a bit of a blogging break

So that I truthfully can't utter any of these source-less email-derived lines:

Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.

I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me.

Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.

Snort. Actually, five minutes isn't quite long enough, but I'll be back by August. Hope to see you then!

p.s. the jealousy line cracked me up (ha ha!) the most; which one was your favourite?

a test—no cheating allowed!

(another email nugget with unknown source I'm afraid)

1. How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
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The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
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2. How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
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Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?
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Wrong Answer
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Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.
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3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All of the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?
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Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory. Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities.
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4. There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?
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Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.
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According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.

Snort. And um, no, I didn't get any right. ;)

avatar for Krissa

Who happens to be a great friend, and even prettier than this image suggests. :)

do I resemble this avatar?

I ain't telling! Snort.

Created at www.simpsonsmovie.com

gotta love that alphabet

A friend sent me an email containing words that when rearranged, spell other words. (As always, I don't know his source.) Here are a few:

DORMITORY:

When you rearrange the letters:

DIRTY ROOM

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PRESBYTERIAN:

When you rearrange the letters:

BEST IN PRAYER

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ASTRONOMER:

When you rearrange the letters:

MOON STARER

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THE EYES:

When you rearrange the letters:

THEY SEE

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GEORGE BUSH:

When you rearrange the letters:

HE BUGS GORE

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THE MORSE CODE:

When you rearrange the letters:

HERE COME DOTS
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SLOT MACHINES:

When you rearrange the letters:

CASH LOST IN ME

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ELECTION RESULTS:

When you rearrange the letters:

LIES - LET'S RECOUNT

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SNOOZE ALARMS:

When you rearrange the letters:

ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

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A DECIMAL POINT:

When you rearrange the letters:

IM A DOT IN PLACE

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AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE:

ELEVEN PLUS TWO:

When you rearrange the letters:

TWELVE PLUS ONE

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and now for something a little different

This is what the forward of the book I'm currently reading states:

I was not abused, abandoned, or locked up as a child. My parents were not alcoholics, nor were they ever divorced or dead. We did not live in poverty, or in misery, or in an exotic country. I am not a misunderstood genius, a former child celebrity, or the child of a celebrity. I am not a drug addict, sex addict, food addict, or recovered anything. If indeed I had a past life, I have no recollection of who I was.

I have not survived against all odds.
I have not lived to tell.
I have not lived the extraordinary.

This is my story.

—AMY KROUSE ROSENTHAL, age 39
Chicago
June 2004

There's also a Reader's Agreement at the beginning which asks me, among other things, to agree to no pretend half-reading of the book while ordering takeout food, to agree that playwright should be spelled playwrite, to agree that while some women may look sophisticated wearing a shawl others look foolish, and to agree that while black is technically the absence of all colour, it makes more sense for it to be all colours combined. On the copyright page it tells me that it is not responsible for the weather, the scalding nature of soup, or for the short window of time between bananas not being ripe enough, and being rotten. These items, by the way, are in tiny print and easy to miss, so I'm pleased that I caught them.

What is this book I'm referring to? Why, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life of course. In it the author tells about the moments and emotions of her life in delightful and various-length alphabetized entries from A to Z. Now I can't seem to get very far because every time I start a new page I realize that I don't want to just READ this book, I want to HAVE it. So I keep putting it down thinking that I might as well return it to the library and wait until I have my own copy. And it occurred to me too that what I find so appealing about the book (apart from the fact that dysfunction does not appear to play a role) is that not only is it an entertaining and random (yet organized—woohoo!) hodgepodge of admissions, but it's the type of book I would have wanted to write myself. Could SEE myself writing in fact.

Now, how does that Edward Gorey line go again? Ah yes:

Books. Cats. Life is sweet.

quick wedding update

Well, I'm glad I went! It turned out to be really fun, and I got to spend time with family members that I don't see too often. And although I felt a bit cowardly about it at first, I decided to ignore my estranged brother and his wife completely, and didn't even look at them. In a sense, I didn't even "see" them, except out of the periphery of my eyes. My niece was the first of the next generation to get married, so I'm glad I didn't miss out on the special occasion, and I'm thankful that both parties chose not to air their differences at this event. I imagine there will be time enough for that in the future!

And thanks again, Krissa and Dakota, for keeping me in your thoughts yesterday. I really appreciate it. :)

estrangements

They seem to run in our family. My mother is estranged from one of her sisters, my step-dad is estranged from his two daughters, two of my siblings are estranged from my dad, and I'm estranged from one of my brothers who himself was estranged from the whole family for almost four years.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, as some of you know, I'm attending my niece's wedding this Friday and it will be the first time I see my brother again. I'm not particularly looking forward to that (am a bit apprehensive actually), but don't want to miss the wedding because of it. How we got to be estranged is, not surprisingly, a long story, but the final incident that clinched it was when said brother uninvited me from the family Christmas dinner he was hosting in 2003. To add insult to injury, he left a message on my answering machine saying that if I apologized to his wife for being rude (which I hadn't been), they'd reconsider uninviting me, but that they didn't care whether I was there or not. His last words to me on tape were, "Oh, and a piece of advice: get a job, get a life." Click.

Needless to say I was not amused, and apart from a letter I wrote, we haven't had contact since. Now obviously there was a fair bit of bad blood between us already because estrangements don't develop overnight, or in a vacuum. But they are definitely one of our family patterns, and one that I wanted to explore. Which is why I'm writing about otherwise personal and private matters, and also why a few years ago I bought family members copies of Laura Davis's book I Thought We'd Never Speak Again: The Road from Estrangement to Reconciliation. It's a good book, and one of the appendixes includes a self-assessment quiz called "Are You Ready for Reconciliation?" I'm going to include it here because I think it's quite valuable and could be of benefit to others. You are to answer "yes" or "no" on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being no and 10 being yes.

1. Has a relationship with someone you once cared about ended because of anger, betrayal, or miscommunication?
2. Do you miss the other person and wish he or she could still be in your life?
3. Have you worked through your own feelings enough to approach this person in a new way?
4. Are you ready to take responsibility for your role in what happened?
5. Have you developed a sense of compassion for the other person?
6. Have you moved beyond fantasies of revenge and retaliation?
7. Could you move forward even if you received no apology or acknowledgment that you were wronged?
8. Are you being realistic about the other person? Have you stopped pinning your hopes on a fantasy?
9. If a limited relationship is all that is possible, would that be acceptable to you?
10. Can you be in this relationship and still feel good about yourself?
11. Given the risks involved in reaching out, are you willing to face the worst possible scenario?
12. Do you have what it takes to rebuild this relationship?

My own answers revealed that I am not ready to pursue reconciliation, and that I'm closer instead to accepting that our relationship is probably over. Other family members have tentatively begun taking small steps to reach out and while I wish them success with that, I have no interest in doing the same. Still, I have to see my brother on Friday whether I like it or not, so it could be an interesting evening indeed.