I get angry at the injustice in the world. At thoughtless people. At selfishness. At unmutual behaviour.

But I can't change people. I can't change the world. So all the anger just sits there and festers. "I'm always angry."

But constant anger is constant stress, and constant stress is very damaging. So I tamp it down. I say I don't care. I shrug it off.

But I can't seem to just diminish my response to anger. Everything else gets diminished, too. If I don't feel anger, I also don't feel joy, I don't feel love.

But that's depression. I have to choose between being angry or being depressed? 

How to be authentic and in the moment and emotionally responsive without burning up?

How do people do this?

New pages today. Six of notes & longhand writing, which became 5.5 typed. Pulled everything out & put it in a different environment, paid homage to BP's response to the Gulf Coast oil spill. 

New clothes washer is beautiful and it makes our clothes smell good. 

Mom tomorrow. Sleep now. 

This exists. 

Handiemail: Real Handwitten Words

And, they're hiring. At last, the day job I was born to work as a supplement to my fabulous lifestyle. Sadie Doyle would be proud. 

I completed my application, with the exception of a writing sample. I printed out their gridlines, put it under a piece of paper, and copied the sample text as faithfully as possible. It was a thing of beauty. 

I got all the way to the very end, and signed the sample letter with, 

"Handemal." 

According to their specs, this means I have to rewrite the whole thing from the beginning. 

Further hilarity: as I typed this, I spelled "faithfully" as "failthfully." 

Edited to add: Here's another thing. As I was copying the text, concentrating on my handwriting, and making sure my words and sentences fit within the line guides and so on, only checking to make sure everything matched (it's more like drawing, honestly), something sort of unlocked and woke up in my brain. It felt really good.  I haven't been able to find my magical purple journal for over a week now and it's driving me crazy.  My point is, long hand writing does something in terms of brain activity. 

I wrote a thing that was 1500 words and then I cut it down to 1000. 

My head is splitting. 

some of what I wrote depended on knowledge that I gleaned from this thing about hypertextual thinking. 

ow. 

I have no one to blame but myself. 

We all know that a) a person doesn't just get over being depressed, and b) a person can't stop mourning like flipping a switch. 

But, I'm hurting enough right now that I'm willing to try some strategies. I want to be the strong person that I need. Today I did a couple of things; wrote two thank-you emails, unloaded the dishwasher, put away some stuff. 

We're still mourning Bebe really hard. It feels like we're etherized, exhausted, wearing a hot, wet blanket. 

if you could do something for a depressed person, what would it be? I'll try it. (Non-pharmaceutical  ideas please. We're already taking prescribed meds.) 

Meanwhile, I've taken some melatonin (to shut my brain off) and I'm going to listen to mah storiez.  I've got The Girl On The Train, Disgraced, and The Alchemist. 

Thank you. 

OH. In hilarious news, I was accepted to a weekend-long artists' colony, which will only cost me a grand to attend, not including travel. 

When Archer was born, Jason gave me a necklace with a peridot in it (Archer's birthstone) and five tiny diamonds.  Before Hunter was born, I told Houser that I wanted him to take that necklace and combine it with a blue topaz, which was going to be Hunter's birthstone, because I never wanted to have to choose which necklace to wear.

Houser went to Beardsley and presented him with the original necklace and his new design.  He drew a front view and a side view, which Beardsley really appreciated because people design jewelry in their heads all the time, but rarely do they render it on paper with dimensions/proportions.  Both Beardsley and Houser actually went to the same art school, but not at the same time.

There are many styles of birthstone necklaces, a lot of them look like this:

Sorry for the image-heavy post, but for those who have not seen the typical stuff, I wanted to contrast it with my necklace, which is exactly what I wanted and one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.  This is it:

It looks better in person, but photographing jewelry is haaaard.

Hunter calls it "the me and Archer necklace".  

Anyway, I have no engagement ring, my wedding ring is pretty plain (by design, I always bang my hands into things and I wanted a ring I couldn't wreck) - this is the piece of jewelry that represents my marriage and my family more than any other.  I am very happy with it.

So I did this today. And then rode twelve miles home via Lindbergh Boulevard, for a total of 26 miles.

I didn't realize I'd covered so much ground until I recognized buildings on the outskirts of the airport.

The Heinz Wildlife Refuge (aka the Tinicum Wildlife Refuge) has many miles of hard-packed gravel trails in decent condition for cycling, even with cheap-hybrid-bike tires.

I was trying to follow the East Coast Greenway. There's lots of signage for it now, but you still get dropped off the face of the earth sometimes. I kept finding it though.

I want to pedal to my mom's house in Connecticut in the worst way. It's smack on the Greenway.

I don't have to take off work! I can just get up at 6am, pedal until it's too hot, and hide out in an AirBnB somewhere! We all need practice with remote working anyway. That's totally practical right? Hey it actually might be.

Yesterday is going to be one of those days I remember when I am old as one of those perfect family days where everyone was happy and silly and playful and we made my stoic dad get choked up a few times as we celebrated his 75th birthday and Mom wasn't hurting and we all ate perfect steaks that Matt brought and Dell was feeling good and not a single jab was thrown (but not because we were trying to be on good behavior, but because it never occurred to anyone to say something cruddy) and the weather was perfect and we played catch outside (or watched people play catch outside) until we all came inside and the kids were all at that age where they were up for anything and nothing was too dorky to do. We flung Snapple caps, we talked about important things and not-important things and hugged a lot. I wish I was back up there right now.  

I never want to forget yesterday.

(x-posted to xtingu.livejournal.com)

My favorite, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is running NOW at The Wilma Theater. I must go. Anyone else?

It's like Hamlet++

It's like Waitng for Godot to  poison Gerturde.

It's like Our Town (is Elsinore).

Don't let me miss it!

Here are some questions for you good people:

Do athiests have a "belief?" Or is atheism a lack of belief? Is it a leap of faith to believe there are no gods, or are athiests standing firmly on the ground by disbelieving in all gods?

In a few other words: is athiesm science, religion, philosophy, or a combination thereof? And - this one's for those who consider themselves atheists - does it matter? Is the difference between "I believe there are no gods" and "I disbelieve in all gods" important?

I have an opinion, but I'm much more interested in yours. Besides, who the hell am I to say? I think Ewoks are awesome and Tyler, the Creator is the best thing to happen to music since Smear joined the Foos for good. So maybe I'm not the best one to judge.
​

                                                             Yep. This guy.

So there you have it! Fire away. You're welcome to bring your own belief system into the discussion, but it isn't necessary. Politeness and respect is, though, but y'all knew that already.

Thanks! And if I accidentally earwormed you with George Michael, well...you're welcome.