So I decided to go to the gym today, given the low likelihood of my being able to get there tomorrow.  It was rough, because I didn’t get home from pool until 1:20, and didn’t make it into bed until 2:00.  But the alarm went off at 7, and I dragged myself and a can of Red Bull (sugar free) to the house that Arnold built.

And boy, was I glad I did.  See, I normally do something like 30-45 minutes of intense cardio (depending on the workout scheduled for the day), and then hit the weights.  I was planning on doing a light arm day, having done legs yesterday, and anticipating a fair amount of shoveling in the near future.  But as I got on the treadmill, a trainer I’d seen there a few times before approached me and said he’d be interested in giving me a free training session.

Yes, I recognize this is an advertising technique.  And it may have worked, as his rates are pretty reasonable and he’s got a bootcamp thing going on twice a week that might be just the change I need.  But anyway.

Towards the end of the (productive, challenging, mostly body-weight and plyometric oriented session), he mentioned that he trains a couple of kids on a weekly basis.  They are brothers.

They are nine and seven years old, and the parents got the nine-year-old a personal trainer because the nine-year-old is “a little overweight”.

Now, I know that I haven’t seen the child, and the trainer might have been trying to be tactful about a more serious weight problem, but THE CHILD IS NINE.  And I know from personal experience just how damaging it can be to introduce an emphasis on weight at that age – S.E. was 14 when I was 9, and had been in Weight Watchers for 3 years.  And now, neither one of us has an ideal relationship with food.

But I live in THAT kind of a place.  Where helicopter parents don’t want to do anything BUT hover.  Where test scores and weight problems and behavioral abnormalities are things to be farmed out to private tutors, personal trainers, and pharmacists, instead of addressed through gentle guidance over time.

I don’t know.  I was just a little appalled.  Seven.  And Nine.  And already being told that they’re not good enough, that they’re “special”, and not necessarily in a good way.

It makes me sad.

Dear Sir,

The next time your (or anyone else’s) hand attempts to insinuate itself anywhere in the vicinity of my posterior while I am riding public transportation, you will at the very least suffer from a broken foot and, quite possibly, hearing loss.

Kthankxbai.

I only wish I’d thought of doing something… at the time.

That feeling?  That the person you’re talking to will pretty much always be on your side and assume that you’re coming from a good place?  That’s what we should strive for with the people we keep close to us.

And maybe  you’re all like, “Duh.”

Or maybe you’re all like, “Oh, I had cloying for breakfast.  Leaving now!”

And that’s fine, I suppose.

I think some people, at least, get this feeling from their parents, first.  Because parents are supposed to tell you when you’ve messed up, and how to not mess up the next time, but some parents manage to do that without making you feel like a bad person.  They treat these things as mistakes, as things you simply didn’t think of.  Other parents don’t really focus on the whys of your actions, or might openly assume that you’re the sort of person who would deliberately try to make their lives more difficult.

So you go through life trying to hide the bad bits, the parts responsible for things you suspect might be less accepted in your society.  You’re so used to people looking for flaws, that it’s hard to let anyone in to where they might see them.

And if you don’t have the kind of relationship where you just know that someone knows you’re a good person, if you don’t know that they think that of you, any criticism they utter is going to be that much harder to take.  Because anything they say might mean that in addition to being a bit lazy from time to time, they also suspect you eat babies for profit.

If, say, you’re also adept at reading lots of extra into things.

But I have a theory – and that theory, is that we can have more of these people who think the best of us… if we trust them to think the best of us.  Maybe it’s not just being awesome and hoping that someone will come along and see it.  Maybe it’s being awesome, and expecting that they already do.

Which is a hilariously terrifying suggestion.

I need to get used to playing under pressure.  Because when my team had only won one of the first three matches, we needed to take matches four and five in order to advance.  And I was playing match # 4.  Against a woman ranked one higher than me. 

Granted, that meant I only needed to win two games to her three, but we were playing a team that had bested everyone else in their division, too.  And?  It was COLD.  So cold that my long-sleeved shirt, short sleeved shirt, fleece hoodie, AND arm-warmers (yes, arm-warmers!) were insufficient insulation.  I was shaking during my match, but not from nerves.

Thankfully, I won – decisively, too.  She took the first game, but I took the next two with just three or four turns at the table, each.  And that put my teammate in a position to win our last match, with everything ending right around 4 pm. 

In Laurel, MD.

I went outside, brushed the snow off my car, and proceeded to negotiate snow-covered highways for the next THREE AND ONE-HALF HOURS.

I’m not sure which was more stressful, but I’m glad that the weekend is over with.  Now I just need to get ready to do it all over again next Saturday.  If the weather could take it easy this time around, that’d be great, really.  Otherwise, I’ll likely be a well-done brisket by the time I make it home…

So I was at the pool hall last night, losing one, then winning one, largely minding my own business (which requires a fair amount of minding, these days), and then it happened, again.

There’s another female player who started playing in the same leagues as me a couple seasons ago.  She and I have something (someone) in common, someone that I don’t talk to anymore, but to whom I am civil when the occasion requires.  And though we’ve been playing in the same leagues (twice a week) for at least 6-7 months, now, we have yet to exchange a word.  Which is too bad, because she’s got some killer outfits, and I’d love to know where she shops.

Yet each time I’ve seen her looking at me, it’s involved a stony glare.  Like I … did something to her, kicked her puppy, or maybe made an inappropriate, public accusation about her mom. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not necessarily upset about an Alexis Carrington reputation… I’d just like to know what it is I’m supposed to have done.  It seems like it must be terribly exciting.

Then again, perhaps I’m better off in ignorant bliss.  We wouldn’t want me getting any ideas…

xoxo?

Some people really are “straightforward”.  Frequently, this circle overlaps significantly with “socially inept”, but not always.

I can’t tell if I’ve become overly cynical, or if I’m as good at reading people as I like to think I am.  I can say that only one person I knew reasonably well managed to surprise me – and that involved some pretty egregious lying by omission. 

But I wonder, sometimes, if I’m wrong in assuming that everyone puts a certain spin on a situation – that one has to see through a layer or two in order to get a glimpse of something closer to the cold, hard facts.

Does everyone do this, or just me?

Frankly, I think this practice needs to stop.   I’m talking about this whole flirting-while-you-have-a-significant-other-that-only-YOU-know-about thing. 

I’ve written about something like it once before - where a teammate who doesn’t wear a ring flirted with me for months, despite knowing about W.  Fortunately for me, it’s pretty easy for me to work in a mention of W in pool-related conversations without being That Girl, and I understand the awkwardness of figuring out when to bring it up. 

But when I asked if he and another teammate were roommates?  THAT would have been a great time to tell me that he lives with his wife.  In fact, despite having played together for close to a year, I have yet to hear him talk about his wife.  At all.  Ever.  Our teammates mention his wife more often than he does (not difficult, as it’s pretty easy to get to more often than never).

To me, this is weird.  And it bothers me.  Of course, it probably wouldn’t bother me as much if I hadn’t…

…had an ex-boyfriend with whom I’d kept in touch over a period of many years, post-breakup.  One who would instant message me from time to time, who’d come to visit me while on a work trip, and had definitely been pursuing.  And with whom I’d had lunch on my way back from the land of milk and honey, where he’d been Comeon McFlirterson the whole time, as usual, to the point of indicating a motel across the street (I laughingly declined, choosing to take it as a joke).  Until a few days later, when in an IM conversation, he mentioned that he was swamped, because he was trying to ready his desk for two weeks of vacation in Fiji.  And when I asked if he was going with someone (because even if some people might go to Fiji solo, he is not that kind of person), he said he was going with someone.  And I asked if he was going with a girlfriend.  And he said he’d be going with his wife, to whom he’d be getting married just prior to the plane’s departure.

I was *thrilled* when the link to their wedding website was automatically appended to an email he send from a different account a day or two later, a wedding website that revealed they’d been together for years.  Well over two of them, to be more precise.  Including the time that he’d been on that business trip.

Or, OR, there’s that time when I was a temporary employee in a shop where I worked with about 25 guys between the ages of 19 and 35, and really hit it off with one of them.  And didn’t find out until weeks later, until a minor tributary of the Rubicon had already been crossed, that he had a live-in girlfriend.  Whose voice I heard on the answering machine while I was at their house and she was not.  And I didn’t find out because not only did HE not tell me, but he persuaded everyone we worked with to keep quiet, as well.

This makes me ponder on a few levels.  First – if you require that much attention from members of the opposite sex that you’re not dating, one might wonder why you (1) don’t talk to your significant other about getting the attention that you need, or (2) choose not to be in a relationship.  Second, is your ego boost really worth being the sort of person who uses other people for blatantly selfish and superficial ends?

Ever have the feeling that someone is messing with you?  Just enough so that you screw up and look bad, but not obviously enough for you to call them on it?

If you vaguely indicated, some two weeks ago, that you’d handle getting presentation packages together for my meeting, but I have heard nothing from you prior to my coming in to work the morning of said presentation, I am going to go ahead and set up some presentation packages for myself – because I’m not about to walk in empty-handed.

So when you come in to work, and see the stack, don’t roll your eyes and tell me that you TOLD me you’d take care of it, and you did it last night and put it on someone else’s desk – somewhere I’d never think to look.  Especially if you didn’t bother to send me a courtesy email letting me know where they were done and where I might find them.

And definitely don’t try to make me feel or look stupid for attending to the details of my own project. 

Kthankxbai.

Things were off to such a good start, they really were.  Vegetables were (and still are) creeping their way back into my kitchen, into my diet.  Boxes were being sorted, broken down, and recycled.  Time was spent caring for myself.  Thank-you notes were unearthed, addresses found.  A renewed vigor introduced itself into my work. 

Steps were being taken.

They were being taken on the treadmill, as well.  Having fallen back into an elliptical rut, due significantly to my asthma’s tendency to flare up more urgently with more impact, I’d decided that I was going to get back to the tried and true, to the exercise whose efficacy is exponentially greater than the elliptical, if pain gradients are anything to go by. 

And so, I did it.  Ten full kilometers, six and one-quarter miles, at a reasonable pace.  I’d slow down whenever I needed a drink, but completed the run in just over 45 minutes, and felt, as the belt slowed to a stop, that I might have been able to run a little farther, actually.

But I was running short on time, and I was bored, and I thought perhaps some stretching was in order.  So I gathered my towel and water bottle, made sure my iPod was securely tucked away, and turned to step off the machine…

*pop*

went my ankle, and the pain I subsequently tried to ignore worsened until curses sprang from my lips as I tried to carry groceries up the stairs.

How is it possible that I can run for the better part of an hour without incident, and yet an injury-free 6-inch step down is beyond my capabilities?

*sigh*

1)  Eat at least two vegetables every day (fruit doesn’t count!).

2)  Stop biting my nails, for real this time.

3)  Thank my parents more often.

4)  Take charge, at least a little.

5)  Revel.

Yours?

I give up.  I don’t know if it’s exhaustion from completing 19 of the recipes on my list, combined with present wrapping and last-minute shopping, plus a side of car-clearing.  It might just be that I’m tired.

Or, it could be that I’ve been filled with a sense of holiday spirit – a feeling that I’m trying to make other people’s lives better, that I’m trying to increase the overall amount of happiness in the world.

Likely, it’s a bit of both.

But I just want to give everyone a big hug and start with a fresh slate.

That’s all I want for Christmas this year, for everyone.  Can we have a fresh slate, please?

…that I have a final round of playoffs tonight.  I’m a little nervous, because I think this team has started to think of me as Someone Who Wins.  Which I kind of have been for this team, this season… but *I* don’t see myself as SWW, certainly not someone who does so reliably.

At least, not without alcohol.

Anyway, I’m at least somewhat improved today – my joints are merely whimpering in protest, as opposed to screaming.  However, I would like to point out to WMATA that they can pretend the 8-10 minutes between trains on the orange line is due to a malfunctioning train if they want, but those of us who experience this phenomenon whether there’s a malfunction or not would really rather not be patronized. 

So, Metro:  If you’re going to make it so that the cars are completely full after EFC, with nary a space for a human until we’ve started offloading again at Rosslyn, just be honest and tell us so.  If nothing else, it will give us a reason to get a head start on the contortionist classes that will allow passengers to fit between the overhead bar and the ceiling.

I nearly passed out at work, yesterday.

I was either going to pass out or become more violently ill – I was sure of it.  And then I managed to get through it with some sips of flat soda and between-the-knees head placement.  Which was a good thing, as navigating public transportation back to my abode while on the verge of unconsciousness, while it would have protected me from awareness of my fellow passengers, would not end well, I think.  But I felt better, and I made it home, and I chalked it up to a crash from the caffeine I’d had earlier.

And then I woke up this morning, and in case the lack of coherence in the previous paragraph didn’t tip you off, I’m a bit under the weather.  Seriously sore throat, cloggy eustachian tubes, and the inability to sleep without feeling as though I’ve been drugged – though I haven’t yet consumed anything labeled with oversized N or Q.

This is a problem, you see, as I’m scheduled to bake this weekend.  I’ve taken Friday off, done my shopping for all but one ingredient (I need to find a 10 oz bar of espresso-flavored chocolate), and have a list of 22 (how did THAT happen?) kinds of cookies, complete with baking schedule.  If nothing goes wrong, I should be done by dinnertime on Sunday.

But something is going wrong, because I feel like I swallowed a hedgehog.

So let’s hope that my immune system kicks it into high gear today, shall we?  Because I have to get a LOT done*:

Apricot Marzipan Bars
Strawberry Marzipan Bars
Snickers Fudge
Chocolate Raspberry Bars
Chocolate Caramel Toffee Bars
Baklava
Lemon Tea Cakes
Orange Spice Cookies
Ginger Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Cherry Nut Rugelach
Peanut Butter Chocolate Balls
Peanut Butter Cookies
Raspberry White Chocolate Whoopie Pies
Russian Tea Cakes
Cranberry Pinwheels
Mocha Cookies
Pecan Tassies
Caramel Bourbon Apple Pie Cookies
Pistachio Biscotti
Macadamia Bars with Eggnog Drizzle

*And just how in tarnation did my list not include a single drop of Nutella?  Hmph!

Cookies are baking, laundry is in the machine, work is being done from home…

And then they’ll get here.

Fretfretfretfretfretfretfretfretfretfretfretfretfret.

So, I read this article, about the Tiger/Elin/extracurriculars.

Extracurriculars.  Which implies a curriculum in the first place.  So maybe not the most appropriate euphemism, but it works for me.  Has in the past, anyway, when I was referencing the various women who subbed in for me in a previous relationship (without me even having to ask!  or know about it until later!).

The article, anyway, is tangentially about whether it’s okay to snoop, when your snooping has come up with exactly what you thought it might – when you have the proof of infidelity, does that mean it was okay to snoop in the first place?

According to my education and training, that’s fruit of the poisonous tree.  So, no.  It’s not okay.

I found out about other women inadvertently, and at the time, I was… crushed.  I can’t describe how that felt (I think it’s different for each person who goes through something like that).  And I messed up a lot of subsequent relationships because I couldn’t trust anyone, including myself.  But still, I didn’t snoop.

At one point, I was confronted with a situation that would have given me justification to snoop, if such justification exists.  I was dating someone who wasn’t exactly forthcoming with personal details, who talked about nameless friends and was vague about where he went and with whom.  And someone contacted me, and told me that he’d been unfaithful. 

The first thing I did, was inform him of the accusation.  In part, because I genuinely believe that we really DO all have the right to face our accusers – or at least, in this case, defend ourselves against those accusations.  But the other motivation?  Was because if I hadn’t told him immediately, I’d have been tempted to investigate surreptitiously.  And I really, really didn’t want to be that person.

In short, I’d rather be the last to know, to deal with the humiliation and hurt and anger that comes with that, than be the person who snoops. 

I’m not sure why that is, exactly.

(1) Let’s say one is in a precarious position, and Person B has suggested that Person A is significantly responsible for that position – a suggestion that is eminently believable.  However, it is possible that Person B has other reasons to make one believe that Person A is not on one’s side.  To what extent should one drive oneself mad, trying to figure out who one should trust?

(2) Let’s say one has generally prided oneself on giving pretty good presents – not always incredibly expensive, but well-suited and thoughtful.  And one has tried to go above and beyond for a particular person, and thought one succeeded, only to discover through an inadvertent admission, that one’s presents have consistently missed the mark.  What does it say about the connection between the two people, that the gifts have been… not-quite-right?  And how does one go about refining one’s gift radar?

*addendum*:  Apropos of nothing, it’s deep-SEATED, not deep-SEEDED.  As in, with its foundation (seat) far below the surface.

It sits there, perhaps a hundred yards away, in one-quart containers.  Several different brands, some claiming some New! variation on the traditional flavoring and spices.  Some have a decidedly chemical aftertaste, some are flecked with bits of genuine vanilla.  And they all* call to me, for reasons passing understanding.

Because eggnog typically has less flavor than melted vanilla ice cream.  The fat content is such that one can barely taste anything beyond sugar and cream.  And yet, I find myself drawn to it, tempted.  I look over longingly…

And at some point, I will buy a quart, and I will drink it, likely over a period of 3-4 days.  And about halfway through that carton, I will wonder why it is that I’m drinking it, much the same way as my fabulous former roommate would ask himself, out loud, “Why am I eating this?!?” with each handful of candy corn**.

*Even though it’s slightly chemically, the Southern Comfort eggnog calls to me more than others, usually, because I do like me some Southern Comfort, and I like to support the manufacturers of my favorite liquors.

**Note, I have no problems justifying candy corn consumption.  I eat candy corn because I find it to be a delicious and perfectly textured (when fresh) medium by which to ingest honey and sugar in their perfect proportioned goodness.

Yes, I’m still here.  Staying in the area for this holiday, which means I will be blissfully sleeping instead of braving the I-95 corridor…

I used to work with a woman, who had a very strange way of going about dating.

For example, she’d refer to this one gentleman as “Hometown Boy”.  Given that he was older than she, and she’d had roughly 20 years of adult dating experience, I found this… odd.  And then I realized that she referred to every single one of her suitors as a “boy”.

Over time, I listened to a number of date recaps.  It became clear that she had a set of rules to which she adhered strictly (with the occasional substantial lapse).  There was nothing more than a hug after the first date, and no more than a kiss on the cheek for several dates thereafter.   Unless, of course, the situation in question was one of the aforementioned lapses.

And the thing that I didn’t understand, really, was the pride with which she’d say, “Just a peck on the cheek!”  As though she’d won something, as if she’d just put hotels on both Boardwalk and Park Place, and could see her date’s next roll of the dice about to place him squarely on the more expensive of the two.

I’ve lost touch with her, and have no idea if she’s found what she was looking for.  But I can’t imagine finding a fun, healthy, happy relationship while viewing a date as a zero-sum game from which one could emerge victorious.

What are some bizarre dating behaviors you’ve witnessed?

Not Otherwise Specified.

The LA Times wrote about binge eating, and the prospect of its inclusion as a distinct diagnosis in the American Psyciatric Association’s DSM-V.  A reason why they might not include it?

Because they don’t want obese personages, people who have clear weight problems, to view such a diagnosis as a crutch, as an excuse for being unhealthy.

While I was in college, I technically met the diagnostic criteria for both types of anorexia for… oh, I don’t know.  5 months?  At my smallest, I was at roughly two-thirds of my recommended, “normal” weight.  I attained, and maintained, this weight through a combination of highly restricted eating, with occasional bouts of purging/overexercising when family dinners required me to consume regular portions of food in front of other people.

I have also exhibited signs of binge eating and orthorexia for periods of time.

I never received professional help for my disorder.  I am, and probably always will be, in some form of recovery.  I am lucky.

Many, many people are not so fortunate.  Many of those who suffer from disordered eating need professional help, and many of them need that help to be covered by insurance.  They need established treatment plans, they may need disability coverage for periods of recovery.

The causes of eating disorders, specified or not, are not completely understood.  And personal responsibility is a huge part of recovery from any kind of mental illness – whether it be the personal responsibility required to visit a methadone clinic regularly, or to remove even over-the-counter cold medicines and sugary foods from one’s house (a not-uncommon requirement for alcoholics to remain sober), or to choose to attend talk therapy sessions rather than consume an entire jar of marmalade in less than five minutes.

But if the fundamental aspects of a diagnosis are known, and if by identifying the symptoms and making these characteristics better known, more people can become aware of their problem, or their loved one’s problem, or their patient’s problem… if even some of those can be helped, why would you hesitate? 

To protect those who would abuse the system, at the expense of those who might benefit from the research and structured treatment that would follow a more specific diagnosis?

It just doesn’t make sense.

My office line has rung quite a few times in the past several weeks.  Work’s been pretty busy, and that’s a good thing – though I could have done without the 2.5-hour chat with our general counsel first thing on a Friday morning.

My parents have called a few times – they’re planning a trip to the area in a few weeks, to see what I’ve done with my abode and to check out some of the museums.  Anyone know of a good, non-chain restaurant in the Dupontish area where the food is American or Italian (maybe slightly nicer than Pizzeria Paradiso, and not Tabard Inn, because they’ve been there already)?

Notably, S.E. has not called.  Under normal circumstances, we’d be speaking at least once weekly – and if I didn’t call her, she’d call me.  I’ve sent her a couple of emails, because I assumed she was busy and that at least she’d be able to respond at her convenience.  But I haven’t felt like calling her was my place – like she’d call when she was ready to be normal again, and I suppose she’s not.  It hurts.  And it’s pissing me off.

Because when I called to wish the twins a happy birthday, the call where she told me that she was really bothered by the fact that I wasn’t coming up for the twins’ birthday party, that she felt I was rejecting a chance to share in her life… I felt judged. 

When she asked, “So, what are you doing this weekend”, I heard, “So what reason could you possibly give that would be good enough to warrant not coming to the party?”  And I felt as though my plans, as much as I was looking forward to them, wouldn’t be a good enough answer for her.  As though confessing my decision to dress up in a hilarious (and yes, skimpy) costume and hang out with a very entertaining group of people (I had a fantastic time) would only make things worse.

The impression that I got was that she resented me for not choosing to make myself miserable.  That doing something for her should have superseded what might actually make me happy.  Granted, that’s just my impression.  But she hasn’t called.

And I really, really don’t want to get to a place where I think that maybe that’s a good thing.

Not that I have the opportunity all that often, given that I’m of Fairly Low Ranking myself, but last night, both of my matches were played against the same player – who is ranked one level lower than me.

I much, much prefer playing higher-ranked players.  I’d rather play someone in the top two rankings than someone closer to my own level.  And for a while, I thought the reason I tended to play well during such matches was because I wasn’t expected to win, there was less pressure, so I could relax and enjoy myself.

Playing a highly ranked player, I could get on the 8 in 3-4 turns at the table – the downside being that they could normally get on the 8 in 1-2 turns at the table.  But last night, the number of turns it took me to get on the 8 was a multiple of that estimate, and the number of tries it took to actually sink the 8 was laughably high.

So clearly, this is an aspect of my mental game that I need to work on – I should be playing my best game regardless of how my opponent is playing. 

This situation got me thinking about other aspects of my life, too.  Do I subconsciously alter the way I do things depending on context?  And if so, is this a bad thing?

The scrunchie.  Granted, this probably HAS stopped everywhere but around government buildings and certain parts of the country that still rely on analog cellular signals, but still.  I saw three lovely offenders this morning, two on the metro and one disturbingly close to my office.  Seriously, the regular thread-covered elastic looks MUCH better.  And a work-appropriate ponytail should be gathered as close to the top of the neck as possible, just FYI.

I do not ever, EVER, need to see Commando Guy in baggy shorts on the leg press machine again, ever.  Please think about the day’s routine prior to selecting your workout wardrobe.

High HEELS.  HEEEEEEEELS.  Not high heals.  NEVER high heals.  High HEELS.

Please, PLEASE stop relying so heavily on spell check.  It will not catch that mistake, because “heals” is an actual word referring to what happens when a wound undergoes the process that makes it not a wound anymore.  Also in this category – palate/pallet/palette, which are not interchangeable, but apply to food/warehouse/color, respectively. 

Today’s halitosis contest on the Metro?  Really doesn’t need to happen again.  Toothbrushes can be very inexpensive.  So are Altoids.  Though if your goal is the return of the pomander, well-played, sirs.

This entry brought to you by the return of insomnia, a dash of food allergy, and a massive case of crankypants.  Also, when every single last banana in the store is inedibly green AND my milk inexplicably goes bad before the expiration date, I become kind of a jerk.

First of all, I want to bring the interrobang back.  Now.  You know where we can put it?  In the “special characters” space currently occupied by “∂”, which apparently stands for “partial differential”.  I am SURE the interrobang would get more use, if properly publicized.

At any rate, I was doing a little bit of thinking yesterday, puttering around after work and getting ready for pool.  And it hit me.

I need an outline.   The reason I’ve made precisely the same three or four paragraphs of headway every time I’ve tried to write a piece of fiction, without fail, is that I have too many options as to where it could go afterward.  And I can’t decide, while I’m actually writing, what’s going to happen next.  Which characters to introduce when, which backstory should go with whom.  All of these ideas just swirl around, bumping into each other and dropping stacks of papers and generally causing a ruckus.

I’d thought, for the longest time, that I was a NO-OUTLINE kinda girl.  I mean, I’d start 35-page papers roughly 36 hours in advance of their deadline, with a stack of references to my left, Diet Coke, Marlboro Lights and an ashtray to my right, a roommate with a lighter similarly situated on the other side of the room, and emerge with enough time to shower and change before dropping the paper off in the appropriate faculty mailbox.  It was the only way the papers got done (and I did pretty well on them, scarily enough).

But those papers kind of have a built-in outline.  Academic work follows a pretty typical pattern, one that was burned into my brain so thoroughly as to become instinctive.  And thus, a subconscious outline punctuated by smoke breaks and the occasional Lean Pocket guided my thoughts, kept tangents at bay, and wrangled my theses into a submission.

For this, it is not so automatic.  There is no sharply blazed trail through the jungle of my creative brain, and thus… things fall apart.  So, I have to write an outline, I suppose, because these ideas REALLY want out of my head. 

Anyone know how to do that in a way that won’t make me want to stab out my eyeballs?

…about to put up a post that was all outraged and thinky about the Archdiocese of Washington and the whole social-services-contracts vs. same-sex-marriage thing.  And how annoyed I was at the Church for threatening to withdraw from those contracts if DC passed the laws permitting same-sex marriage. 

Because I?  Am totally for anyone getting married who wants to.  I mean, I have my own personal opinions on what people should probably think about before they do that, but I don’t really care so much about the chromosomal makeup of the parties involved.

And then I read something suggesting that it’s actually the District that would end the contracts if the Church didn’t modify the definition of marriage that it’s held for… well… yeah.  The Church has been around for a long time.  And I don’t really agree with their stance on this, but… it’s a religion.  And people have a right to be religious ignoramuses if they want, and I have a right to not associate with them.  And some other states have granted limited exceptions on these issues to make sure that the homeless continue to have some refuge – in the District, these exceptions would mean millions of dollars in social services, to people who really really need them.  As I understand it, it also means that the Church wouldn’t marry same-sex couples, wouldn’t provide benefits, as a private employer, to same-sex spouses of Church employees, etc.

And so, it seems like it’s a lot more complicated than it looks, on the surface.  Because, well, people should be able to get married, and have those marriages mean something to employers who have benefits plans.  But religions shouldn’t have to change basic tenets in order to do good things for people, at least some of whom would likely die without those good things.  And practically speaking, it’s hard to say that the District would be right in denying someone food, because someone else couldn’t get health insurance.  I don’t know if it’s impossible to say that, but I definitely find it hard.

So, I’m not so sure where I stand on the issue now, given how strongly I support the 1st Amendment, and how strongly I support people in love being able to make a lifelong commitment to each other and attain the social benefits thereof, and how strongly I support people having food to eat, and a place to sleep at night.  Maybe the misery of the population whose lives are normally improved through those services, some of whom are undoubtedly same-sex couples themselves, is the price we have to pay for equality AND freedom of religion to coexist.

I just really hope not.

I don’t watch The Hills, for a number of reasons.  Primarily, my television time is divided thusly:  70% food-related shows, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, and various iterations of The Real Houswives take up the remaining 30%, depending on when I’m around to watch them.  When I’m ill, I’ll usually set the remote to a marathon of one of the Law and Order shows, or perhaps a CSI or NCIS marathon, all of which seem to take turns staking out 8-10 hour blocks of time on various cable channels.

Clearly, I am no stranger to terrible television.  However, this particular habit requires multitasking, as I cannot bear to watch people making *complete* asses of themselves.  It’s the reason I hate the National Lampoon movies starring Chevy Chase.  It’s just too awful.  I can’t watch.

So when I read this lovely preview of MTV’s latest show, about a group of Jersey boys living down the shore, I had mixed feelings.  At the very least, I’m going to wind up allocating some valuable Tivo real estate for a show from which my eyes will be averted 85% of the time.  On the plus side, I’ll probably get a fair amount of reading, cleaning, emailing, and baking done while I’m waiting for the idiocy to subside to an acceptable level.

MTV inspiring greater domestic productivity.  Who knew?