Star Jones: I had gastric-bypass surgery

Duh!

What A Laugh

Together we laugh a lot. Too bad we aren't together more often.

Guilt

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH the GUILT

Fight Club

I wish that Fight Club was real. I don't mean the crazy stuff they did on the outside, I just mean the fighting part. Maybe it is real, they just don't talk about it.

He Hit It

He hits the nail on the head with that last part. Not sure about everything leading up to it, but the ending seemed about right.

Maybe you know what it is like to be stuck. One of the phrases that best describes addiction is “temporary suicide.” He doesn’t have the stomach or the means to draw the final curtain. But he sure as hell can make this pain go away for a few hours. If you are seeking relief, look no further. This stuff will fit the bill. When there are no answers, this is the best answer. And my man has NO CHOICE in the moment. NONE.

If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand addiction. The drugs and the alcohol aren’t the problem. It’s the brain. What we’ve learned about addiction recently will blow you away. When addiction sets up in the brain, it comes to rest in the survival center. It’s where the caveman and cavewoman live. Real primal stuff. So what would you do to survive? Eat human flesh? Cut off your arm with a pocketknife? For the addict in the late stages of the disease, using is literally a matter of survival. You can’t talk them out of it. You can’t pray them out of it. You can’t guilt them out of it. You can’t even incarcerate them out of it. The only way they even
consider the possibility of quitting is when that first light bulb hits their brain: Maybe, just maybe there’s another way to ease this pain.

To read the rest, head over here: http://web.mac.com/larryvaughan/iWeb/Site/Blog/D2D82C54-FDAE-4223-8189-E7F72170FA19.html

Turn me off

I just want to turn my brain off. I don't really care how it happens, I just want it off.

Taste

Hope differed makes the heart sick . . . it's Biblical. There are things I want in life, and I am nowhere nearer to having them than I was a year ago, two years ago, heck - 10 years ago. Some days I wonder if it is me . . . mostly it is. I use to think that if I had a taste of it, that maybe I wouldn't want it anymore. I would see it for what it really is, and I would decide that maybe it wasn't really for me to begin with. But now I get tastes of them every once and awhile, and it just leaves me wanting more. Some tastes are so good, the only thing you can do is savor it, and wait for another taste - hoping that the next taste might truly be the meal you get to enjoy forever. The problem is how you handle the days, weeks, months that you can't taste it at all.

I

Because it is all about me. I found this fill in the blank on a blog that no one writes in anymore. They use to write a lot, but I guess things just fizzled out. It is by pure chance I found it and I thought that the exercise was neat. I am not going to fill it out tonight, I will probably sleep on it awhile.

i want:
i promise:
i desire:
i need:
i believe:
i love:
i hate:
i treasure:
i am:
i hope:
i know:

UGGGGGG

It's too HOT

The Cruel Light of Reality

At some point I think I am going to have to realize that what I think I want, is in reality not at all what I want. When the reality of my situation sets in, I realize that what I want may not really exist. I guess that is why they call some things dreams.

Complications

Why do I make everything so complicated? Why can't I just live life and not interject it with my random thoughts, and interjections?

Happiness

Happiness is your arms glittering with little specs of glass of all different colors, from a stained glass project you are making for a friend. I guess it is my way of giving them something of myself, although I get to have all the fun.

Panic

I just had one of those moments. You know the one:

I hit send on an email, and immediately wanted to un-send it. That moment where you go - "oh crap. I hope they still talk to me tomorrow."

Cutting

I have this weird feeling - it is early, and I don't really want to go to bed, but I feel like it is too late to work on my current glass project. I am in limbo. I also feel like calling someone, which is not like me and is kind of scary. The thought entered my mind and totally freaked me out. Maybe this is a turning point in my life. Maybe this is why I have some time on my hands right now. I'm not going to take advantage of it - don't you worry about that. I'm going to let the moment pass, then regret it tomorrow.

As for my glass project - I am working on a window. A big window. Biggest project I have ever done. Well it is my third ever - so anything is bigger than the beginner things. I am afraid I got a little ambitious with this one, tried to make my own pattern. Worked well until I tried to cut it, then I realized that glass really doesn't want to cut the way I made my pattern. So I have had to improvise. Needless to say - this window will never be done again. It will truly be a one of a kind.

Glass is funny that way. I have never worked closely with glass in it's liquid form, but I have watched. And I would bet there are certain rules that glass makes you follow in that form, just as in it's solid form. For instance, you can only break glass a certain way. You can not make inside corners, or deep inside curves. Glass wants to break straight. So when breaking a curved piece it doesn't really want to do that. When I say break - I mean a controlled break. I'm not just sitting around throwing glass on the ground hoping for the pieces I need, I am controlling the break to a point, by scoring the glass first, then applying pressure to break it. You knew that, I just told you again because I can. It makes me feel smart, like I know things that you don't - but the reality is, I don't really know anything more than you do - actually I know less. Anyway, because you can't only control glass to a point, patterns have to follow specific rules. Well I broke a big one with this pattern, and now I am paying for it. BUT - the result is amazing (I think). I just spent that entire paragraph talking in circles. I might need to consult the little writer inside me and see if she really does want to come out - because it could be a disaster.

Year In Review: Part 2

Well my birthday has come and gone, so it is time for my annual recap of my year. As I have said before - New Year's Eve is a great time to take stock and review, but as for me - I pick my birthday. I have hit 28 (an even number for those of you keeping track). Ever since 18 even numbered years have been overall negative, and odd numbered years have been overall positive. I think last year and the beginning of this one has proved that that isn't really the case anymore. I am not a superstitious person by nature, so I think the whole even/odd thing was my superstition.

ANYWAY . . .
This year was good . . . I think. To be honest I don't really remember it as a whole. That isn't to say I spent the year waisted and can't remember anything of significance - I think what I am saying is that there are few things that stick out to me. Which is good, because usually negative things stick out to me, and I think the most important thing that happened to me this year is that I learned to let some of the negative things in my life go.

Still working at Poynter Landscape (www.poynterlandscape.com for those of you keeping track), one month into year four. Funny, I didn't think I would last that long - but I have, and I am more or less liking it. My old roommate got married, so I moved, still live in a basement, but this one is much warmer. My dog and I reached a new level in our relationship, one where I realize that she is a dog and not my kid - we are much happier that way.

Lessons, or events that made 27:

1. Got up the guts to go over to a friends house and swing. Swinging, as you may or may not know, was my favorite activity as a child. So much so that any time I feel any negative emotion is makes it less, and any time I feel a positive emotion it makes it heightened. It is my personal belief that is was the spring board for my healthier mental outlook- and they might never get me to leave their backyard.

2. I quit going to counseling. This was a major event in my life - some even said I graduated, and I feel a bit like I did. The first title for this Blog was "Hey - Where Is My Couch", meaning this was where I was going to vent. Blogging wasn't enough so I went to talk to someone that had skin. Earlier this year I changed the name of my blog to "Sarcastic and Single" because I felt like I was coming to an end of the era of needing a couch (and because someone said that about me). As of a few months ago - that was true, I was at the end of the era of needing a couch. And, so it seems, the end of the era for really needing the blog (of which I already talked about in "Dear Gentle Reader").

3. Year 27 was the year of Little Miss Sunshine. I don't think I could count how many times I have seen this movie in the last year. But it has become a staple of my movie watching.

4. Finally understood my dad, and knew that maybe turning out to be like him wasn't as bad as I had originally suspected. In fact, figured if I did turn out to be like him that would probably be a good thing. I think I get him now, and the original horror of being like him as turned into wonder.

5. I learned that grief comes in many different forms, and can come from many different events - not just death. I spent the entire month of May in grief over the loss of my childhood innocence that my parents and grandparents aren't invincible.

6. I learned that no matter how normal your work shirts look - they do have your company's name on them and shouldn't be worn to social events.

7. Cancun is the closest I have come to heaven on earth. Not sure if it was the combination of the sun, the beach, the language, or the company - but it really was a great time. Only the second vacation spot that I can truly say I will go back again.

8. Wendy's disappeared from St. Louis. I never knew how much I liked Wendy's until it was gone. Now I have to travel an hour if I want a Jr. Bacon Cheese Burger, and that is just wrong. And "Oh the humanity" when they show a Wendy's commercial on TV.

9. I will not spend another New Year's Eve at a party - unless it involves a movie marathon, and me laying around in sweats eating ice cream.

10. I decided that someday I want to write. Whether it be an essay, a story, a term paper, or an instructional manual. I just know that somewhere inside of me there is a writer that wants to come out. It may not be during 28, it may not be until 82, but she is in there . . . I think she is just scared.

Year In Review

My yearly review of my life may have to wait until tomorrow - I'm just to tired to start that tonight. I will say this has to rank in one of my top 5 birthdays of my 28.