When I was young, a birthday usually meant you got to pick the dinner of your choice- within reason. (we were white trash poor, and Red Lobster would have been out of the question, even if the nearby town had been host to the restaurant- and it wasn't- instead there were three or four diners, two Mexican restaurants, a Denny's and a Sambo's. Red Lobster would require a journey to Phoenix, some 130 miles away) Also on the list of birthday entitlements in my family- a cake-. Not such a bad thing- really. But for as long as I can remember I've always hated cake- it feels like sawdust in my mouth, and it makes me want to gag. Today I've foolishly spent time looking through family albums, several years of my birthdays are recorded therein- and in each one, a picture of me with the cake I didn't want. In the younger-years pictures, I am crying because i don't want to eat the cake and my mother has forced a piece in front of me with the admonition that I'm being rude to Grandma or whomever baked the horrible thing and that I'm embarrassing her, etc. etc. In the pictures where I'm just a bit older, I'm not crying or smiling. I am stoic. One in particular makes me laugh today because I remember that the minute after the shot was taken I slipped out the back door and ran about a mile and a half down the road to the lake near our house. Once there I climbed the tallest tree I could find, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening fishing from the branches that leaned out over the water. This escape had required some planning, so pre-made PB&J sandwiches along with my pole and bait were waiting for me when I got there. I stayed until way past dark, until I saw my Dad's flashlight come dancing along the path toward my tree. I never will know how he found me, but he often did when I thought I was beyond detection, usually up some tree. That birthday I felt pretty ashamed of myself- there had been quite a few relatives around the house to visit- and I hadn't lived up to any sort of expectation whatsoever- I was sure of that. I climbed down and met him at the base of my tree, tears already running down to my chin..
He didn't say a word about what I'd done, just asked me how they were biting, and told me that I had forgotten something when I left. He pressed a small hard object into my hands. And under the summer moon I unwrapped the newspaper around the first birthday present I can recall. Something I had wanted and begged and wheedled for years to have for my own but no avail. A real pocketknife- better than my older brothers, and sharp enough to put my mother into fits and then some. "Keep in in your tackle box, Toad" my father warned, "or we'll both be in trouble." We stayed long enough to carve my name and age into the trunk of that tree, and though we should have hurried home, we didn't. Instead we took our time, skipping rocks into the water, and pausing here and there to watch fish jump for the bugs just above the lake's glassy surface.
He made that Birthday wonderful for me. And the next year he implemented the idea of a Birthday Pie instead of cake- which pretty much alleviated my need to execute elaborate escapes from that particular family event anyway. Now as I type this I find I wish he were here now. Maybe if he were alive and around I would have plans for my birthday today. I don't. And I realize that I don't have any because I haven't made any. I still tend to disappear around my birthday with regard to most of my friends. I often talk about celebrating it in some big way- (usually from the safe distance of at least a month in advance) But as the date gets nearer, I catch myself, year after year, withdrawing into a solitary place that starts out safe in my mind- and ends up pretty lonely and painful. Then as the day passes without fanfare, I find all sorts of good reasons to feel sorry for me, and sad about my life.. and that, my friends, is what I'm not going to let myself do any longer. Getting older has precious few benefits that I can see clearly, but one that I'm aware of is that we gain the ability to see behavioral patterns in ourselves more clearly with each passing year. Another age-related benefit- finding the courage to change those patterns when we do see them. Now that I've gotten all mature and posted this entry, I can't possibly repeat my birthday pattern next year, can I? Not without considerable effort, anyway. So for next year- I do hereby declare- I'm having a party for myself. I'm pretty certain I will be calling on my more organized friends to assist me with the planning, (and you know who you are so be warned) - And everyone, mark your calendars now, because while I have no idea what the celebration may entail, I do know it will be something I've never done before- and for me thats almost always a great time!
One thing though- seriously; don't expect to eat or bring me any, CAKE.

Fierce With Reality

response to Sophie

Saturday Night Live - Palin / Hillary Open

Saturday Night Live - Palin / Hillary Open