There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl's complexion

My life is significantly better than it was the last time I posted. Things are better between D and I. My anxiety is much more under control. My father is giving me the money I need to pay off debt and put us in a situation where we can buy a place.

Chicago has had a lousy ass winter that has lingered into spring. It seems like whenever it's nice out, it's when i am either at work or out of town. Such is life!

Cecil turned three on Monday!! D bought him a shirt that says "if you're happy and you know it, lift your leg"

Joy comes in the most random or trivial places....tonight it's "the office"....steve carrell is my current crush.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.

Sundays are a big day of drinking temptation mainly due to boredom. Traditionally I watch 9 hours of football at the Jefferson Tap or at home. My goal is to break that habit as I hate Monday hangovers.

So today Darrel had to work and I knew I needed to keep myself busy. I did something I haven't done in a long time. I met Julie at Century Theatre and we saw Juno. It was FANTASTIC. Go see it. Then we theatre hopped and saw Atonement. We had to sit in the third row so it was a little big.

Anyway, I am the most sober at 6:30 pm that I've been in years. It feels great. Back to work tomorrow...first full week in three weeks. Yuck.

b>79% Hillary Clinton
79% Chris Dodd
77% Barack Obama
76% John Edwards
69% Joe Biden
67% Rudy Giuliani
64% Dennis Kucinich
64% Bill Richardson
63% Mike Gravel
52% John McCain
42% Tom Tancredo
39% Mitt Romney
39% Mike Huckabee
37% Ron Paul
27% Fred Thompson
</b>
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Happy New Year Everyone!!

I have had the past couple of weeks off and have been doing a lot of thinking. I need to start posting more often. I need to find my voice again. My resolutions include to reclaim my health/fitness, control my alcohol consumption, spend more time with my family.

Hope that 2008 is a fantastic year for all of you.

I turned 40 yesterday. My parents, their spouses, my grandmother, two sets of aunts/uncle, my cousin are all coming tomorrow for a celebration weekend. We are having a big party tomorrow night here in the party room of our building. Friends from work, the Tap, all over the place are coming. On Saturday, my mother is hosting a lunch for the women at Joe's Stone Crab and my uncle is hosting a lunch for the men. Saturday night my dad is hosting a dinner.

To prepare for all this "celebration", I had my hair cut, highlighted, my nails and toes done, bought three new outfits. I also bought 20 bottles of wine and two cases of beer.

Should be an interesting weekend. My parents have not seen each other since 2002. Most of my Chicago friends have not met my family.

Goal: Do not get trashed and make a fool of yourself.

I tested myself and I am an ENFP.

Good movies
- Wild Hogs
- Bee Season
- Capote
- An Inconvenient Truth

I am obsessed with Truman Capote. I think we must be soulmates.

So I ate a leftover fortune cookie for breakfast. It's about the only thing I like from chinese take out.

My fortune:

"Accept something you cannot change and you will feel better."

I guess I am supposed to add the obligatory "in bed"....but that makes it even worse. But anyway, here we go....

I accept the fact that I can't be young again.
I accept the fact that people I care about are gone.
I accept that Virginia cannot manage her time and that it's not because of me.
I accept that we are moving in 7 days and I have to spend this beautiful day packing up my disastrous closet. I cannot change that slavery has been abolished so I can't delegate the closet to someone else.

I'm still not feeling better.....

I accept that I cannot make Darrel quit smoking or drinking.
I accept that I cannot make my dad believe that global warming is real.
I accept that my parents divorced.
I accept that the Soprano's had to end.

Now we're getting somewhere!!! Fortune cookies shouldn't make flip promises though....don't you agree?

I know that I am not the only one who is plagued with fear of losing the people you love. Until you have had something earth shattering happened (like losing someone for real), you don't know what it's really like. I almost lost Darrel for real last week. We were on vacation in Indianapolis and he went to the gas station to fill up our rental car. He was gone longer than normal, but I tried not to bother everyone with my insane paranoia that the sky was falling. But when the phone rang, I knew.

The voice on the phone was telling me that my husband had suffered a grand mal seizure inside the gas station and that he was in the ER at St. Vincent's Hospital. Two minutes earlier or later and he would have been behind the wheel. Instead the seizure happened inside the BP Gas Station and he fell into a shelving unit and had convulsions for 5-8 minutes.

We don't know what caused it - they couldn't find anything in the CAT Scan, XRay, blood work etc. He chewed up his tongue pretty bad and has bruises everywhere. He can't drive, swim, etc. until he's cleared by a neurologist.

Now everytime we say goodbye, or I even go in the other room, I have a fear I will not see him alive again. It's driving me crazy.

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other,
that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name, Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone
Wear no forced are of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was, there is an unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.

-Henry Scott Holland 1847-19199
Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral

Today is a sad day for people who have lost their mothers, or children and while I know it's a day of joy for many, my heart is heavy for Nancy, my brother Zach, Irene and Darren.

Friday night was Looptopia in downtown Chicago. "America's first dusk 'til dawn cultural and artistic celebration"....a more timid yet crowded burning man. When I came home, I was lucked out to get the singing cab driver Ray St. Ray who sang me a song about sex and caution.

Still eating vegetarian and love it. Frustrated that McKinsey's Values Day is being held at Brookfield Zoo. I hate zoos.

I've been Suzy Post A Little...due to being so busy with work and life in general. I've decided to give up red meat and white flour altogether. It's been tough but I feel better. Just got home from Trader Joe's and realized that everything I bought has a mexican flair to it. Cinco De Mayo fever?

I just finished reading an article about Rachael Ray in People Magazine. It said on the cover that she get's VERY personal in the article. So I bought it. I also saw on the front that Heather Locklear is dating a former costar. So I bought it. Neither article told me anything that I didn't already know. I am suck a sucker for gossip mags!!

We watched Borat twice last night. I can't get enough of that movie.

I am obsessed with food. When I am dieting, I am obsessed with calorie counts and lists of things I can and can't have. I am constantly planning every meal and living in fear that I am going to be put in a position where I am faced with something on the forbidden list. Eventually, I burn out and make a run for the nearest Happy Meal. I've become so burn out with my yo yo diet that I either just don't eat at all, or I eat whatever I want, even if it's something horrible for me. Unfortunately, this takes me farther and far from where I was 5 years ago in terms of health and fitness.

So here I begin again, another strategy in place with no bad carbs, red meat or pork. Also trying to eliminate diet soda. Taking pilates and walking at noon.

I'm going to try to avoid eating things I hate and eating too much of the same thing, like salad. I love salad but I can't eat it 2 meals a day forever and not burn out.

Happy Easter!

Easter is supposed to be about spring, family, children, ham, chocolate and bunnies. Oh and yeah, the biblical significance of Easter. For me though, quite different. I have not found a church in Chicago that I like, it's 20 something degrees outside and snowed yesterday. I have no children, don't like ham and never have liked chocolate all that much. I do live jelly beans though - especially the black ones. Except for D and Cecil, no family either.

What I do have is a ton of friends and love in my life. Some of my friends are here in my neighborhood, some are at work, some are far away but I talk to them all the time. Some are online, just a click away. I even have a new friend in heaven to talk to.

I guess my point to myself is when I compare myself to the typical 30something woman, I am very different and it makes me feel like the oddball. But when I think about my sweet dog, my adoring husband and my goodness, all my friends, how can I feel alone?

I don't like sushi, but I pretend to. Last night D took me back to Usagi Ya and we had the little table in the window that you crawl into and sit on cushions. I had my wonderful Yokisoba and we split s bottle of wine. Today we are taking the train to Richton Park to spend Easter with Tammy and Greg and his family. Tammy and Greg don't have children either.

I haven't posted in a while but this is just about the one year anniversary of my journal. I went to Florida with my 16 year old half brother to visit my dad and Mary Beth. While we were down there, my brother's mother died of cancer so it totally changed the mood of the trip. It was a strange visit.

On December 26, 1986 my father called me and asked him to come over to my parents house because he wanted to talk to me. I was in college at the time and living in an apartment close by. I drove over and he was already outside and got in the passenger side of my car. He asked me to drive him to Kroger. As I was driving, he began to tell me that he and my mother were divorcing...that he loved her very much but that it was time for them to move on. This was the day where the world changed for me forever. Within a matter of months I learned that my father actually was leaving my mother for another woman, one of his regional managers. Because of the work conflict, he resigned from his job and moved to Denver to be with the woman. They got married less than a month after my parents divorce was final. The wedding was awful. Her parents and family had to clue that my dad's divorce had just happened, or that this was not something that I welcomed. Regardless, they married and within three years had a son together. Again, my dad told me that his wife was pregnent while I was driving. Ten years later, my dad and new wife werre obviously unhappy. My dad so very quiet and the wife sequestered herself in the bedroom with cheap novels and blankets. So an affair sparked between my dad and my best friend, who he ends up marrying, after of course leaving wife #2 and my half brother. Wife #2 was devestated, although how could she hardly be surprised given that their relationship began as an affair.

That was ten years ago. Now wife #2 who since has remarried lays dying of cancer. It seems the saga never ends with my dad's relationships, decisions and how the never ending soap opera inflicts me. I feel sad, lost, confused about wife #2s illness. Of course, she and I hardly speak due to the fact that he married my best friend.

The only person who I feel can share the pain is my brother, who is meeting me in Florida on Friday. But, I'm not allowed to bring it up.

+ My marriage is great
+ I love my employer
- Darrel quit his job today
- Darrel is getting sued by his ex wife
+ My anxiety attacks have subsided
+ I have made some very nice friends
- I hate our apartment building
++ Spring is on it's way
+ I lost a pound.

I have the most serious worst case of the Mondays. I didn't want to get out of bed this morning and am so annoyed with this whole daylight savings time early thing. I am starving and it's first day of a diet that I have been planning for a while. I am covering a coworker who is home hungover from the Irish Parade.

I am sure everyone reading this has a case of the Mondays too.

Very nice pre-diet weekened. Joe's Stone Crab Friday night, Erie Cafe Saturday night and Greek Islands yesterday.

Not sure if anyone has heard of this book, but it's really impactful.


The Four Agreements

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don't Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

I rarely rant about politics but if President Bush pardons Scooter Libby, I am going to be so friggin angry. I know Clinton pardoned Marc Rich and I'm not saying that I think it's not a presidential power, but in this case, it would simply be a punch in the face to our judicial system!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It will never be soon enough for me for that man to be out of the oval office.

You Are a Boston Terrier Puppy

Aggressive, wild, and rambunctious. Deep down, you're just a cuddle monster.