Meditation or Mediation?

So I drove back to work in silence today, at lunch. I guess I needed the meditation time. I'm not really sure what prompted it, other than the static of the radio, prior to turning on the Sirius, which was really annoying. So instead of turning on the Sirius, I turned the radio off. And the 10 - 15 minutes i spent in silence, trying to reason out some of the things that have been bothering me so much lately. The first question that pops into my head is, "Why do people want to stop being friends with someone?" In other words, what is it that makes a person decide, "Hey, I don't want to associate with this person anymore."
My sis-in-law and I have discussed this before, and she has confessed to "downgrading" someone if their behavior or actions are getting on her nerves. In other words, she won't hang out with them as much. But she doesn't completely cut off all ties or anything drastic. And the person we were talking about at the time has since been 'upgraded' again. But what I am referring to is when people 'dump' a friend, never having any contact with them again whatsoever. It's obviously hurtful. But in my mind, I'm thinking that the only thing that would cause me to do that to someone else is something irreparable, or quite severe. Then I think back on people who have done this to me, and I can't think of a single example of something that I've done that would fall into this category. I've never committed any crimes, never made a pass at someone's significant other, never done anything deliberatley destructive, and so on.
So I'm still driving and I start to think that maybe the question isn't about other people, but about me. Why do I have the need to ahve a lot of friends, or a large social group? Setting aside the anthropological discussion, I realize peole are social creatures, pack animals and such. But I'm not talking about acquaintances. There's something at my very core that requires people that, in the past, I've referred to as the family by choice. Those people who you are pretty close to, as close as family, but it's by choice, not by birth or marriage. Am I expecting too much by asking the universe for those people in my life? Am I incorrectly perceiving other people as having those relationships? Is it necessary to my survival to have those people? And why do I take it so very personally when I am 'dumped?'
I should preface that by adding that I try to apply The Four Agreements to my life as often as possible. I notice improvements in my life when I do. And at the very core of the Agreements, and the first and foremost Agreement is "Do not take anything personally." Read the book for deeper discussions, but the long and short of it is this: Nothing that anybody does to you is because of you. What they do is because of their own perceptions, their own personalities, their own life. Not you.
I had a revelation after I start thinking about how sad it is that our friends Ross and Carol will most likely be moving to Qatar in the next few months. Being smack dab in the middle of the Persian Gulf, surrounded by American-hating countries isn't very conducive to us visiting them very often. So it's very likely we won't see much of them anymore. Does this make me sad? Of course! By description, we practically aren't going to be friends with them anymore. We won't get to talk to them very often, and won't see them much, if at all. But of course we're still friends. Down the road, if we see them, we can pick up where we left off. And I'm not taking their move personally at all. I could, of course. Jim and I could twist it around to be about us. They're moving to the middle East because they don't want to be friends with us anymore.

Now, I realize this is patently absurd.

But when someone makes another type of decision that affects their relationship with you, such as a personality clash, it becomes incredibly easy to internalize it, take it to heart. So I am confused with how I can get around this. It hurts, and I wish it didn't happen. But there's not a lot I can do about it. Should I change my personality? Well, then they don't like me for *me*. And if I try to apply this same example with Ross and Carol, us changing anything (realistically) isn't going to change their decision to move. So how do I come to grips with being dumped? Why does it constantly haunt me? Last week I was laying in bed, trying to sleep and instead this shit is going through my head, and I end up having a crying jag til about 1:30 in the morning. How much is too much? What is a normal amount of sorrow, and what is depression?

So to end, I'd like to know what it is that would cause you, daer reader, to completely close someone out of your life. And my sincerest wish, though we may never meet, is that nobody ever does this to you.

C'mon people, don't be that stupid

So this morning, Jim's sitting at a red light, 5 or 6 cars back. A car somewhere behind him decides she needs to be in the left-turn lane, and crosses the double-yellow line to get ahead of the long line at the light, passing him in the process. So, he pulls her over.
"Can I see your license?"
She hands it to him with a great, inconvenienced sigh.
"Do you know why I pulled you over?"
In a snotty tone, "No, not really."
"Well, you crossed a double yellow line back there."
"So, I do that every day."
...
Here's the point at which I must pause and ask, with all seriousness, did you REALLY just admit to breaking the law, EVERY DAY? I know people have all these theories about evading the cops, not getting a ticket, and such, but this really isn't the way to go about it!
Jim says to her, "That doesn't make it legal."
She replies in a huffy tone, "Lots of people do it all the time!"
Jim replies, "Still doesn't make it legal. I'll be back in a minute with your ticket."

Are you kidding me? "Officer, I killed my friend, but 183 other people did it last year!" Look, if you are going to be an idiot and break the law, at least be humble about it. I have probably done what this lady did, once or twice. Not a lot, mind you, because I'm not in the habit of driving into oncoming traffic, whether or not I'm in a hurry. But you bet your ass if I got pulled over doing it, I'm not going to be rude to the officer in an effort to get out of it.

Here's another example: Jim pulled over a guy whose driver's license had expired. He punches in the numbers, the guy's license has been expired for two weeks. Easy thing to overlook, right? So Jim asks for it, says "You know your license expired two weeks ago?"
The guy looks at Jim with that 'oh shit' expression and says, "FUCK!"
Now, this guy's in his 50s, so one might argue that he's been renewing his license a lot in his life. But on the other hand, when it only rolls around every four years, it's easy to see how that can slip by. So Jim hands him his license back and says "Just get it taken care of. Have a nice day."

So I guess the moral of the story is obvious. Don't break the law? Duh. But what I'm really getting at here today is that your attitude is everything, especially when dealing with someone who has power over you. Most people would learn pretty quickly if they spoke rudely to their boss. But why does it make it OK to be rude to anybody else?

House of Leaves

Well I let my sister talk me into reading this book, House of Leaves. It is MESSED UP. It's about this guy who finds a manuscript in this dead guy's apartment. The manuscript is about a movie that supposedly doesn't exist (or does it?) and the dead guy was writing notes about it, on every single thing he could write on. The movie is about this guy's house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Something about the way it's written is seriously giving me the creeps. And not in an overt, Stephen King or Dean Koontz way, either. The guy who finds the manuscript keeps adding his own notes to it, which are found in different font at the bottom of the pages. He writes in this incredibly long, rambling-thought-process way, with an entire page consisting of thoughts joined by commas. It's pretty hard to follow.

So I've been checking this blog, My Open Wallet, quite frequently. I found it through Clicked, but it's pretty insightful. It's about this woman in NY who blogs about her expenditures, her savings, investments, etc. She has a lot of links to other financial blogs. It's nice to read from *real* people about financial tips. I tried reading the journalist on MSNBC, but some of her tips are based on assuming you already have that extra cash to sock away every day. Don't buy that coffee at Starbucks, get the free coffee at work or buy your own. Well, what about those of us who ALREADY DO THAT? Well, I don't drink coffee, I drink tea, but same thing. So check it out.

Anyhoo, Ed says he's updated. We'll see about that.

A cop's work?

Well, Jim works 3rd shift. He likes it for the most part. I like it too, because it means we get our evenings together. When he works 2nd shift, we never see each other. I work til 4:30, and he goes in to work at 4, which means he leaves the house no later than 3:30. And comes home at midnight. You see the problem. With 3rd shift, he sleeps while I'm at work, and I sleep while he's at work. It's a great arrangement, someone's almost always home, we see each other a ton more, we actually get to eat dinner together, etc. But when he comes home in the morning, and I ask him how his night was, the response is almost always the same.
'Quiet.'
'Boring.'
'Not a single run all night.'
Now, to anybody who has had a job that is terribly boring, you know this sucks big ones. Your time at work goes much quicker when you have things to do. Especially when you have a job that you enjoy. Even more so when it's a job you wanted to have since you were young.
But when my husband has nothing to do, that means nothing is going on. IE, crimes aren't happening. Isn't that a good thing?

Uh, officer, is this really crack I bought?

What an idiot. OK the key to this story is the guy walked up to UNIFORMED cops and asked them to test his CRACK PIPE for authenticity. What the f***? I am frightened for the future of our nation. No, actually, it's great. This sort of thing helps the boys in blue weed out the people who are so stupid they need to be separated from the general public. The unfortunate part is that this guy probably already has procreated.
In other news, the Supreme Court ruled that if one resident of a house consents to police search, and another resident denies the search, the police cannot lawfully search the house without a warrant. Here's the main problem, and ironically the reason this case was being reviewed: if the police show up to a domestic dispute, and the victim (for argument and ease, wife) invites the police in, and the suspect (husband) says no, the police aren't allowed in. Justice John Paul Stevens said that “assuming that both spouses are competent, neither one is a master possessing the power to override the other’s constitutional right to deny entry to their castle.” Well, if you follow his logic, neither one is a master possessing the power to override the other's right to CONSENT, especially when the entry would allow the police to do their jobs, and arrest the person responsible for the abuse, or whatever reason the police happened to be there. I can see both sides of this, but the reason this case specifically was being tried is that the wife of a lawyer invited the police in to find drug paraphernalia in order to allow them to arrest her husband. Thank God for those 'crazy liberals,' In his first written dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts said that “the end result is a complete lack of practical guidance for the police in the field, let alone for the lower courts.” ...what would we do without these crazies?

Major update

OK well it's obvious I haven't updated in a while. Why? I'm not sure. Kind of been trying to figure out what exactly I'm going to do with this blog. Working a lot. Being laid up. Etcetera. Where should i start? Ok well I had my wisdom teeth removed at the beginning of February. Boy that WAS AWESOME! Just kidding, it wasn't that great. The actual procedure wasn't bad at all, but then again I was completely out so I didn't feel a thing. When I came to, my face was swollen to the point that, as my friend Andrew put it, I looked as though I was back-talking a little too much. I was horrendously swollen for six days, and this was right before Superbowl. I could hardly eat anything except Bob Evans' mashed potatoes and chicken noodles. Which, by the way, is an awesome recuperative meal. Yum! I bruised after the 5th day, and got a minor infection after the stitches all dissolved. But I've heard some true horror stories, and I don't think my experience was all that bad. Given the choice, however, I don't think I'd have it voluntarily done again. Sure, if the teeth are posing a health threat, I'd have them pulled. But I'm convinced that it's becoming too common to just remove them because everybody has them pulled.
Well, another update; Jim and I have decided to think about having a kid. Are we insane? Once we started actually talking about it with sincerity, I realized we are truly insane. I'm not sure what is possessing us. But we aren't preventing a pregnancy at this point. I guess we're already ahead of the curve a bit by planning it. But I must be stupid!
So last week, on March 11, Jim took me to see Wicked, which was a Christmas gift. It was really very enjoyable! There were quite a few funny lines, the songs were good, the set was fantastic, etc. etc. I liked it, and Jim did too. That should say something, when a meat-and-potatoes, rock music guy likes a Broadway production.
Jim and I just got back from Las Vegas. I had to go for work, for an Agility Conference, and given that Jim could just stay in my hotel room, and all we'd have to pay for is his ticket and his meals, it seemed like a huge opportunity for us to go travel some more! Especially before we get knocked up. Oy. Anyway, we got to stay at the Bellagio. I guess if you are going to go, go all out, right? It was very nice, although I have to be honest and say for a hotel that costs normally something in the 300$ a night range (for a normal size room, mind you), they could certainly invest in a quality shampoo/conditioner! But we gambled a bit, checked out the Sirens show at TI, saw the lions sleeping at MGM, ate at the Harley Davidson cafe, and also ate at Fix, which was FABULOUS. We played a lot of slots, got a few free drinks, and played some roulette. I had a ton of updates to add when we got back, but for some reason sitting down at this computer tends to erase my brain a bit, and I get writer's block.
Andy called, and a friend of his who has a band is playing at the Poison Room tonight, which is St Patty's day. Am I going? I'm not sure, but probably. Andrew is due to call me back here, and we'll probably go.
To make this post even longer, I think I've decided to start writing this from the perspective of a Cop's wife. Well, to be accurate, Jim's really a Sheriff's Deputy now, but you get the idea. I just have to start drilling it in my head to update any time some cop stuff comes up.
That's all for now!

01/18/06

Well today was hectic at work. I keep forgetting to take my 'happy' pills and as such, by the end of the day I was pretty stressed out. I just do NOT get why people are so stupid! I had someone come to me and tell me "I can't do my job unless people tell me these things." Well, there is a training document that this person has to train on, and KNOWS she has to train on it, and HADN' TRAINED ON IT. So...explain to me why this is my problem? It's not my responsibility to tell *you* how to do *your* job! oy
Went to Tom & Barb's for dinner. Cincinnati style chili, homemade. YUM!
I came home with a bunch of things to say, today, but I forget them all. Other than the fact that I've now had my headache for oh, two weeks. Since that's what I went to the ER for, I should probably call the doctor. But it's not a toom-ah!
If you don't get that joke you need to get off this blog, right now.

Resolution?

Well I was thinking maybe...just *maybe* I ought to make myself do this more often, like I said I would when I started the blog.
Ed's blog has *not* been rocking the Blog World lately, although he claims it still does.
24 started last night. Whoa!
Cate's last day of school was last Friday. Now that's freaky. She is DONE with SCHOOL! My baby sister!
I get to go to LAS VEGAS in March for work! Staying at the Bellagio! All I have to pay for is my husband's ticket! How awesome is that! Speakin of which, how awesome is the exclamation point!

2005

Well, I just composed a terribly long blog entry, and due to blogger.com's fucked up sign-in process, it lost the entire thing. So I'm trying to compose this and email it in, hoping it also doesn't get lost in cyberspace.

Long fucking story summarized:

Meagan proved she truly was delusional, when she convinced herself I didn't like her boyfriend. I have a hard time even coming up with events that would lead her to this conclusion. The thing that bothers me the most is I actually had her in my wedding. So she 'dumped' me, ending our friendship over unfounded and ridiculous accusations.

That was for my 25th birthday. Oh yeah, and when I returned to Ohio from that trip, my two girl friends from work, Tina and Crystal, both decided they were finished with me, and just commenced not speaking to me. I tell you, one fuck up and people throw you to the dogs.

Merry Christmas to me: Ryan, Mike, Cara, Sara, Vince and Megan all decided they were just not coming to our Christmas dinner, and nobody was going to tell us. Jim and I were hosting and providing the main two dishes. Um, Merry Christmas to all and to all a big fuck you? I dont' get it.

Saw a clip from 'Alexander' the other day, in it Angelina Jolie as Alexander's mother tries to impress on him at a young age that people are like snakes. No matter how much you care for them, nurture them, how much you give them, they'll still turn on you. Seems to be pretty true, but I'd prefer it not to be the theme to my life. I tell you what it's definitely doing FANTASTIC things for the depression.

FW: Halloween is finally over

Well Halloween came and went, along with our annual party. It was a blast! I got a lot of good comments on all of the decor at the house. We had a lot of good costumes, and everybody had a good time! The guest list included: Megan and Vince, Mike & Cara, Ryan, Scott & Alison, Alison's friend Ron, Cate, Jim's cousin Jeff, Donnie & Jess, Melissa (not my sis-in-law) and Hunter, Andrew fromwork and his roommate Carmel,...I don't think I'm forgetting anybody. It was a good time! We had a keg, pulled pork, skyline dip, buffalo chicken dip (yet again became the recipe everybody begged for), chips n dip, etc. I love halloween.

Last night was beggar's night, and I had a blast. Jim had to work so I was on my own to hand out candy. Our good prop Grim sat in the front yard, keeping me company, and the dogs sat inside the fence, keeping a watchful eye out for any neglected candy. I got myself up in full Elphaba regalia (for those of you not in the know, she's the wicked witch from Oz, also star of the new play 'Wicked') and sat on the porch silently, waiting the 'little pretties'. Grim, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting him, is our 7' tall prop, he's a skull's head with a pointing arm, and one finger sticking out of his black robes. I had my realistic skull next to me, the head in the fishbowl, the plate of gooey eyeballs, and my cauldron full of candy. I sat on the front porch, looking over our graveyard, and didn't move. I can't tell you how highly effective the whole set-up was. Plenty of children and some full-grown adults were unsure of walking up the path, convinced that I or Grim was going to jump out at them. I sat with my face down, so the hat brim covered my green face, and waited to be spoken to. When the kid said Trick or Treat, I slowly extended my green hand from my robes to drop a piece of candy in their bag, and slowly retracted my hand. A few times I gave some of the older kids a creepy glare before giving them candy. Several people hurriedly walked back down to the street. It was great! Lesson learned: everybody loves halloween, and kids LOVE it when you play along with them. The most fortunate part was that not one child went away crying. Of course, when the really young kids came by, and you could tell they were going to be pretty scared, I came out of the hunchback and smiled at them. Although a smiling green-skinned witch could be just as scary, still none cried.

We leave for Disney on the 5^th, this Saturday. WOO HOO MICKEY HERE WE COME!!!