Echo

Damien Rice – Volcano

“Volcano”

(Damien Rice)

Don’t hold yourself like that
You’ll hurt your knees
I kissed your mouth and back
But that’s all I need
Don’t build your world around volcanoes melt you down

What I am to you is not real
What I am to you you do not need
What I am to you is not what you mean to me
You give me miles and miles of mountains
And I’ll ask for the sea

Don’t throw yourself like that
In front of me
I kissed your mouth your back
Is that all you need?
Don’t drag my love around volcanoes melt me down

What I am to you is not real
What I am to you you do not need
What I am to you is not what you mean to me
You give me miles and miles of mountains
And I’ll ask for the–

What I give to you
Is just what I’m going through
This is nothing new
No no just another phase of finding what I really need
Is what makes me bleed
And like a new disease
Lord she’s still too young to treat
Volcanoes melt me down
She’s still too young
I kissed your mouth
You do not need me

I think I want to spend the day relaxing and writing at Starbucks tomorrow, because I want to get back into that lazy rhythm of Sundays in LA. At least through the lunch rush. I just love the vibe of it there on Sundays. It just makes me feel like I’m on summer break and this good feeling will last for a while.

I’m having a very quiet peaceful Saturday.

There is a lot of love around me right now and I’m also exercising a lot of discipline.

It feels good.

One night, last week, I called my coworker late at night. He was going through this gall bladder flush program that removes gall stones and improves your joints. He had just taken a mixture of epsom salts and grapefruit juice followed by olive oil and grapefruit juice. According to everyone else in my office who’s done it, it’s some horrific stuff.

“How’s the flush?”

“Oh man, my body is a war zone.”

I laughed.

“You think you’re gonna make it into work tomorrow?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

“Well, I hope it works.”

“So…how was your gym experiment?”

“Really fuckin’ cool. I could see everything, man. How people were interacting, what kind of people they were just by watching them. And these guys kept trying to talk to me, but it was like something about me was making them all confused and stupid. They were kinda like little boys.”

“So red works, huh?”

“It’s unbelievable.”

“I don’t think it’s the red, honey. I think it’s you.”

“I know.”

“No, I’m serious. You’re like creating crazy energy right now and people are magnetized.”

“I know! It’s the craziest thing.”

I start laughing and can’t stop.

“It’s like their mental compasses go haywire. You should see their eyes.”

He laughs.

“Man, you got mad game.”

There’s a silence.

“So what are you doing right now?”

“I’m taking pictures of myself in my underwear.”

He cracks up.

“I’m really glad you didn’t tell me that at the beginning of this conversation, because I wouldn’t have paid attention to a single thing after that.”

There’s a silence. I change the subject.

“I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. It’s been getting really hard to focus on work. I mean, how the hell are we bettering the world by selling driver’s license scanners?”

“You’ve just gotta think of this as a small step in the master plan. You’re here so that you can do this while you get ready for what you really want to do with your life.”

“We’re completely wasting our potential.”

“Yeah, I know. I know…”

“Man, I’m in such a good place in my life.”

“Yeah, you can tell.”

“People just need to be themselves.”

“You seem totally different from the way you used to be, even at work.”

“Was I a jerk before?”

“No.”

“I was a jerk, wasn’t I?”

“No…you were different. You were more mysterious. Like you would talk, but then it was like the conversations didn’t reveal anything. And we just didn’t know anything about you. And you were always hiding in your office.”

“Yeah, I wanted to be left alone. I don’t think I was very happy.”

“No. But now you’re opening up a lot more, and you’re letting more people into your life which is a great thing.”

“You think I am?”

“It sounds like it.”

“Hey, what’s being a Scorpio like?”

“Hey hey, I can’t give away game plans. Snoop says, your game is to be sold, not told.”

“I’m not asking you for game plan, just what it’s like.”

“Well, we only do things for selfish reasons. I don’t do anything unless I’m expecting to get something out of it, or that it’s going to pay off in some way. You’re always talking about how you do things for people and don’t expect anything back…nu uh. I think of everything as an investment.”

“So everything you do has a motive.”

“Exactly. So us talking, just remember that I have a selfish motive. It’s not necessarily a bad motive…it’s just selfish.”

“Well, here’s the thing though. Us Gemini’s…if there’s one thing we know, it’s to never, ever let anyone catch you. Because if someone catches you, they can own you, and then you’re fucked. You have to be consistently one person for the rest of your life and we can’t do that because we’re all these people trapped in one person. It’s the guys in The Prestige…these facets inside us are all trying to act consistent enough to seem to belong to the same person, but it’s actually a bunch of different people that share one communication hub. They’re all in here and the reason we seem so enchanting to people is because we have so many different personalities, but we know the death of our spirit is for someone to catch us, because they couldn’t keep switching. Only one personality will be allowed to survive and that would mean the suffocation of the others. So we’re driven by this horror and we’re fucking fast. And you’ve gotta be able to catch us first. But no one’s faster than us.”

“Shit, we gotta catch you, too?”

“You can try. But no one is faster and more determined to not get caught than a Gemini. Except maybe a Pisces. Damn, Pisces are hard. I can’t stay away from Pisces. Maybe that’s the thing, Geminis are off chasing Pisces but can’t catch em, Scorpios are chasing Geminis but can’t catch them, and somewhere behind you, you’re driving some poor girl crazy.”

“Maybe a Virgo.”

“I can see that. You’re probably driving a lot of myspace girls crazy…”

We ended up talking about how each sign’s game plan differs, the secrets of how we draw people to us, but he was pretty serious about me keeping it a secret so I won’t post it. But I think if you really meditate on the symbols of astrology, you will find that they really really resonate at the core of people.

When this is your favorite song:

…you must be ovulating. It always makes me think of a big shiny disco ball in a dark ballroom. But it’s so bad it’s good…

Six Feet Under Finale Clip

One of the greatest endings to one of the greatest shows ever on TV…this ending never fails to make me cry.

The Affair You Don’t Know You’re Having
By Heather Johnson Durocher

I’ll call him John.

The first time we met, he actually struck me as a bit arrogant. He irritated me enough that I mentioned him to my husband in a “Can you believe this guy?” kind of way. But I interacted with John only occasionally, always through work and mostly over e-mail, so it wasn’t a huge deal. He’s just one of those people who gets under my skin, I told myself.

But a little over a year into our working relationship, something changed. One day, John let down his guard with me and I responded, I suppose in part because I couldn’t help but be curious about his mostly hidden soft side. Our conversations turned to easy banter and later — I have a hard time admitting this even now — flirtation. Our e-mails, which could number several in one day, never included outright expressions of affection toward each other. Instead, our notes were mostly business peppered with friendly sparring. We shared a similar sense of humor. I felt that he got me.

I told myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I had to talk with this guy for work, after all. And couldn’t I have a friend who happened to be male? I also told my husband about him, even sharing when we’d meet for coffee or lunch (always scheduled with the intention of discussing business). My husband, busy with a demanding job, trusted me completely.

In the midst of working part-time and caring for a preschooler, a toddler, and, later, a new baby, e-mailing and talking with John felt like an innocent escape. I never would have said at the time that I was in a bad marriage — my husband and I got along well; we just didn’t have a lot of quality alone time together — and I had no intention of crossing any physical line. But I increasingly found myself sharing more and more of my hopes and dreams with John instead of just with my husband. I anticipated my regular interactions with John in a way that was all too consuming. And it was John — not my husband — who was beginning to fill a key emotional need in my life. I was, in fact, unknowingly cheating on my husband; I was having an emotional affair.

More Than Just Friends

The signs of an emotional affair may be more subtle than those of a sexual affair, but they’re just as unmistakable. “An emotional affair happens when you put the bulk of your emotions into the hands of somebody outside of your marriage,” explains psychotherapist M. Gary Neuman, author of Emotional Infidelity.

It’s not so much that you’re not talking with your husband — there’s always stuff to discuss, thanks to kids and mortgages — but you’re not sharing with him. Your innermost thoughts, funny jokes, and interesting personal experiences are saved up and spilled to the other guy instead of your spouse. And even if you never so much as touch him, this emotional attachment has just as much potential as a sexual fling to damage your marriage. “We only have so much emotional energy; the more of it we spend outside of our marriage, the less we have inside our marriage,” says Neuman. “And after a while, we simply do not have enough emotions and love and caring and time for both.”

While emotional affairs are not a totally new phenomenon — the late Shirley P. Glass, Ph.D., wrote about them in her groundbreaking 2003 book, NOT “Just Friends” — experts agree that they’re on the rise. “Emotional affairs are happening more often because so many of us feel emotionally isolated,” says relationship expert Steven Stosny, Ph.D., coauthor of How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It.

Whether it’s because of our demanding jobs and packed schedules or the hours we spend on the Internet instead of with our families, friends, and communities, we’ve become increasingly distanced both physically and emotionally from other people, including our spouses. And when we’re not regularly sharing our lives and feelings with those close to us, we ultimately begin to feel that they’ve stopped caring. “This feeling of emotional detachment plants the seeds for an emotional affair,” says Stosny, “because when you feel emotionally detached from your husband, you are faced with a choice — either to improve the bond you share with him or to look elsewhere to get your needs met.” And working to improve your marriage is just that: work — work that’s a lot less alluring than a little special attention from someone new.

That’s where the affair partner comes in. Having another guy turn his focus onto you, even if only in friendship, can be dangerously seductive. I can attest to that firsthand: When I started my relationship with John, I wasn’t even aware of the resentment I felt toward my husband over the long hours he spent away from me and our kids at his job. To complicate matters, I was grappling with my sense of self. I second-guessed my new roles as a wife and mother: Was I being the best parent I could be by only working part-time from home? Should I work more so I could help our family’s finances? Or scrap the job thing altogether and more fully embrace this precious time with my children? What about my hobbies and interests? What was it again that I liked to do anyway?

Enter John: a guy who understood what I did for a living and made me laugh wholeheartedly. When I spoke with him, I felt smart and beautiful, sexy even, because he respected what I had to say and engaged me in intense and stimulating conversation. It wasn’t that my husband wasn’t able to do these things; he’d provided all that and more, especially during our early years together. But as time wore on, we were simply so mired in caring for our kids and making sure the bills were paid that our emotional connection waned. John didn’t know me as a wife or mother, but simply as a woman. He was someone who reminded me of the person I used to be — and perhaps hoped to find again.

An emotional affair also offers the thrill of the forbidden without crossing any physical lines. “You know it’s wrong, that it’s taboo,” says Stosny. “That’s what makes it provocative and rousing.” When Rebecca Smith,* a 39-year-old mother of two from Annapolis, MD, began regularly e-mailing with her friend Lyle, her youngest child had just started kindergarten and her husband was working longer hours. Exchanging e-mails with Lyle was a welcome diversion, not only because it filled her downtime but because their often silly, sometimes sexually charged notes were a far cry from her conversations with her husband. “My husband can be kind of negative, and Lyle has a more optimistic outlook on life. We often had these sparring conversations. It was intellectually stimulating for me,” she says. “And the more we e-mailed, the more I found myself magnetized to him and fantasizing about what my life would be like if we were together.”

Too Close for Comfort

Once you’re drawn into an emotional affair, it can feel so good that you don’t want to stop. In fact, not having sex may make the connection seem all the more powerful. It feels genuine, romantic even, and isn’t easy to let go of because it’s so “safe” — or so it appears. But inevitably, you start unfairly comparing your husband to this other man, says Neuman, which compounds the damage. “You don’t have the stresses of everyday life together, so the new guy can be very humorous, very cute, and very giving,” he says. “You go back to your spouse and you’re comparing him to this guy in pieces: He’ll never be as handsome as this guy or as funny as this guy or as giving as this guy.” While emotional affairs rarely break up couples, they can leave a marriage torn and tattered. “The affair saps so much emotional energy and core values away from your relationship,” says Stosny, “that you’ll undoubtedly feel guilty and irritable and blame your husband for these bad feelings.”

Another sure sign your “innocent” friendship has gotten out of control: You would be embarrassed for your husband to witness your interactions or to know what you
are thinking about when you’re with this other guy. And once you start keeping secrets, even “innocent” ones, your intimacy with your main man suffers even more. Toni Richards, 40, a mother of four from Wiley, TX, who had an emotional affair with a former coworker, says that as she grew closer to Bobby, she began to flat-out avoid her husband. “I wasn’t even sleeping in the same bed as my husband. In a sense, I didn’t want to be next to him because I worried he would know that something was going on, that I would say something in my sleep,” she says. “I started pulling away from him and I didn’t talk to him as much.”

And of course, with every emotionally engaging or sexually charged conversation or e-mail, phone call, or meeting, taking your affair to the physical level becomes the obvious (though by no means inevitable) next step. “The longer you continue an emotional affair, the greater the chance it will become physical,” says Stosny. The first time Bobby asked Toni to meet him for dinner, which meant she had to lie to her husband about where she was going after work, she agreed. “We didn’t kiss, but we held hands and sat next to each other — closer than friends should be sitting,” she says. In a matter of weeks, she knew that Bobby was ready to get physical. After wrestling internally with the idea of being with him — and realizing that she didn’t want things to go down that path — she decided to break off the connection with Bobby entirely. “It was a hard choice, but I still loved my husband and didn’t want to ruin my marriage any more than I already had,” she says.

Getting Out

Even after you’ve recognized your emotional affair and the damage it’s causing your marriage, slamming on the brakes is easier said than done. Says Stosny, “Many emotional affairs turn almost obsessive simply because you never had sex to consummate your fantasies.” It took months for Rebecca to tear herself away from Lyle, even after her husband came across an e-mail from Lyle and called her out on their too friendly exchange. He demanded that she show him all of her e-mails with Lyle, which she did, and asked her to stop talking with him. She agreed, but secretly maintained contact. As time went on, though, she says, “I became riddled with guilt and grew increasingly aware of how my time and energy spent on Lyle was taking away from my family, from myself. But I couldn’t help myself.” In fact, she still hasn’t completely cut ties with Lyle. “We still e-mail now and again,” she says. “I’m just more guarded with him.”

As tough as it is, quitting the relationship cold turkey is the best way to move past an emotional affair for real and for good. “Setting boundaries for continued contact will only raise the taboo level and, along with it, the excitement, the obsessions, and the motivation,” says Stosny.

The aftermath of an emotional affair can have an upside: “Failing your own values can make you more committed to them in the future,” says Stosny. So consider the experience a wake-up call to what is missing not only in your relationship but also within yourself. “I realized that if I can’t talk to my husband the way I talk to Bobby, then there’s a big problem that I need to fix first in my marriage,” says Toni. And while Stosny and Neuman say it’s not imperative that you admit your affair to your husband — in fact, you may even hurt him needlessly by doing so — some women don’t feel like they can fully move on unless they come clean. After she cut things off with Bobby, Toni opted to tell her husband about the situation. “He was hurt that I’d been sharing personal thoughts with another man,” she says, “but he was mostly relieved that nothing physical had happened.” The couple is in the midst of trying to find a marital counselor, and Toni is hopeful she can rebuild her marriage.

Severing your connection to the other man — whether or not you ever tell your husband about him — is only step one. You also need to funnel all the energy you were putting into your affair back into your marriage. And while setting aside more time to spend with each other — away from kids and other couples — is important for patching things up and maintaining intimacy in your marriage, it’s just as crucial to adopt a new attitude toward your guy. “Emotional connection is a mental state,” says Stosny. “You choose to feel connected to your husband. You decide to be loving and compassionate toward him. You will feel emotionally bonded and sexually stimulated with your husband because you’ve committed yourself and all your positive energies to him — and he’ll definitely pick up on the vibes you’re giving off.”

Nurturing your relationship is the emergency care it needs to heal. But for long-term marital health, you also need to nurture yourself. Trying out a new hobby, getting involved in your community, or tapping into your spiritual side can help you recover from — and prevent you from having — an emotional affair. “When you have more interests in your life, you have less of a desire to find something exciting and taboo to intrigue you,” says Stosny. “Plus, you’ll lead a richer, fuller life with less emotionally needy gaps.” After cooling things down with Lyle, Rebecca decided to refocus those energies on her guy and the other people close to her. “I can’t expect that my husband is going to meet every emotional need in my life, so I’m reaching out to my girlfriends and spending more time with my family.” She also recently signed up for a handwriting-analysis class, something she’s always been interested in learning about, “just for fun and to get my mind on something else,” she says.

For me, my emotional involvement with John ebbed and flowed for nearly two years. It reached a tipping point when I could no longer ignore the fact that my husband and I were fighting more often, no doubt in part because of my refusal to focus on my marriage and on how my own actions were adding to our growing friction. Like Toni, I eventually decided to share my struggle with my husband, who handled it with incredible grace. The conversation wasn’t only about me turning to someone else; we also spoke, perhaps for the first time, about what we really expected and needed from each other. It’s a discussion that continues to evolve between us. I still think about John sometimes — and how my relationship with him could have destroyed everything I hold dear. Each day, I make a conscious decision to nurture my bond with my husband first and foremost. And as our relationship grows stronger, I realize I’m getting as good as I give.

Did you know?: 82% of affairs happen with someone who was at first “just a friend,” according to noted infidelity researcher Shirley P. Glass.

Are You in an Emotional Affair?

YOU’VE PROBABLY CROSSED THE LINE IF YOU…

* Touch your male friend in “legal” ways, like picking lint off his blazer.
* Pay extra attention to how you look before you see him.
* Think crush-like thoughts like, He’d love this song!
* Tell him more details about your day than you do your partner.
* No longer feel comfortable telling your husband about this person and begin to cover up your relationship.
* Experience increasing sexual tension; you admit your attraction to him but also insist to yourself that you would never act on it.

IT’S ABOUT TO GET PHYSICAL WHEN YOU…

* Find yourself feeling vulnerable and turn to the other man for support rather than to your husband or a trusted relative or girlfriend.
* Accelerate the level of intimacy through sexual or suggestive talk over e-mail or the phone.
* Put yourself in a situation where the two of you could be alone.

TO FORTIFY YOUR MARRIAGE…

* Stay honest with your husband. Share with him all your hopes, triumphs, and failures — as well as your attractions and temptations, which will help keep you from acting on them.
* Make time for just the two of you on a regular basis — away from the kids, your friends, and family.
*
Surround yourself with happily married friends who don’t believe in fooling around. Having positive, emotionally connected role models will help you stay on track

“READERS REVEAL I KNEW I’D GONE TOO FAR WHEN. . .”

“The guy who I was flirting with regularly over e-mail attended the same event as me and my fiancé. When I introduced them, my face flushed as red as a tomato — I felt embarrassed and guilty about my fiancé meeting this guy, so I knew what I was doing was wrong.” —Carolyn, 31, Westfield, NJ

“One drunken night, my best guy friend and I confessed we had always liked each other. He was a perfect gentleman and left my place before we crossed the physical line. The next day I was completely embarrassed and knew that I didn’t want to jeopardize the relationship with my boyfriend so I ended the friendship. And now the boyfriend is my husband, so I’m glad I did.” —Allie, 29, Yonkers, NY

“The cute tech guy who I’d been flirting with at my office said to me, ‘You’re not going to invite me in?’ after I accepted a ride home from him. I liked the attention of him buying me vending machine snacks and complimenting me, but my husband would’ve had a holy heart attack if he knew.” —Amy, 38, Chicago

“My best guy friend and I were snuggled on his couch underneath a blanket when I realized that neither his girlfriend nor my boyfriend would be happy if they saw us — and that our platonic relationship wasn’t as platonic as we thought.” —Kim, 35, New Orleans

*Names have been changed.

Brain. Shut up.

I *Heart* Late Fees

I have a problem. I can’t return a video on time. I thought I would solve the problem by getting Netflix, and sometimes I’m crazy obsessed with Netflix efficiency, where I’ll time how long it will take me to watch something and how quickly I can get it in the mail to get another one, so the rental-fee value of the number of DVDs I’ve watched surpasses the monthly Netflix cost. But then at some point, I’ll fall into my Netflix K-hole where I’ll hold the same DVD’s for 6 months because I just can’t drum up enough interest to watch them. During this time, I’ll also rent movies from the Hollywood Video which is a 10 minute walk/2 minute drive from my house. The problem is that 9 out of 10 movies I rent will be returned late. Sometimes it’s just a day late. Sometimes it’s 2 months. Sometimes it literally takes me 2 months to watch a movie in 15 minute increments (this always does films a disservice because inevitably, I’ll recall these films as being “boring,” even though I recognize the manner in which they were viewed may have contributed to my inability to become immersed in the experience). Sometimes I watch the film right away, but just can’t bring myself to remember or physically make the effort to bring the video back. Sometimes I don’t even watch it. Like the $40 I paid Hollywood Video in late fees last year for Alice in Wonderland which I never even watched.

I admitted this problem to someone I knew a few years ago and he said that not being able to return movies on time is an actual symptom of a psychological issue. “Like being a serial killer?” I ask, thinking about the dude from American Psycho. No wait, he was obsessed with returning his videos on time.

When I finally returned Sexy Beast after needing two calls from a live rep at Hollywood Video asking me nicely, I started thinking about that conversation I had years ago and wondering what it was that made it so hard for me to return my videos on time. I mean, if I’ve already watched the movie, and the store is so close, and I’m in fact at the Starbuck’s next door five days a week…why can’t I make that extra little effort to return a freakin’ video? Why do I get so freaked out when I then have a massive late fee often worth more than the DVD itself?

I did some research and this is what I found:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/30/business/30instincts.html?ex=1325134800&en=a46c0c7842abc8f3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/07-099.pdf

Somewhere in all this, I need to find out why I irrationally procrastinate in this realm, and how to overcome it, because I’m sure Hollywood Video would appreciate it if I could just be a better person.

From Overworked & Underfucked:

George of the (Pubic) Jungle

I will now leave the room as you laugh yourself silly.

I’m sitting at my Starbuck’s trying to get some good work done, and I’m watching the same people that I’ve seen over the years walk in. When I recognize how quickly these kids are growing up, I wonder if it means I spend way too much time here.

Megan Mullally of Will & Grace fame has a website called Supreme Storytelling. She basically poses a topic and people submit. I submitted an edited down version of my crush list that I blogged a few years back, under the topic, “Most Inexplicable Crush.”

I can’t remember if I came up with the title, “To All the Men I’ve Crushed Before” or if they came up with it for me, but I like all the implications of the title, except for the one that makes me seem really, really fat.

Here’s my story.

I am looking for someone. All I know is his name and where he worked last year.

He slipped me a note that I couldn’t respond to at the time, but I always kept it.

Without actively searching, I’m curious if I can find him.

I got pissed off at my boss today. I’m vacationing in Hawaii, yet I’ve got strong enough work ethic to check in and make sure my customers are taken care of, checking in on work email and responding to people who need assistance. The one thing that my accounts love about me is whatever they need, I get it to them promptly. I take customer service and satisfaction very seriously, which is why I’m the newest salesperson but I’m already one of the top salespeople. One customer is having a big issue because one of our salespeople looks like he made an under the table offer to their partner, and it’s screwing up their deal with this company. So I got a panicked email from him saying he feels like there’s more than one story floating around and he feels like he’s caught in the middle of our own office politics. This is not good. I called my boss to let him know that this is something he has to take care of, but the guy is so non-confrontational and a terrible manager. So here I am, on my vacation, letting him know that we have a customer who is unhappy, a customer who also represents a huge amount of potential business. So what does he do? He tells me to just tell the customer that he must be mistaken and to not worry about it. I tell my boss, no, that’s not going to cut it. We need to clear this up on our side first so we don’t lose this guy’s trust that our company is stable, because nothing makes a company look more unstable than a lack of internal communication, inconsistent policies and internal backstabbing. So my boss gets flustered and tells me to deal with it, and I straight up tell him he needs to talk to the other salesperson to find out what he told his customer, and find out if he’s cutting a deal under the table, so I can go back to my customer with a definitive response. So my boss gets mad and says, fine, I’ll talk to him, with a tone like I just told him he’s gotta go clean his room. I asked him if he could keep me updated so I could keep the customer in the loop and he gets mad and says, I’ll call you when I’m ready, I have your number. And hangs up.

Let’s keep in mind that this is the same guy, when he gets stressed, if you come up to him and let him know about an issue that needs to be taken care of, he’ll stare out the window and not acknowledge you until you walk out of his office. He actually told his assistant that’s his strategy for when he doesn’t want to hear things he doesn’t want to deal with. It’s completely bizarre.

I’m sick of this shit. I’m on fucking vacation. I’m taking care of business, because I handle all of my boss’ accounts so he can dick around and only come into the office 2 days a week while he hangs out with his daughters and takes them to Disneyland, acting like he’s semi-retired. So when he talks to me like he’s doing me a favor when I ask him to actually manage our office, it drives me crazy. Why am I helping this guy make his life so ideal, while it’s like pulling the teeth of a tantrum-throwing little boy when it’s time for him to take responsibility of our office? I know I can’t do anything about what other people do, only what I do. I’m starting to think I need to stop backing down when I’m unhappy and wanting to leave this job, but they throw a little bit more money at me, and I back down. My mom overheard everything today and said, your boss is a terrible manager because he didn’t earn the company’s success, he was given his position by his older brother (our president). So he’s a terrible manager and he avoids responsibility, but you have to ask yourself, why would you want to work for someone like that? But he knows he can act like that, because as soon as you get fed up, he throws a little bit of money at you and you quiet down. That’s your fault.

Yeah, it’s my fault. More and more, if I can be bought out for money, it makes me a whore. I think I have to leave. It’s the only thing to do for me to respect myself.

Aloha!!

i know i’ve been all over the place lately. but i’ll be honest with you. it has been an incredible experience lately, life…it feels like i’m getting the software in my head upgraded and i’m feeling all these old emotions getting erased by all these new types of experiences.

i had really bad back pain from january until may. i mean, some days it was torture to walk, but i didn’t want anyone to know how bad it was so i powered through it. i started letting go of a lot of things and people in my life that i felt were holding me down, and i started feeling better, but right around may, as i had my eyes opened to a new level of awareness, my back stopped hurting. i started cutting down on diet and sleep, spending most of my nights dancing alone in my room by candlelight, doing yoga stretches and writing. it’s weird how i can go to so many doctors to help me with my back, but deep down, if you intuitively do the things you feel to be true, sometimes you know the secret to healing.

michelle has a friend who was just diagnosed with having a large mass in her ovary. it’s a scary time because they don’t know what it is exactly. i asked michelle if this was her friend who married the virgo guy. i had remembered 4 years ago, michelle had told me extensively about a friend who married a guy who was a virgo. the guy had a mild and defeated temperament, and her friend basically told him that he was going to marry her. she said that the guy was miserable before getting married, yet still went along with it because he didn’t stand up for what he wanted. so flash forward and they’re still married but they have 3 kids. but the guy suffers from hypertension and all kinds of health issues. i asked her if she thought the bad marriage was manifesting itself physically in him. she said she was sure. now her friend has a huge mass in her ovary. i think this marriage is filled with a lot of bad energy, and it’s killing them.

crap. 2 hours of sleep on a weekday is not okay.

i hate you today, julia. i hate you so much.

last night my fever broke.

for that i am thankful.

i will not deny that i am sad as well, but it’s a sweet sadness, the kind that makes me smile to myself when no one is looking.

i was never good at saying goodbye though it is never in doubt that i always wish people well at the level that matters most.

when we meet again, when all the petty ego conflicts have been forgotten and all that remains is the joy of a reconnection, i hope we each find ourselves in a better place.