There's some hope for the boy after all!

Earl that is. We were having one of those little "coversations" that used to be fun, but of late has taken on a note of whining. Nothing worse than having a dead guy whining from the other side. Usually when I say something out loud, he feels it's fair game to comment on. Which was pretty much the way it has always been. The other day however I'd had a hard day, and Earl just got on my last nerve with his whining so I said:

"Well you know, time here, and time there, don't mean the same thing. There's nothing and no one stopping you from incarnating into another life, back in the 60's again, to a decent set of parents, live a quiet and fairly easy life and be in your 40s now, so that you can go to the Cheesecake Factory all you want. Nothing stopping you. So instead of mooping around the summerland sulking and refusing to grow up, why not do something else?"

I said more than that, and to be honest, I let some of my own anger speak to the way he handled his life, and the damage he did to me. Told him that I'd always love him (and I will) but I wasn't IN LOVE with him the way we were. This is nothing I'd not said to him before he died, I'd said it years before that, but I think he might have actually heard me this time and had it all connect inside himself. I ended the converstion with I don't care what you do, but go away and leave me be for a while if you are going to keep being such a miserable sot.

I came home and cried myself to sleep, again. In large part because of the day and what had happened in it, and because historically days like this are followed by several days of horrific nightmares that make sleep a joke.

That night however was different. I had a dream and like so many in the past, Earl was in it. This time however things were amazingly different. So much so that I'm still kinda shocked, and amazed. I won't bore you with the details, but three things stand out as really worth mentioning. One, was for a change it was a really good dream, and Earl was in it. Two was the fact that in the dream he was the one who was odd and having to explain himself, he was standing up for himself without being a complete Arse about it. And three He was the Earl I'd fallen in love with all those years ago. He was fun and funny, and when his eyes met mine I knew, I mean really KNEW how he felt, and felt about me. He actually admitted things, in public, about himself he'd never told anyone except me, and was stronger than he'd ever been, but way nicer. I'm actually proud of him for the way he behaved and dealt with reality and others in this dream.

Now, I should point out that dreams for me are more than just symbolic representations of people, places and events that are somewhat etheral in feeling. My dreams are solid, substantive, have plots and fully developed characters and people who if they are (or were) alive, are internally consistent to themselves in my dreams. For me, dreams are more like DVDs on a Star Trek Holodeck. Everything and everyone is real, solid, and is just like real life. When people grow in my dreams, it is usually, though not always reflective of growth they are going through in real life, or are about to go through. Unless of course it's a nightmare, and then, well it's every bit as real as say living the same evenets in real life.

Anyway, this one was wonderful, and has given me something I'd never imagined as possible in this lifetime. Some much wanted and needed closure. He admitted things in public, with other folks around that I'd hoped by taking the divorce into court, he'd have been forced to finally admit. He was honest, strong, and had the courage of his own convictions. He wasn't deep in the pit of despair known as suicidal depression. He was a nice guy. He was nice to me, defended me, stood up for once and defended me. And he gave me that look that spoke volumes. All the rest was icing on the cake compared to that look that had hooked me so long ago. He was once again the man I loved, and was in love with, and I never thought that would happen again.

So now, I'm hoping that one of these days we'll take a trip to Meridith, where we honeymooned oh so many years aog and help me take it back. Help me lift the stain of our last visit there when he was still alive. Help me reclaim the beauty of it and oh, I don't know, sit on the balcony over looking the lake and talk honestly for the first time in well over a decade. Have a quiet dinner at the Boathouse and split an order of "Almost Escargo" one night, go to the Cheesecake Factory, together, finally, and revel in the yummy goodness. Help me bring this decade long nightmare to something of a better conclusion. Breakfast at "Georges," shopping in Conway and Tilton. A trip up Mount Washington, Skee BALL!!! Oh my God a fall afternoon at Weir's Beach playing Skee ball! I want that, I need that, I'd love that! Finally take a dinner cruise on the "Mt. Washington" on the lake. A Foliage tour on the Hobo Railroad.

He's not a Psychopath anymore there in the summerland, he's equal parts of recovering from the knowledge of what he'd done, and trying to let go and grow.

I also figured out, and he admitted later, that he's lingering because he still loves me. My sister pointed out last night that I was litterally, factually the best person he'd ever had in his entire life, and some of the best times he'd ever had. Prior to that dream there's no way I could have heard that and even considered it, let alone believed it. But now? Well I've grown, healed some even, and can see that maybe more closure for both of us is possible. I've gotten past the may-december aspect of our relationship before, though admittedly when he was alive, it was only by a matter of months. I didn't let myself see then that spiritually he's so very much younger than I am, but that's okay, cause it means I can once again cut him some slack. But geeze, Mrs. Robinson I'd never expected to be.

I always kinda figured I'd out live him some, men don't usually live as long as we do, but I'd never quite figured it would be by this big a margin. So I'm willing to keep helping him heal and grow if he lets me do the same thing.

Never, ever in thousands of year would I have imagined I'd wind up being someone's spirit guide from THIS side of the divide. Oy vey!

TransCountry?!?!

Okay, I'm going to start with a disclaimer:

I grew up in New England, and spent endless time in places like Springfield, Hampton Beach, Portsmouth, Glouchester, Portland, Rye Beach, Nashua, Danbury, Lawrence, Andover, Manchester, New Milford, Brookline, Bethel, Reading and Roxbury Connecticut to name a few places near and dear to my heart. I remember fondly Danbury Fair BEFORE it was a Mall. The Big E in Springfield Mass, and an endless stream of country music. I have tastes outside out Country Music, like a deep and abiding love for Opera, for Classical Music as well to pick
just two. Tanglewood anyone? Pops at the clamshell on the Charles?

Music speaks to me, moves me, enriches my soul. Yes, even country.
Especially country what with being a born and bred country girl. I was
weened off Mother's milk (Not to be confused with Mudder's Milk) onto
homemade Cinnamon raisin bread and hot tea while 1050WHN spun good old
fashioned records of Johnny Cash, Crystal Gale, Glen Campbell, StarLand
Vocal band and John Denver. It's in my blood.

I still listen to it. I'm listening to it right now on b105.1 in the
"other" tristate area I've lived in.

And I've been thinking I'm imagining things of late. Country is still
telling stories, modern, American made "operettas" with a twang. Some
of it of late has been damn funny, and serious, talking about this
"brave new world" we live in. So as I'm listening today I hear once
again Phil Vassars new song that just has me marveling at what a
different world we live in.

The song moves too fast, the melody is slightly annoying, and the whole
flavor is way more pop that I like in my country. But, the refrain (the
bridge) is "That's just Bobby with an I." It caught my attention.

I've heard it a whole bunch of times now and nope, I'm not imagining
things. Phil is singing about a man's man who on the weekend lets his
hair down, and dresses in women's clothes. Advising the listener to
leave Bobbi be, he's not hurting anyone. Instead of asserting that
he might hurt you as you could have once expected a song to do, he says one
should be careful how much one drinks because Bobbi looks pretty good as
you consume more.

Wow. I mean really, just wow. The entire song is about a guy who likes
to cross dress and how it's okay. Just like that. Like breathing.
Like seeing the sunrise. Like leave him alone, he's not hurting you and
won't. Like Bobbi's okay and perfectly normal.

While I have so many technical issues with the song, I have to give Phil
two big heartfelt thumbs up for taking something and making it okay.
For "preaching" in the form of a coutnry song tolerance instead of hate!

Well damn! I'm all for letting folks be, live and let live, and this song is an unexpected step in that direction.

No going back, whatever it is or was . . .

So while I've been pretty quite for me in here of late, it's not for want of things going on. I've just been uncharacteristically short of words. There's plenty going on, especially thoughts whirling in my head. Talk of changes, of people we once were, and who we are, or can be have had me looking at my place in time and space.

Last night while listening to a friend recount some recent closure she got about one of her own past traumas, I was trying hard not to lament the fact that I'll never get that chance. In short she got to face her attacker, and take back from him her own power. Quite frankly, this was awesome for her, and I think it will make a difference in her life. So obviously I was really happy for her, even if the conversation triggered some of my own nightmare for me.

In "mopping up" from this I was suddenly reminded of the terrible B grade movie a friend of mine subjected me to years and years ago. These poor folks were marooned on this prehistoric island. In fighting to get off, they kept moving further inland, as each section of island was an evolutionary step forward. In fairly short order one of them remarked, we have to keep moving forward, because there's just no going back.

Life, regardless of what we do with it is very much like this island. In the multiverse theory of the universe everything that ever was, is or will be exists at the same time, and were we able to cross from dimension to dimension, plane to plane, possibility to the next we could "sort of" go back. For it postulates that time in a given place is just one possibility. That we can technically just from one to the next to "undo" a change by it never having happened. Assuming that our alter in that potential chose to leave. Otherwise, terrible things result like Entropic Cascade Failure at the cellular level. Not something you want to go through.

Anyway, each choice we make, is not unlike turns on a road, left or right, which way to go. Once you make a turn though, you can never really go back. Because even when you realize you mistake and imediately turn around, those are still seconds or minutes lost one will never get back. Then of course thoughts in your head during those moments once pondered are gone and so on. Like the island in the movie, you can never go back.

I am no more the same person today as I was yesterday, let alone 50 years ago. And yet, I am more than a sum of my experiences. I've trancended temporal reality so much and so often it's often difficult to distingusish now from when. My friends and family share a bond of common experiences and references that focus us in each others hearts and minds. Tomorrow I will not be the same person I am now, and that is every bit as it should be.

So, I am simply me, and you can choose to walk with me for a time, and make both of our joruneys better, or we can catch up down the road. Our connection to each other will remain, our history will have changed.

Do not lead me,
For I may not choose to follow.
Do not follow me,
For I may not choose to lead.
Just walk with me,
And be my friend.
For if you are my friend,
So shall it always be.

There is a song I'm partial to that is apprapro this post.

"She’s gonna make it
And he never will
He’s at the foot of the mountain
And she’s over that hill
He’s sinkin’ at sea
And her sails are filled
She’s gonna make it
And he never will

And you know it’s not like she’s forgot about him
She’s just dealing with the pain
And the fact that she’s survived so well without him
You know it’s driving him insane

And the craze thing about it
Is she’d take him back
But the fool in him that walked out
Is the fool who just won’t ask."

Oddly enough, at one point, for about the first year or so, I'd have taken him back. A year after that, pretty much right on schedule, he died. Yes, dead, as in dead and buried kind of dead. He wouldn't change, wouldn't grow, refused to see past his own poisoned heart, mind, body and soul to realize that we got together for a reason. We WERE (past tense) good together for a while.

After about that first year, I started on the slow path to healing and growth. I was working hard on being a better person, on surviving this. I'd changed, grown and was intent on continuing that direction in my life. He wasn't. Both our lives depended on investing in ourselves, our relationships, our heart, mind, body and soul or we'd die.

It didn't help that I known so many years in advance. It didn't help that I explained exactly how, why, and when he was going to die if he didn't change. "Don't change for me I begged, don't do it for you parents, friends, or anyone else. Do it for you. Do it now, start today, or just set the count down clock and watch it tick out the last few years of your life. You can live to be a crotchety old fart telling your grand kids to pull your finger, or you can die. Soon. You have three years of life left at this moment unless you change and grow. I cannot tell you the exact day, but you will not be alive for our anniversary three years from now."

She's gonna make it, he never did. She's over the hill he's burried under.

Hold on to your dreams, your feelings, your memories, friends and family folks, because everything else is one day going to be gone. Even your archaic preconcieved notions will one day desert you and truth will wash away those false gods of dogma. In the end it will all look different.

Yes, I'm changed, I'm not the same person I once was. Same for everyone else, even poor Earl who now knows the turth I spoke those years ago. She's gonna make it, he never will.

I miss you Earl. Sometimes more than others, sometimes so much it's like my heart is in a vice. So much that I wish I could die and get it over with. But what would that accomplish? Of course I'm different, so are you. Garth was right, she's gonna make it, you never will. I'm sorry.

"Strawberry Wine"

It's kinda funny that Donna was talking about how you can listen to songs hundreds of times, thousands even, and then finally it clicks. The lyrics suddenly speak to you, and deep inside something clicks. Then it becomes more than just a song, it really becomes a part of you, or at least does for me.

"Strawberry Wine" is a country song that I've heard a thousand times or more. Just like "Hell is for Children" is suddenly hit me today.

"Is it really him or the loss of my innocence I've been missing so much . . ."

Admittedly She's talking about her first time, and how it's stuck with her over the years. Today that line has been going around and around in my head. I'm guessing I heard it earlier today at some point. Yes, when I'm not listening to Pop, Rock, Classical, Opera or my sweet secret love Jazz, I'm listening to country. I can't listen to Jazz these days except for what I've got stored because there are NO Jazz stations in this part of the country. Unless I go back to Sirius (Planet Jazz) or get an HD Radio. There ARE two country stations. One of which I lose to NASCAR whenever there are races. So I listen to that.

Yes, I willingly, even deliberately, listen to country. I mean come on, I grew up on a farm in New England, how can I NOT listen to country. I am a country girl born and raised. Jeans, a t-shirt, and a hat to block the sun are perfectly normal things to wear. To this day even.

So anyway, back to the song. That one line has been running in my head all day. And then, in light of yesterday, it suddenly clicked.

Yeah, innocence. I get that now. I grew up thinking that evil wasn't somehow real, and that the horrible things I saw on TV and in Movies wasn't quite real. Then again, as I've learned since I lost Earl, I didn't really have a healthy understanding of Evil growing up. After all, in many ways my Dad was pure Evil. Yes, he had serious mental health issues, and was, I can see clearly now, a sociopath. [Thanks Laura] Earl too, a serious, textbook sociopath. Lucky me. But you know, I didn't learn what was a healthy relationship with men around my Dad all those years, so of course I went on to repeat the pattern with Earl. I didn't know any better.

While I was talking to my sister last night into the wee hours of the morning, and I do mean the wee hours, like sunrise wee hours, I realized that it might have been easier on me, and more humane, if Earl had just put a gun to my head in 1999 and dropped the hammer. My sister agreed that yes, way more humane.

So of course, the lines of the song suddenly clicked and I began to wonder. Is it really him or the loss of my innocence I've been missing so much? I could have easily lived a hundred thousand years without having to go through that. As I wrote last night, it was every bit like being killed, because the person I was, could have been, died back then. Trauma changes a person. Goodness knows I've had more than my fair share. And then some. My life has in one way or another been all about Trauma since I was five. I look back over my life, or what passes as one, and I see all the major twists and turns it took, and the trauma associated with each.

But the worst of them all was when I freely gave myself heart, mind, body and soul to Earl. For all the right reasons I did this, and what did I get? Violence, trauma, betrayal, violation, pain and death. No small wonder I'm so different. In the past I wasn't emotionally involved. Since I was five I'd had my heart locked away and buried under thirty floors of concrete and steel, UNDER a mountain. But with Earl, I was fully his.

So today, I'm not really certain if over the years since he's been gone, if it IS him I'm missing, or my innocence. It puts the "good memories" I've been able to salvage into question. It shinys a whole new light on the entirety of this life.

I brings into great relief what I've lost. Who I've lost. I guess it's good in ways that I cannot remember so much of the past, of who I was, cause I think it just might make all of this hurt so much more. Which of course has me thinking back to 1958. And the child I was then. I was 20, and finally, for no other reason than to try and reach a compromise with my father, I agreed to a date with the boy he'd promised me to. Yeah, like I was chattel, property, a business transaction. I wanted an education, some study, time to myself, and a chance to see more of Europe. My father expected me to become a wife and mother. Then again he'd expected that since I was in highschool.

That's a story for another day.

But I wonder now who I'd be if I hadn't been raped. Where I'd be.

Trauma changes people. You cannot go through something like that and be the same person. My innocence is long gone. My ignorance too. So I'm healing and growing, but it also means learning about how all of thise has changed me. I'm going to close for the nonce, and come back on the morrow because I cannot stay up until sunrise again.

Sorry this is again on the dark side, but hey, welcome to my life.

WARNING, This post is dark. I'm sorry in advance.

A comment I left on another blog struck me as something I needed to preserve here. This isn't pretty, in fact it's nothing even close. This is about the most harsh, dark and horrific thing I've shared here. Worse even than Everything and Nothing four years ago. But it's part of my healing and growth, it's part of how I feel, and what I've been through to become who I am now. It's why I've often said transition, wow, that was easy compared to some of what I've lived through in my life. This may be triggery for anyone else who has ever been abused and raped, so read carefully and at your own risk.

I was a good girl my whole life. I waited to have sex, I waited to get married, I tried to do everything right.

And then he took my life and ended it. He would have been more merciful if he'd just killed me dead and dumped my body somewhere. God knows it would have been easier on me.

In some ways, you're lucky not to feel anything. It's called dissociation. It's healthy believe it or not, it's your mind trying to protect you from the horrors of what happened.

Fantasies? Yeah, wow. I was a good girl. All those years of being a good girl I fantasized about falling in love, getting married, building a future, a family, an enduring love that makes life more than marking time between cradle and grave.

That was before he killed me. Before I died. Before he introduced me to a horror so real, a death so hard, that I don't know why I'm still alive at times. Other time I wish I wasn't, so I didn't have to keep feeling the helplessness, the isolation, the filth, the shame, pain, flashbacks and nightmares that make me want to kill myself so I don't have to do THAT again.

And then of course are the fantasies now. That I'll be walking somewhere and some complete stranger will rape and murder me one more time. Slowly, painfully. ONE. LAST. TIME. So that finally I really will be dead, and the pain of it all will be behind me, and I don't have to think, feel or remember it again. So that I won't have to stay locked away in my house forever because once you've been destroyed like that, it's so over. Life. Love. Everything and nothing. Done.

So I'm numb in a different way. I go shopping at three in the morning at well lit, well protected grocery stores with self check out lanes so I don't have to be near people. I don't let people close, because once someone you gave yourself to willingly, uses and abuses you and then throws you away like garbage how can you ever trust anyone again. Once someone uses your heart, mind, body and soul against yourself, and violates everything, what's left?

When someone tell you that your feelings, your desires, your boundaries mean nothing, and will just be ignored, well it more than hurts. I kinda envy you in ways. You and Britni both, because you're both stronger than I am. Britni's right, you are an amazing woman.

First time I was raped was ten years ago this year. But it was a slow, painful, abusive build up to it. From there it was all down hill. I was just a thing to him, less important than his cat. But I stayed and it happened again, and again . . . But that's a whole different story.

So I guess what I'm saying is in ways, you're lucky. Growing up, I dissociated. God knows I had plenty of reasons. My father abused me from the time I was five until he threw me out of the house at seventeen. I still don't feel anything about that, and I hope I never do. Living with what my husband did is enough like hell.

I'm dirty, damaged, worse than a . . . I don't know what. The darkness he poured into my heart and soul onto my flesh, I'm trying to get it off me, out of me, away from me. So yeah, I have dark, horrific fantasies that both horrify and repulse me, and at the same time turn me on. Why? Because HE told me, showed me, that was all I was good for. Rage and despair? Yeah. I feel some of that. I'm so terrified of anger that it all turns to soul crush despair. So I fight every day to stay above the water and keep from drowning in all the darkness. To find some bright spots, to hold on to whatever bits I can and slowly heal and grow.

And I wrestle with the demon inside me that makes me want to go out and put myself at risk. To have someone take me again, and this time as he's raping me to say, by the way bitch. the moment I have my fun you're life is over. Because I'm going to fill you with AIDS. And have him laugh manically as he's raping me. And in that fantasy when he tell me that I'm going to die from this, I just lay back, relax and enjoy myself. Not because he's raping me, but because I will know finally, that death is coming for me. That I'll finally be able to sleep, that it will be over. Or at least I tell myself that, even if I know it's not true. And because it means it really was my fault all along, and that it was my fault and I should just get over myself. That I brought it on myself. That I asked for it.


Wow. I'm sorry. This was one of the hardest things I've ever had to write. Harder even than "Everything and Nothing" that I wrote four years ago. Why? Because I wasn't detached from it quite the same way as I was back then.

This is a long, long way of saying that I hope you find your way slowly and gently to some feelings. Or that maybe you get to skip past the worst part and find yourself at the end of the grieving cycle. Cause I wouldn't want you to have to go through some of the stuff I'm . . . dealing with. I hope you don't mind but I'm going to cross post this on my blog. In part because I can't believe I wrote this and because somehow, and I don't this, I feel a little better than when I started reading you post, after finding my way here from Britni's blog.

Yeah, deleting and retyping words? Oh yeah, I get that. I get how hard it was to say "I was raped." Wow, there, I said it too. Wasn't exactly my first time talking about it, and I don't know if it's the first time I've said it in so many words, or those words exactly. Why? Because while I can remember in perfect detail what he did to me. I cannot always remember other things.

I feel quite often like "Sam Beckett" in "Quantum Leap" my memory all Swiss cheesed. Can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I remember everything he did in startling clarity. I'd much rather remember breakfast. Heck I'd even be happy with not remembering how it all felt. That would be a start.

Wow. I'm sorry you had to go through what you did, and I'm sorry I kinda vomited all over your blog.

Life, or something like it.

I'm going to cover a few things in here. May even flesh them out in their own more detailed posts later. For now, I feel like I've been neglecting my blog, my readers, and I guess myself. Why myself? Because enjoy writing. All recent evidence to the contrary.

Waiting is: For Fullness.

Okay, yes, this is right out of Stranger in a Strange land. One of my all time favorite books. It is however also very true.

My life has been a series of journeys, some happening concurrently. One of those has been surviving domestic violence, recovering from the harm done to me, and building a new life. One that hopefully will not be a repeat of the past. Parts of it however have been so much like starting over that it's more like having appeared fully grown and 40 something years old out of thin air and everything that means. Like having a higher car insurance premium for the last three years. MUCH higher. I've been paying well over a thousand a year for a car that I don't drive that often. No history of any accidents, tickets, nothing. No history of having been a licensed driver for decades either. Also, no credit history. Not a bad one, NONE! Like I'd never existed. So, my rates have been REALLY high.

Well it's been three years that I've been driving without so much as a warning on my record, not even a parking ticket. Three years of fighting the conundrum of not being able to get credit unless you already HAVE credit. Three years of being a good girl, paying my bills, and working slowly toward not being punished for having to save my own life.

Today, the insurance company I've had since day one cut my rate by more than half! I just took a huge bite out of my budget. Waiting IS they say. Well the waiting has paid off. Now I have three years of a perfect driving record, a real credit history that is in the good range and have "proven" that I'm NOT a high risk to the insurance company. Which of course is saving me a thousand dollars a year on car insurance.

So I'm a happy girl. I exist on paper, I have a history I've worked hard to build, one I've been protecting. I'm no longer a high risk for the insurance company. I have credit. And, my monthly budget just got a much needed infusion of cash. Woot!

Okay, I said I was going to cover multiple topics, but honestly I think I'm done for now. I want to end this entry on a high note. So, here goes: "LA a note to follow so!"

Predatory Commercialism and Feminism

Okay, let me start with a short disclaimer. I do not lack a sense of humor. I'm also not a "Militant, Radical, Lesbian, Feminist", anymore. Once upon a time, yes, now, not quite so much. Don't get me wrong I firmly believe in equal rights, but not at the expense of bashing men. Men are people too! I have some good friends who are men.

Okay, that said, I feel the media, and commercial marketing types, are getting a touch predatory about equal rights.

Predatory Commercialism is to my mind the use a specific concepts to find a lever into someone else's wallet when they might not otherwise be willing to spend money. Or to shroud something in market friendly phrases without really doing the concepts any justice. Home Despot for excample has recently launched a course, or courses called:

DIH! (Do it herself) Doh!

To "teach" women how to "do it yourself." So when did "Do it yourself" become not enough?

Then Pepsi has several new radio spots that just make me laugh my butt off everytime I hear them. The first one talks directly TO men, and ends with "Now you can look your cahonnes in the eye!" All about Pepsi Max, and diet Pepsi a man doesn't have to be embarassed to drink.

Excuse me, but when did drinking diet soda embarrase guys? I know plenty who drink it and don't have any problem with it. In fact, until I heard the commercial I never really thought anybody gave it much thought. I certainly didn't. But now we've got "PEPSI MAX" a Man's diet in the solid black can.

Not to let it go at that, I heard another Pepsi commercial talking about how women like to change our minds, constantly. So there are now multiple varieties of Pepsi with different flavorings added. Like Lime, Vanilla and Wild Cherry flavored Diet Pepsi so women can drink them and because we crave variety? It all smacks of the old comment about it being our prerogative to change our minds. But the commercial, like the one about Diet Pepsi Max being just for GUYS, made the whole thing feel cheap and sleazy to me. Especially since I know in this mass market, one size fits all push that retailers have, no-one's going to really carry the new stuff, leaving us all to stick with what we know. And of course, add flavor as we see fit. Like when I want a Cherry, Vanilla 7-Up! Oh, wait, that's neither cola, nor Pepsi. Which is honestly too sweet for me anyway. When I did still drink soda, and cola specifically, it was always Coke for me because it wasn't too sweet. I drank the diet, caffene free version, and that was hard enough to get, let alone diet, caffene free, wild cherry... Which you can bet they are NOT making.

Now, if you followed that all, there's a country song sung by Brad Paisely that I kid you not includes the line "It's hip now to be feminized!" He goes on to sing, "What can I say, at the end of the day, honey I'm still a guy!"

And a cute one you are Brad. But the whole song is about him not buying into the rampant feminization of men. Color me stupid, but I like my men to look like men, and women to look like women. This way I don't accidentally say something stupid and without meaning to, hurt someone's feelings.

Wow, yeah, me babbling I'm thinking...

Sorry.

Cost Benefit Analysis of being green.

Most grocery stores these days sell reusable shopping bags for a very low cost. One brings them back and reuses them and gets a couple cents discount on their purchase. So what does that mean? Mean's I just carry them back, and my groceries get put in there instead of those flimsy plastic bags that get thrown away and fill up landfills. So they are a buck. At three cents back per bag, per trip, go grocery shopping 34 times and the bag was free. Plus you've avoided 34 plastic bags in landfills. There's also the cost of making those bags, printing them, shipping them and then putting them out at registers. It's a win for everyone involved.

There are more things that one can do, like energy efficient light bulbs, keeping your car tuned up, the tires properly inflated and so much more. You save money, and save the world a couple of cetns as a time.

Your Narcissism Score is 0!

So I took another of those online tests, especially given the reading I've been doing of late, this one was about how much of a Narcissist I am.

Apparently I'm not. At all. Not even a little bit.

"According to Psychologists, the average narcissism score is 15.3 -- or 17.8 for celebrities.For more information, check out the article on Wikipedia."

This type, or general level of Narcissism is a measure of the healthy kind, not that found in Narcissistic Personality Disorder which is covered in a different article.

Why you may wonder did I bother to take the test, or look into the difference? I found another survivors web site and she talk about her abuser as having been suffering from NPD. We never got Earl seriously involved in the mental health world, in fact he fought tooth an nail to avoid it, so I don't have any formal diagnosis for him. However, in looking at what Laura has had to say, and reflecting on Earl's attitudes, behavior and history, I'd say there is an extremely high probability, almost a certainty, that he suffered from NPD.

So now I need to read more on NPDs, if for no other reason than to learn how not to make the same mistakes again. Given everything else I'm dealing with, I don't see having to worry about it for a long time, but I think in terms of healing it might help. I've been pretty certain both his parents, more so his Mom than his Dad, but still, they were both Sociopaths. Which as I'm coming to learn, is basically just another name for someone with NPD.

Sorry this was somewhat darker than my usual fare, it's just part of my life I guess.

Which Starship Captain are you?

Well it was amusing, but not really that surprising that I came up as Janeway. After all, she is my favorite of the Trek captains, and not even because she's a girl.

Your result for the Which Starship Captain Are You? test...

Don't you "Aunt Kathy" me!

18% Benjamin_Sisko, 50% Kathryn_Janeway, 4% Jean-Luc_Picard, 19% Johnathan_Archer, 14% William_Adama and 16% James_T_Kirk!

Kathryn Janeway was a fantastic captain. Despite the incompetent writers and producers that plagued much of Voyager's run with "the moral of the story is.." and other Disneylike family-friendly garbage, Janeway excelled in making command decisions and did extremely well with balancing herself on the thin line between aggression and tolerance. She was unique in that she was the only captain that provided a sort of mothership (bad pun) as well as a paternal role as well to her crew. Harry Kim practically called her mom on various occassions, though he was no match for Seven of Nine when it came to begging for attention.