Cosmo or Melon Ball?

It's Monday morning, but I feel like a week has passed since Friday afternoon. We had a few houseguests for the weekend, plus a fabulous houseful of people on Saturday night at our inaugural holiday cocktail party. I believe it was pretty successful, and it was great to see so many wonderful people at one time. I think most folks had a good time, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I was pretty drunk, but it was paired for the stimulant adrenal-high of interacting with so many people. I went to bed around 2 am, but I didn't fall asleep for a long time because I was so wired.

I'm also pleased to report that we have an apartment that's decorated for the holidays, as well as clean and organized. We now have a working guest room that may also soon be a working study type area. We also have more items hanging on the walls, including a collage of pages from my "Advertising in the Fifties" 2001 Calender.

Now it's time for the news segment I'd like to entitle "Bits and Pieces":

-- Kate called me today, aka Ohio News Reporter Friend. I haven't talked with her in forever, and we only chatted for 10 minutes. It was sort of weird, but nice. Just a heads up, wearemany, I gave her your number, so she may be ringing you soon. She and her girlfriend own a house in Columbus now, and the gf works for a firm, and they own dogs....it's so adult.

-- My co-worker called in sick today -- at 7 pm on Sunday night. I wish she would just take personal days or something. I don't think I've ever seen her sick in the 2 years I've known her. And it's often terribly inconvenient when she does call-in.

-- Yesterday afternoon I was in the car after a trip to the airport, and I kept pulling up these really weird memories of my mom. I realized that I was probably going to cry about my parents sometimes soon. I actually haven't done that yet. Maybe I did sometime last year, but I honestly can't remember. Part of me feels like I'm not allowed to think good things about them, because then I'm minimizing the hurtful things they're doing to me. Or I feel like I'm not allowed to remember happy things, because then I will start to miss them. But guess what? I do miss them. If I didn't, I would even bother to post every damn e-mail they write and try to analyze every little comment and spend much of my therapy time discussing them. But anyway, later in the afternoon after getting home, I did cry. It was somewhat cathartic. Part of me wanted to keep going, part of me regretted starting. But for the most part, I suppose it was good.

-- I think I've finally stopped bleeding. But I should still call my doctor.

-- I'm intrigued by a friend's offer to do a psychic healing for me. I think I will contact her soon about setting up a time.

-- Oh, and we're definitely going to the Bay Area for New Year's. It's a vitural whirlwind trip -- arriving the evening of the 30th, leaving first thing in the morning on the 2nd. Yet it's still more time than we spent in September.

-- Finally, today on the el, a man stood next to me reading a Harlequin novel. Called "Married for One Year". I was impressed.
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Must end my morning break and get back to work.
nineinchlovely! How are you feeling? Drop me a line and I can come by and visit you tonight if you need anything, or just need some company after being sick!
genderfucker! You're a bum for missing my party. But I forgive you because I love you and want to see you soon.

writer's block

Walking back from lunch, I passed a tall man reading a book entitle "Codependent No More". Between him and my man on the train reading romance novels, you'd think there was a s.n.a.g. convention in town.

Some random livejournal person on some random livejournal once made a random side comment about private entries violating the spirit of LJ. It seemed like a silly question. "Of course not," I thought. And yet, I often hesitate to write things only for myself, deemed 'private'. I considerate it, but perhaps think "what's the point?"

And this is the original reason why I've always been horrible at keeping a journal. There was only so long that I could keep up the facade that I was documenting for future generations. For some reason, I'm unable to consistently use journaling as a tool for my own self-discovery and self-reflection. I'm pretty good at doing it in times of "crisis" or when feeling emotionally overwhelmed. But that's about it. However, I'm remarkably honest in talking to others, as well as e-mailing -- I'm just not necessarily 100% forthcoming with 100% of friends. But if I added them all together, I could construct a fairly accurate reflection of myself.

Initially with this journal, I had the audience of someone I was e-mailing (i.e. an imaginary one), but the freedom to say anything, because I was writing to no one specifically, and no one who saw me in every day life. But even looking back on inital postings, they weren't completely free. I do believe that forming LJ-relationships with other journal-ers and such caused me to develop a more natural style, and to push myself to open up a bit more about whatever I'm writing. But the downside is that there are now some things about which I wouldn't write. For the most part, I suppose it's a fair trade.

I occasionally post private entries. Mostly just "memory-storage posts" -- e-mails to or from a person I want to remember, but they wouldn't make sense to the outside reader.

And I even have other online journaling spots where I am totally anonymous and occasionally post random thoughts or feelings that I don't necessarily want anyone to read.

So now my journaling has become just like my real-life. It's only 100% when you add up every outlet and source.