Me-Me U

Devise a list of 5-10 courses you would take to fix your life. It's more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged you that you'd also like to take. Tag five.

I've been tagged! Well, this meme-turn comes at exactly the right time, smack dab in the middle of my dreaming about going back to school. So here's an unexpected opportunity to make a dreamy new start and transform my entire life with just a few easy classes! Whoopee! Watch me work.

A class which I would jump at the chance to take is Humor 101 with am'n2deep, my friendly bloggerhood tagger. I think a full semester of serious belly laughs in good company would go far toward clearing my mind and possibly tightening my muffin top so I could squeeze back into my old jeans.

Next, I'd fill my schedule with the following classes, recent additions to the Me-Me U academic catalog:

•PSYCH 413: Sugar Aversion Therapy (lab required)
•EXSC 171: Swimming for Water Chickens
•BIOL 347R: Forty and Fertile
•REL C 090: Remedial Visiting Teaching (non-credit)
•TMA 121: Breathe, Relax, Find Your Voice
•ENGL 518R: Just Get It Written, Already!
•CHEM 698R: Kissing—Master's Project
•VASTU 220R: Art Techniques for the Undiscovered
•DANCE 184: Living Room Salsa Dancing
•WS 392R: Mood Swings for Fun & Profit

Who want's to play next? How about rc cola!, andi, lois, nigel, and livs, if you can stand it? I don't think I've picked on any of you with this meme stuff before.

P.S. Any of you other lovely chums who wish to be picked on, please pick yourselves for this meme. I already picked you as friends, and as far as I'm concerned it's a standing pick. xo

It's comin' on Christmas

Thank heaven for:

•a brain and two feet that got themselves and the rest of me out of the mall, tout de suite
•the nice candy lady (not Lois, unfortunately—guess it wasn't her shift) who helped me choose an exciting assortment for she-whose-name-I-drew-for-Christmas' advent calendar
•keeping my head and resisting temptation when the intoxicating scent of deep chocolate filled my nostrils
•online Christmas shopping when I can't handle crowds and besides can't find what I'm after locally
•clean sheets on the bed
•coming up with a simple alternative to the handmade gift I was about to overwhelm myself making
•talking to my older friend Iris, the one who's got terminal cancer, and her telling me what she says to God every night: I think you ought to reconsider. You're really not gonna want me up there. I'm not gonna just show up and say, "Welp, whuddya want me to do NOW?" I'm gonna be a real pain in your a••!
•beautiful skeins of yarns that feel as good as they look
•praying to find some jeans to fit me while I'm fleshed out and can't fit my real clothes, then finding some good ones second-hand
•coming to terms with the fact that my body is something of a shape-shifter, which means I need to store my full range of sizes rather than annually give the fat clothes the boot for those few minutes when I fit comfortably into smaller numbers
•helping lay out Opera Miss' voice recital program
•wordplay
•allowing myself to say no when I don't feel well
•the bittersweet joy of another close family member announcing a pregnancy (current tally: 3 little chickens in the incubator and 1 just hatched out)
•offering "Coach" my early morning hair-fluffing services gratis, in the women's bathroom at the Fieldhouse Salon
•the prompt and lucrative sale of our old stockpile of beautiful art papers, many of which are no longer produced (sick and wrong!)
•learning that Kitty's pneumonia isn't so horrible that she can't come home from the hospital in a day or two
•old Stargate SG-1 episodes that aren't dogs, unlike the one we watched tonight
•sleep
•mirrors that are kinder than others
•this song (and the fact that "the best baby that I ever had" stuck around):

Yammit!

Grateful for:

•yam fries
•4-minute eggs from happy hens, with yolks the color of yam fries
•relief from the constant, unanswerable food cravings, clear through the day till early evening
•a surprise session of energy work with my true sister Jeanne
•finally hitting on just the right inspiration for a present for Rob
•getting a start on making a gift for she-whose-name-I-drew-for Christmas
•paper that glitters like gold
•bone folders
•spray adhesive
•X-acto knives
•resisting the French bakery when I was practically next door (those almond croissants and pear tarts were crying for me)
•free patterns and ideas from the internet
•reading this article together and setting individual MORE and LESS goals
•simple plans
•Rob's miracle soup
•curried pilaf
•talking out a vexing situation together, getting one another's input, and making progress toward resolution
•working to keep others' names safe in my mouth
•re-learning that to forgive does not mean to ignore my feelings
•discovering more about the concept of unity, which in the ideal sense means bringing whole selves together, not elevating one while sacrificing another
•a massage table
•my trusty old fuzzy black Gap sweater
•a friendly drive-by from my cousins just to the north
•a hand-delivered, handmade party invitation, complete with a random Crayola sketch of a blue tuba, from a three-year-old
•the promise of sleep
•writing lists when the paragraphs won't flow
•the ecstatic news that the bowels of she-who-would-hurt-me-if-I-named-her finally started moving again
•knots
•rephrasing
•a toddler niece who pretends to have a baby in her tummy, just like mommy
•Burt's Bees lip stuff
•choosing quiet together time over a DVD
•the computer's atomic clock
•Big Foot (second only to me in my husband's heart)
•one last beautiful warm day
•lamb burgers

Back on the change gang

This is an interesting version of one of my favorite songs. If a song could be a soulmate, this one would be mine.

one day
when you're ready
one day, one day
when you're up to it



Today, unexpectedly, I woke up prepared to start again, in earnest, taking care of myself. I've repeatedly wished for this kind of practical readiness, but wanting to and being ready to are two different things.

Our house is beginning to release the collective burdens of several generations as Rob and I work to put it to rights. It's a big intimidating process we've begun, but our space feels better and clearer in every respect the more progress we make, and so we are rewarded. We're dripping in symbolism over here on 4th South. And now I'm hungry for another committed step, one I'll take on my own (though with support from Rob, I expect): getting back onto my Candida diet. My body has been telling me for a long time that it's struggling, and recently it's started bawling at me for help, all the time growing more frantic. Okay then, I calmly replied this morning, much to my own surprise and with no lead-in or warning at all. I'm listening. I'm ready. Let's begin.

Suddenly, this needful change is not dreadful at all, but very very welcome. It happens that way, I guess, when the issue of force is removed from the picture but hope remains.

And now I'm wondering if I'm on some kind of roll. I wonder what steps may be next. This could get good.