You know when you feel … blah? Not particularly depressed or anything, just … blah. (Envy me my extensive vocabulary.) I think it has something to do with a conversation That Guy and I had the train today, although it wasn’t about anything in particular. Or it could just be that I’m at home by myself.
Have papers to grade. Don’t wanna. Blah.
snowbunny, glad to hear your coworkers are actually nice people. 
Rare these days, it seems.
Congrats to kai & skiffman!
Congrats to Sean & Mrs. Factotum-to-be!
ems, that’s awful. No heat in the winter is miserable.
I went out to dinner with a friend tonight. We went to Original Joe’s, a San Jose institution. They serve old-fashioned American Italian. They’ve recently remodeled, so instead of looking like the early 50s, it looks like the early 60s. 
It’s dark, all booths, and the waiters wear tuxes. The food is so-so, but they bring you a lot of it. Then we went to Christmas in the Park, looked at all the carnival rides but didn’t ride any, and enjoyed all the little kids running around in the “snow.”
I feel like crap. The OCD group is wayyyyy triggering for me, so I’m going to stop going. The stuff that’s coming up is too intense for me to deal with right now. I’m basically losing my ability to hold it all together. So I’m going to start a day psychiatric program as soon as they have an opening, which will hopefully be by Friday. That means I’m going out on disability. I’ve been an employee for one month, so I don’t have any disability coverage from work, so no money until the state kicks in, which usually takes about a month. I feel like an absolute failure.
And then I came home to find still more cat hork (by stepping in it barefoot) in the same place it was yesterday, and 3 days ago, and last week…I’ve decided to call that part of the bedroom the vomitorium.
I’m going to bed. Maybe things will look better tomorrow.
Yep, I feel really lucky. Everybody is great, including my boss (!).
Today is my Firday. I’m off until Saturday. I’m part-time, and will largely be working over weekends, though if this job works out well I’m quite sure I could get full-time if I wanted it. Doing that would be complicated, so I’m not doing it now, but I could see it happening down the road.
Forgot to say thanks for the hugs, everyone. I appreciate them, truly.
{{{{shadow}}}}
{{{{rigs}}}} and a Kleenex[sup]TM[/sup]
{{{{mmm}}}} and an electric blanket
I think Evil assistant manager is going to quit on me. Can I get a “HELL YEAH!!!”
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY KAI AND SKIFFMAN
In my determination to avoid grading papers, I’ve written an emo essay. Or actually, I’ve summoned from my depths my 16-year-old persona and had her write an essay for me. Read and weep. Or don’t read - it’s freakin’ long. Emo kids never know when to shut up. 
============
You know those movies that you secretly judge everyone by whether they like it or not? Mine is Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I didn’t see it when it first came out, because I decided that a movie about a guy who had a stumpy penis and liked to wear crazy blond wigs was a bit too much for me to handle. (I have very conventional movie tastes, despite my liberal arts background.) But my best friend practically forced me to go watch it with her when they were doing a re-screening of it at a small artsy cinema. I went full of doubt, but came out fully converted. And ever since then, if I meet someone who’s seen it and doesn’t like it, I judge them. A lot.
Anyway, the song "Origin of Love" is my personal favorite. It's based on the Grecian idea that one person actually used to be two people, stuck to each other, back to back, frolicking around the earth like the eight-limbed freaks they were. And then the gods got jealous, for some reason, although why the gods would be jealous of eight-limbed mortals is anybody's guess. So they split everyone in two, and we became the normal four-limbed idiots we are now. And since then we've been forever doomed to wander the earth, vainly searching for the person we used to be stuck to.
Last time I saw you
We’d just split in two
You was looking at me
I was looking you, oh
You had a way so familiar
I could not recognize
'Cause you had blood on your face
I had blood in my eye
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same
As the pain down in mine
Those Greeks were weird, but they were creative. Last time I saw this movie, it was with a bunch of friends, and afterwards we sat down and discussed the implications of this theory, like the great big humanities dorks we are. Most of us said that it was a pretty idea, but that the idea that there is a "one" out there is nothing more than a fairytale; an ideal that naive people cling to until reality slaps them in the face with a big wet trout and makes them realize that love is what you make of it, or some equally trite truism. The best friend that originally introduced me to *Hedwig* made the interesting observation that if we were originally glued back-to-back with our other half, we wouldn't recognize them if we met them anyway, since neither of us would know what the other looked like. Fair point.
Originally I would have agreed that this fanciful Grecian idea is about as grounded in reality as Zeus getting Danaë pregnant by turning himself into a shower of gold. (That's not a euphenism, you philistines.) But now I've developed a theory of my own. See, I do think that somewhere out there is the "one" that we were once one with. But I don't think we necessarily have to meet them to live a happy life. For most of us, we meet someone nice; someone we get along with, who laughs at the same jokes, watches the same TV shows, listens to the same music, shares the same beliefs - more or less. And we settle down, live happily ever after - more or less. But some of us, if we're lucky - or unlucky, depending on how you look at it - will run into our other half. And if you haven't experienced this, well, it's impossible to describe without sounding like an idiot. You meet this person, and before you even exchange a word, you feel this pull. And at the same time, you know they feel it too. And you just can't help yourselves. Being together with this person ... it's almost painful in its intensity. Everything else, however briefly, becomes irrelevant. That feeling of oneness is trascendent. Sacred. Inhuman.
But the idea that two people, once one, have now found each other, is not as ideal as it seems. See, it's not that our former state of being was two separate people who happened to be glued together back-to-back, like Siamese twins. It was one person. We were one person. We did not have compatible personalites - there wasn't even a "we." It was a me. I. A single entity. And then we were split into two distinct entities, and we had to roam the plane of existence shivering, naked, and feeling this wrenching sense of loss. But we survived. We adapted. And we each developed a sense of self, separate from the fragments we were left with by the arbitrary cruelty of the gods. Each of us was no longer a half of a whole. We became whole *per se*. So when we meet - if we meet - there are fragments of ourselves that remember, and yearn to be whole again. And that inexplicable desire we feel for each other; that's the parts of us that were once a single I, like broken shards fitting together seamlessly along their jagged edges. But the rest of us; the selves we've had to develop to prevent ourselves from going insane with loneliness - what do we do with that? Those selves are strangers to both of us. And so we struggle, awkwardly, painfully, to fit ourselves back together again, even though we don't know how since we've never had to work at it. It's like cutting an angleworm in half. Two separate parts, once which had formed a perfect, complete being, have now grown into two complete beings. And they can squirm around each other and squeeze as tightly as they like, but it's too late; they can never revert back to the single being it used to be. And that's why meeting "the one" is not as beautiful an experience as one might imagine.**Rigs **-- wrong time of year for Matzo Balls. Talk to me again around Easter ::Sends get well thoughts, hugs and a box of kleenex over the ether::
**Spaz **-- do you ever read anything? At all? 
(Wow, just going over your list pretty much covered my reading quota for the day!)
**Cutie **-- glad you feel better! Hope today is even better than yesterday was.
**Bobbio **-- that was priceless
**Haze **-- um… ::looks for something to say:: hi?
Li-li – even those of us putting on a happy face can use a hug now and then. Just sayin’.
**Bunny **-- I’ve seen some software still in use with travel agent. I feel your pain. But a nice work environment (read: nice co-workers and boss) trumps just about anything a job can throw at you; you did well with this job
**Ems **-- You’re more restrained than I am; I would have been whooping ass with anybody official willing to listen several days ago alreadY :mad: ::Sending worming thoughts and a hug. Hey, a hug is a way of warming up, too!::
Kai – happy anniversary! And beautiful baby
Last and perhaps most important… {{{{{{Shadow}}}}}}. I really really hope things work out for you.
Sorry if I missed anyone.
Yeah, but worming thoughts are a whole different thing.
Ahem. Good night, Lunch!
Is too a word! (OK, the **wrong **word… :o)
Hey, you need to post before I do to get a response I only do clairvoyance when I’m **really **good and bored!
When are you really good? I only do exaggeration every third day. Time accordingly.
Oh, and Haze, fascinating essay. What happened to good old-fashioned lust?!
Hmmm… I think I’ll wait and let **Rosie **answer that with her standard Fortune Cookie <snerk> response…
What? :halo:
doggio HELL YEAH!!!
Oh, and I saw this while browsing the Anchorage paper. Make sure to look at the photos to the immediate right of the article:
Howdy all - another drive-by from work!
Kai - congrats on the anniversary! Should I keep an eye out for skiffman on the next season of Discovery’s Deadliest Catch??? (my husband’s favourite show, by the way!)
Sean - congrats on the impending marriage!
Here is the newest web album of HRH.
More later (I hope). Love you all - ::mwah::
'im indoors. Le sigh.
Kai… Buzzwinkle. Heh. Does he take his drinks on the Rocky? (d&r)
**Dotty **-- HRH is getting cuter by the hour!
**Boo **-- yet another blue MMP-er? 
{{{BooFae}}}
Up and caffeinating. I’ll be working all day, so I’ll see you tonight.
{{{{BooFae}}}
Heck, {{{{MMP}}}}
Up and caffeinating here too. Hiya, Doggio!
Buzzwinkle is a riot, Kai, thanks for the link! You must share more Tea pics, btw. And Dotty, HRH is definitely a cutie–was she trying to taste that balloon though?! LOL Thanks for sharing!!
Good morning, SpecialOne!
One more day til Firday!! Haze, I’ll have to read the essay later, but thanks for sharing with us (time to leave for work now. :().
{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}} to all the MMPers who need them, and even those who don’t. Happy Thursday all.
Gah.
How am I supposed to remember what I wanted to say to everyone???
mmmms, soooo sorry to hear about the lack of heat. Maybe you can move into a hotel and send them the bill.
Everyone who likes Robin Mckinley: Me too. We read the Hero and the Crown in 5th grade and I have read it like 25 times since then. I’ve read some of her other stuff, but I didn’t realize that she had a new one out. I’ll add it to my list. I’ve got like 5 books that I’m supposed to be reading right now. I’m not a spaz like Spaz, but I try.
rigs, hope you feel better today.
**
Haze**, I liked your emo girl essay. I have met my other ‘half’ and I think your description was quite accurate. That was the most painful relationship of my life. Incidentally, that’s kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back and sent me over the edge into full-time depression. It’s been about 4 years since it was over and I’m glad. But in some ways I still feel the repercussions today. It’s also the same kind of relationship that makes you wonder about the rest of your relationships. I mean, no other relationship will EVER be as good and as fulfilling, but also no other relationship will be as painful and demanding. It’s a slippery slope. Sorry, I know I’m rambling on, but that really struck a chord with me.
Oh, and Hi noonelunchspecial1!
Oops, almost forgot to add that I am stuck at TVMan’s house for awhile today. I brought PiePup#1 with me last night and when I took him out this morning, everything was glazed in ice. Fortunately, I’ve got a full staff at the shop today.
Hi!
Sounds like you’re in a reasonably good mood today… that’s good.
Hope you manage to dig out from under the ice!
And Hi! to Herbs as well.
Yeah, so far so good.
I’m hungry, though. What’s for breakfast??