MARGARET SANGER:

“A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.”

This was a book that was very popular a long time ago, all about female identity and breaking free of culturally imposed “shoulds and should nots” and living from, and for, our souls. Its written by a Jungian therapist.  For some reason I just could never get into the written version, try as I might. Now, years later, I’m doing audio books as I commute to work and I’m listening to her narrate the book.

Its wonderful!!!! She talks about myth and fairy tales and what they really say about women and it is just so thought provoking and inspiring. Her voice is enchanting and I can’t recommend it enough.

Enjoy your day!

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You guys have been unbelievable. You just hang in there and continue to send me cyber-hugs and love and light and support and I appreciate all of you so much for that. Just want you to know I’m feeling a lot better, physically and emotionally - just really busy now with my daughter’s wedding stuff and my new passion - learning to make jewelry and doing stained glass.  I’m sorry I’m not finding time to read your blogs, because I miss it, but I”ll be back

This is sooo worth watching

“Perhaps we are like race horses - one of the old traditions was to ‘handicap’ the greatest horses so that they would not run away from the pack. They would pile on lead weights, whatever was needed to get up to the amount of weight the handicapper said they should carry. We’re handicapped because otherwise the world could not keep up with us.”

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Chronic illness can have an effect on even the strongest relationships…So Alph and I are going through some tough times right now…causing me to be too depressed to write…anyway, thanks for still checking in and I will be back soon I hope….

Yup, that’s been my title for the past year or so, since we began planning my daughter’s wedding. We’ve been planning the fairy tale since she was a little girl, and so excited to get started once she got engaged. Also, for the past year, my lupus has been getting worse. More work obligations cancelled. More social plans cancelled. More pain. More bed.  I cannot make any commitments. Everything is tentative. Living a tentative life is stressful, and stress makes lupus worse.

We are coming down the wire here and I only pray that I will get a remission in time for the September wedding.  I’ve already had to disappoint her, and me, by  canceling some plans with her. It looks like today will be another one, since I’m in a lot of pain though fighting it. We are supposed to go for her first bridal fitting, and also to a make up trial. This is supposed to be a fun  thing that moms and daughters do together.  I feel so terrible, terrible, terrible to have to disappoint her (and me) again.

I try to tell myself its all in my mind, but its not. Its in my bones and in my foggy brain. Yesterday, I had to ask my sister to drive me to the pharmacy and to the lab for a blood draw. I NEVER ask people for help…yet today I am actually considering driving up to my daughter’s to do what we had planned. I simply cannot bear to disappoint her…

But then I think, I almost died four years ago when I had my stroke. And  I think, one of her oldest friends lost her mother to cancer just two months before the wedding. Can you imagine how sad that was? So then I think, we’re fortunate that I’m alive and able to share the wedding experience with her, albeit at a distance.  And as my father used to say, you have to roll with the punches….

An article in Science Daily reports that Swedish researchers have found  some physical attributes of the homosexual brain to resemble those found in the opposite sex.

The findings: 

The brains of heterosexual men and homosexual women are slightly asymmetric—the right hemisphere is larger than the left—and the brains of gay men and straight women are not.

In connectivity of the amygdala (which is important for emotional learning), lesbians resemble straight men, and gay men resemble straight women. 

So…….maybe moral choice regarding this issue, with all the negative moral judgements attached to it, really does come down to natural, biological chance. And doesn’t everyone deserve a chance to be who they were created to be?

Me?  I: 

1. Reach for my laptop.

2. Catch up on reading other people’s blogs.

3. Try to write a post of my own. Can’t. Creativity is still sleeping.

4. Attempt to clean out my mailbox. Realize I have a serious email hoarding problem.

5. Pick up that boring novel I’ve been reading, then wonder why on earth I’m still reading it if its so boring. Do I have to know the ending? Will the world stop if I never find out? 

6. Listen to the birds begin their morning chirping and wonder, really cranky now, what on earth there is to to sing about when you’re up at 5:30 a.m. ?

7. Write a silly list like this which actually IS putting me to sleep - and probably you too…

8. Keep pushing because it just feels like there should be ten things here…

9. Notice my two cats snoozing happily at the foot of my bed and, not for the first time, feel jealous of the life of a cat. At least, my pampered cats. Though, on second thought, I wouldn’t want to have to eat their stinky cat food. Ew.

10. Consider learning more about my new mac, which is so easy that its hard, and decide I’d rather be sleeping…

What do YOU do when you can’t sleep?  

Nite all…No, correct that to Good Morning….

“Would the little child you were look up to the adult you have become?” Joe Kort

If so, great!!!! If not…why not?

I read a moving essay in today’s NY Times, by a man who might not even be alive today if he hadn’t remembered the well publicized facts and symptoms of Russert’s heart attack. He notes that apparently  many, many men are arriving in emergency rooms, better safe than sorry.

Its so worth reading…

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In what is considered the most significant genetic breakthrough in MS research in three decades, scientists last year announced they had found a gene that increases the risk of developing the disease by 30 percent.

“This discovery is very significant, because it is hopefully the first of many, and after more than 30 years of finding nothing,” said Dr. Jennie Q. Lou, professor of public health and internal medicine at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.”

Go to Live Science to read the full article.

This quote is dedicated to my son:

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“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” Stephen Covey

Too often, as adults, we forget to say three little words that mean so much to our partners. No, not the obvious ones.

I mean “I’m proud of you.” For some reason, we forget to say that, almost as if its a given to our partner. It isn’t. Trust me. Try saying it. Please be sure you have a particular example in mind because its absolutely certain he or she will ask, “Why???”.

Then when you say it, watch the subtle change of facial expression.  You will see that you have given a powerfully tender gift to the person you love.

Chronic illness feels like an abusive relationship. I should know, I was in one. 

I only just made this analogy  yesterday. A friend was talking about a controlling relationship which her daughter, M.,  is stuck with until M.’s child turns 18. Every time she gets thru one crisis with the father of her child, who feeds on her angst like a shark feeds on a flailing, tasty human, calm returns and for a while she feels some semblance of normalcy.  

She goes on living as if no further emotional assault will occur, and is truly re-traumatized each and every time.  How could this be happening again????…..the raging powerlessness I know she feels as he uses their child as a pawn between them, a pawn in a game she cannot win.

She will not use Solomon’s sword. He would.

Jump back to me, stuck in bed again with my lupus flare. Like it or not, stuck with it. My body, my life, my work, my marriage,  my family -  all affected by this nasty disease. Assaulted by it.  And I feel powerless, and furious…. so furious….  a  raging powerlessness in a fight I cannot win. A fight which will probably kill me. An abusive relationship doesn’t get much worse than that.

And then I feel better again, a semblance of normalcy is restored (key word semblance) , until the next assault by the disease.  At which point I feel shocked and traumatized that the flare has flattened me again.  Just like M. feels. 

There’s nothing we can do about it, right? 

Wrong, actually. I heard myself advising M.’s mom that M. needs to accept that it is what it is. He will never change. His tactics will never change. I would imagine any boxer would tell you its the punch they didn’t see coming that knocked them out.  So…umm…when are M. and I going to admit to ourselves that she had a child with a power and control freak, and I have a very serious medical condition which does not go away just because I get remissions? 

What we both need to do is to see it coming, know its coming, but accept the breaks in between with  the grace,  joy and  wisdom to appreciate the present.  When you know its coming you can have a back up plan. For her it might be disengaging from his game and gathering  the support she needs. Not to detail her victimization but to go out with her friends for a good time,  or treat herself to a day at the spa. It won’t change a blessed thing about the situation, but regardless of whether she suffers or pampers herself while he does his thing- nothing else will change. So since it is what it is, I vote for pampering at such times. Nurturing herself rather than berate herself because she can’t win.

So, as is often the case, in giving my friend advice I gave it to myself. I stopped fighting this flare today and accepted the reality that I need to take a week off from work even though  I HATE canceling clients. I decided to take advantage of the abusive (insert your favorite curse word here) lupus and treat myself. I mean, just because I can’t go to work doesn’t mean I can’t work on my hobbies which I never have enough time for.  I can decoupage, make jewelry, plan craft projects, read, watch movies, all from the comfort of my nice snuggy bed.  It won’t change anything, but…to tell you the truth… I am actually looking forward to my week off now… 

It is what it is.  

I just found this artifact of life before computers on www.stressrelatedillness.com.. Makes a good lead in for what I’ve got for you today: an interesting, tongue in cheek essay that you might enjoy too, in todays’ New York Times Magazine. I guess this means I’m emerging from my murderous funk: 

 The Way We Live Now by Peggy Orenstein

I think I do count them frequently on my blog, but today is not one of those days. I’m down with a flare again. I’m in pain which the pain killers dull but do not eradicate. Had to cancel plans  with my sister, my son, and my daughter. I was really looking forward to them. I realize I did just count three blessings, but you know what I mean. Please don’t anyone point my blessings out to me by way of comment because I will have to ban you from my blog. I mean, what would

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 I do with all this anger????? And if anyone asks me what advice do you give your clients, they are also banned from my blog. Is anyone out there having as bad a day as I am? 

I can’t believe you read this far. 

I had posted this quote, author unknown, on 12/15/07. Today the author contacted me and identified herself. Her son had recognized her quote and pointed her this way. I think its only fair to quote her again with proper attribution so here it is. And  anyone who likes my site should visit hers - she is definitely another kindred soul…:

“”In and out… up and down…. over and over…. she wove her strands of her life together….patching hole after hole…eventually she saw it was much more than the threads which gave her strength….it was in the very act of weaving, itself, that she became strong.”Author Unknown

I had it on here because I thought that random photos appearing on my blog would add an element of interest.  And until today it did. But I just saw one that is truly evil looking - a black and white photo of a woman with what appears to be a plastic bag over her face. That’s not art, in my blog. Its objectification of women to the degree of horror.

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Ok, here we go, my first Meme- I was tagged by my friend SanityFound

1. I absolutely can’t stand whining.

2. I’m a binge eater of ice cream, preferably vanilla

3. My favorite TV show is Boston Legal.

4. I hate long blog posts because I have the attention span of a gnat. So I try to read the shorter posts of my blogger friends to keep up with what’s going on with them.

5. I admire Hilary Clinton

6. When I was 6, in catholic school, the nun wouldn’t let me leave for the rest room so i wet myself right at my desk and was reprimanded before the entire class.  That was 50 years ago and I still feel  ashamed as I write this.

7. I do not like nuns.

8. Despite my health issues, I consider this 5th decade of my life to be the most fulfilling.

9. My favorite colors are purple and turquoise.

10.I really don’t want to hear my friends’ problems when I get home from work, because that’s what I do for a living all day long.  And what I love about my blogger friends is they never ask me for advice!

Ooops! I just remembered a really important one:

11. I screen phone calls, even from people I love. Because I hate chatting on the phone. I’d rather be reading, or doing decoupage, or hanging out with my husband watching a movie in bed.

Ok..so lets see…now I’m supposed to tag 10 people…well, that’s the price you pay for being on my blogroll, guys! I tag:

Bill Howdle

Miki

linzworld

Madame Monet

Mary Eileen Williams

abby

justordinary

lwayswright

pantz

jeff