Feeding The Spiders

News

My immediate family had a miserable time on Christmas Eve because of all the dysfunction. My sweet mother had to do most of the prep work since our hostess has to hold the church up with her shoulders, lest it fall down, and didn’t get there until nearly 10pm.

It was proposed, seconded, and put to a vote that we never.do.that.again. The vote was unanimous. Starting next year we are going to be having Thanksgiving and Christmas at my parents place with my brothers and their kids. If we’re going to work that hard, we should be able to be comfortable. I am going to be looking forward to this all year.

Now…we just have to break it to the rest of the family. There may be lines drawn in the sand, but so be it.

Haul

I’m not ready to fully report on my Christmas haul yet because I haven’t seen it (more on that later). I will disclose what I got Hugo, however, which was psychically apropos.

Jameson Organic Matelassé Coverlet

Organic Cotton Woven Blanket (He really needed new bedding that was actually made for a king mattress)

Logitech Harmony One

We each have a new TV yet but I haven’t actually seen them outside of the box and I don’t know if we’re going to be hooking them up to anything for a long while. Still not sure how I feel about all of it just yet but I’m working on it.

Gamer

I have almost beaten Zack & Wiki so I’m on the hunt for a new Wii title. I don’t think I’ll find anything anywhere near as satisfying as it has been but, I’m always willing to try The list of possibilities includes:

• No More Heroes
• Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo’s Dungeon
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
• Wii Fit
• Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party
• World of Goo (wiiWare title)

I think I’ll probably go after No More Heroes first since it just looks so damn cool. Pickins were slim this year for the Wii. I am hoping that developers will stop the trend of overlooking the Wii just because its hardware isn’t on the same level as the Xbox 360 or the PS3.

I am probably going to pick up one or the other in the coming year. There have been too many really amazing looking titles that I don’t want to miss out on. Little Big World for one and Prince of Persia for another. We’ll see which platform wins my affections.

i did not do christmas eve with my extended family. each year I leave feeling lonely and depressed so I decided…not this year. i left my phone out in my car so i didn’t have to ignore calls.

i am pretty sure this makes me a selfish asshole.

christmas isn’t christmas without my nana and i really can’t stand to be around most of the rest of them even though i love them. sometimes i wish i lived really far away so i could have my own traditions without feeling guilty or offending someone.

this next bit is going to show what a real piece of shit i am.

in my family we draw names. the rule is you can’t draw anyone in your household so you only have to buy one gift for someone outside of your home. i would rack my brains out trying to come up with a special gift for someone. one year i drew the name of someone i.had.never.met. the sister of a cousin’s in law (yeah, wrap your mind around that one) was going to be in town…so they threw their name in.* i spent forever trying to find a gift for this person, asking the people who knew them for ideas. I finally found something they seemed to genuinely enjoy when they opened it. unfortunately everyone had a package of some sort to open and i had….an envelope…with a gift card…to a place i never shop. just like the year before that…and the one before that.

i decided 2 years ago that i really didn’t need that sort of affection, stress, or heartache…so I have opted out of drawing and being drawn. i also told my immediate family that i didn’t want anything and i wasn’t doing any christmas shopping. my parents are pretty spoiled and anything they want, they go get. hugo and I are the same way. last year i got my brothers a book and put cash inside them to split with their spouse.

this year i bought hugo a few big ticket things (big for my budget, anyway) and that was all the shopping i did. and that is the story of my gradual disenchantment with christmas.

to no one in particular,

i have been feeling monstrously pressured as of late. moving the office into the house has made things much worse and much better.

I can now pull a 12 hour shift without batting an eyelash. my work productivity comes and goes. when it is on, though, it.is.on.

i come home and the house in an unholy wreck. it is literally all i can do some days to feed the dogs and make sure they get out the door so their biology doesn’t make *more* work for me.

i have enough trouble with my internal monologue making me feel inferior. when the outer world starts to reflect the self talk… i get nervous. when the people outside of my head begin to make noises that start to sound like it….absurd things happen and i start to panic.

therapy is helping me to realize that i cannot keep going on this treadmill. i cannot compete with all this and expect to win. you cannot work 12 hours a day, have perfectly trained dogs, healthy/well-balanced/vegetarian-vegan/whole foods based meals, the laundry always done, a perfectly manicured lawn, and be a size 4.

I see people around me all the time on opposite ends of the spectrum and i’m in awe of how in the fuck did they manage *that.* Women who don’t work whose homes are a total disaster. Women with several kids whose husbands are overseas and their immaculate houses.

i don’t get much help. i can ask for it but i very rarely get it. it is probably that by the time i do ask for it i am so frazzled and insane that i come off as a maniacal bitch.

i don’t have any idea what the point of this is other than to say……FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE with your neediness and your pushiness and your superiority and your ability and your nonchalant air.

you’re just as jacked up as i am.

xo,

bug

i am, if you hadn’t seen, refusing to participate in a recession. choose a higher vibration, friends.

A Voice from Death [excerpt]

“A day–a passing moment or an hour–America itself bends low,
Silent, resign’d, submissive.
War, death, cataclysm like this, America,
Take deep to thy proud prosperous heart.
E’en as I chant, lo! out of death, and out of ooze and slime,
The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love,
From West and East, from South and North and over sea,
Its hot-spurr’d hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on;
And from within a thought and lesson yet.
Thou ever-darting Globe! through Space and Air!
Thou waters that encompass us!
Thou that in all the life and death of us, in action or in sleep!
Thou laws invisible that permeate them and all,
Thou that in all, and over all, and through and under all, incessant!
Thou! thou! the vital, universal, giant force resistless, sleepless, calm,
Holding Humanity as in thy open hand, as some ephemeral toy,
How ill to e’er forget thee!
For I too have forgotten,
(Wrapt in these little potencies of progress, politics, culture,
wealth, inventions, civilization,)
Have lost my recognition of your silent ever-swaying power, ye
mighty, elemental throes,
In which and upon which we float, and every one of us is buoy’d.”

Hey Virgo - You are on a creative high, yet you may be content to go on a stroll through a museum looking at art, instead of creating it yourself. Don’t avoid the hard work of making something yourself. You can see it in your mind’s eye. Sharing your gift with others can feel like a heavy responsibility unless it comes from the heart.

I swear…you can ask wes…i was having this exact issue today. o.O i love astrology. i should take that last line to heart…