So, I just got back from picking my son, Liam, up from the bus stop. His bus stops at the entrance of the development. It is about 20F and windy outside, so I waited for my other, older son, Geoff, too. Geoff prefers to walk home with the other high school and middle school kids most days, but he climbed into the van without any eye-rolling or sighing today.

While I was out there, I thought I would get the mail. And what do you suppose was there?

Another package for me! This time it was a birthday present from my in-laws. They sent me the Special Edition Cowboy Bebop: The Movie and 101 Philosophy Problems by Martin Cohen. I love getting stuff that I want in the mail! I called my mother-in-law and thanked her. She seemed pretty happy that I liked it. I think she was embarrassed that she completely skipped my birthday last year, even though it didn't really matter to me. My husband's family is very much into birthdays, though, so I guess it mattered to her.

I've gotten better at accepting both gifts and compliments. These days I am genuinely grateful to receive them, instead of uncomfortable and embarrassed. It's a joy to be remembered and thought well of. There's nothing humble or modest about second guessing someone who has given you a gift; that's just a tragic lack of grace and gratitude.

I am really tired today. I had lunch at a Chinese Buffet. It has made me queasy. I think I may go take a nap to deal with both problems.

Though it has been many months, this still cracks me up:

Now that I have posted what I wrote yesterday, it is time for me to write a little something for today.

I have to give my husband some credit today. He went out job hunting today. He also registered for some classes for the spring. He says he's going to go back out tomorrow, probably before I even get up. I am proud of him for finally getting motivated. He says he figured it was time to start aggressively looking for employment. I told him I thought aggressive was sexy.

I have been getting into a bad habit of staying up extremely late. I think I am going to have to start cutting out around midnight. Next week I start classes, and I have at least one 8:30am class. I will have to have a look at my schedule now to see what I will be doing when.

My supervisor just called me with my schedule for next week. It's going to be pretty busy. I work for RGIS, the people who count inventory in stores. The work is hourly, scheduled by store when the work is available. This is the busy time of year. The work really isn't too hard, although it can get to be more physical than you would think, and the pay is ok for part-time. I am scheduled for a whole lot of hours in the next couple of weeks, and then it will taper off a little. I really need to find something with more regular hours and less driving.

I think I will go out and apply for a bunch of jobs tomorrow. I have several places in mind.

I am already feeling sleepy. I think I want to go take a short nap, and then I will be back online for a little while before I go to sleep for the night.

I wrote this last night, but when I went to post it, Blogger was down for maintenance, so I didn't get to post it until now.
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You know what I hate?
No, not "everything".

I hate it when I get settled in and intend to write, only to be bugged by other people. That's what happened to my last entry here. I was getting all settled in to write about the dynamic forces that keep the Universe going, only to have my husband insist that I had to restart my computer right that very second so that the drivers for the new printer would kick in, so that he could print a resume. So, I just published the one line I had written, and rebooted.

And he did print his resume. I don't know that he did anything with it, or that it was really necessary that he do it right that second, but at least he actually printed the damned thing after derailing my train of thought.

He's pissing me off lately. He sits on his fat ass watching TV and playing Gunbound all day, yells at the kids, cooks a little dinner and acts like he's some kind of freakin' martyr. He's such a big baby, he won't go look for a job unless I go with him to hold his hand. He hardly ever leaves the house at all. He's not even a housewife; I was a housewife for years, and I spent my days reading, writing, running errands, cleaning house, taking care of kids, and looking for answers to life's big questions. No, he's no housewife. He's a housePLANT.

OK. Just had to get that out of my system. I sure hope he doesn't read this. He's depressed enough as it is.

I don't really know what is happening to me. For the last several weeks, I have been going through a sort of personal transformation. Every day I find out something new and shocking about myself. My latest discovery is that I have spent the several years not tasting my food, and now I can taste it again. I am finding that I hate the crap that I have been eating regularly. I must have been insane!

I wasn't always fat. I was a normal weight for most of my life. It has only been in the last several years that I put on all this weight. At the same time, my husband put on a lot of weight too. I thought that we were making each other fat, giving each other permission to eat stuff we shouldn't and not do anything physical. While that might have been a part of it, I see now that there was something else at work. I can see now that there was a sort of emptiness in me that I was trying to fill. I was seeking some sort of sensation to overcome the numbness. I suspect it is the same for him. We went through some really hard times, and I think we may have come out damaged. We were damaged, our relationship was damaged. I think we became unable to connect with each other, or anyone else, including ourselves. I was so numb that I would eat and eat and eat all sorts of junk, trying to get something out of it that food just can't give.

This has changed for me lately. I can't even say exactly what happened, but I woke up one day feeling like the clouds had lifted. I like being me. I love finding out who I am. There's endless delight in just being who I really am. I've become honest, with myself, and with other people. People ask me questions, and I tell them what I really think. It is the most amazing thing. Finding out that I have been eating awful crap for years now is just a side effect of whatever it is that is happening to me.

I have been thinking this afternoon about polarity, about the yin and yang of things.

Never mind. It fixed itself.

I love it when problems fix themselves!

My archiving isn't working properly. I will try to figure out what is wrong with it when I have a little more time.

I am going to have a very busy today. I have errands to run, and I want to clean my house back to the point that I can have people in and not be embarrassed.

Imagine my surprise when I finally got around to going to the mailbox and found that I had gifts from a friend waiting there for me. I'm just thrilled. I got a book (Language Death by David Crystal) and a DVD (Pirates of the Caribbean). I am really glad and grateful to have gotten them.

Unexpected gifts are the best kind.

In other news, I got my hair cut today. I still have a little bit of red from the last time I dyed my hair, but that will be gone the next time I get it cut. I feel a lot better now that my hair is shorter and neater. It's also nicer to touch with most of the damaged, dyed hair gone.

I got my hair cut at the mall. My 11 year old daughter went with me. We raided the accessories boutiques for post-Christmas bargains. She found a matched set of mother/daughter necklaces, so we got those. She got a charm bracelet. We both got new rings. I got a cowrie shell anklet.

I was surprised to find that the anklet is pretty loose on me, despite being made with elastic, and the necklace fit beautifully. I was out jewelry shopping last July for my brother-in-law's wedding, and it was just horrible. I was so fat that nothing fit right. Needless to say, I am happy about fitting things better.

I mentioned this to my husband and he says that I have lost a lot of weight since summer. I really hadn't noticed much, since I wear baggy clothes most of the time. I was able to buy a smaller size when I bought my work pants. I could even get into the next smaller size, but those were still tight across the butt. It's very encouraging that my efforts are paying off, in any case.

Six more months of this, and I might start feeling good about how I look. I hope that I will be able to get into this pretty floral mini-dress that's up in my closet. I love that dress, but I have only worn it twice.

Work was long and hard tonight. There are lots of things I like long and hard, and work is not one of those things. I am winding down now. I am tired, but still too wound up from work to go to sleep just yet.

Part of me wants to try to soften what I wrote earlier about my past, but I don't think I will do that. My past wasn't very soft on me, after all. I will let it stand. It isn't as bad as it could be, anyway. I didn't tell everything.

I was thinking about writing more here while I was on my way home from work. I have some stories in mind to tell. But not tonight. Tonight, I just want to sit here and stare until I shake off the work-induced daze.

I used to apologize for everything, whether or not I had anything to do with it. I am even now feeling the urge to apologize and explain away the life story I posted early. But I won't do that. No apologies. No excuses.

I think I might pop over to my little Geocities page and add some more things to my list of random facts about myself.