Technologically Appropriate

Well, I'm back. I was mostly away from the computer for a whole week - depending on your view of technology you either find this notion briskly refreshing or soul-crushingly oppressive. Personally, I spend so much of my time in front of the computer, or on the phone, or texting, that I love being able to ignore it all for a while. I'm the weirdo who intentionally leaves their phone at home when she goes out*.

*When with my husband, who will never be without phone. So, I have my emergency back up if necessary, while simultaneously ducking all responsibility.

For the first time in my life, I took part in separate holiday dinners with each of my parents. It was weird, and yet completely absent of yelling, so I give it a B+.

R and I put our new futon frame together** and spent many hours languishing in front of our Wii and surfing Netflix. Awesome! And also, how does this fit with my ignore technology platform? Eh, well, I guess I only ignore the technology that notifies me of work or babbles on-and-on-and-on...not that anyone I know does that. No. That was completely hypothetical.

**We got rid of the majority of our furniture when we moved across the country and haven't had anything resembling a couch for months. I thought we could wait until we bought our next house. After all, we were without a TV for 6 months following our past move across the country. However, I vastly underestimated the basic human need to lie on a couch.

We ate lots and lots of good food (good tasting, not necessarily good for you). The tightness of my jeans is a testament to my focus on hedonism and neglect of all forms of exercise. I blame the futon.

The highlight of our break was the winter parade. Which we found out about in a grocery store 15 minutes before it started. It ended with an amazing fireworks display that completely overshadowed the lighting of the giant tree that it's supposed to introduce. Now that we know about this annual post-thanksgiving celebration, we will definitely be prepared to take part in it again - by wearing warmer clothes and bringing hot chocolate.

Now, back to technology. [insert appropriate congenial sign off here]

Less Would Be More

I have established an absolutely-no-blogging-about-my-family rule; however, in light of current on-going events, let me toe the line a bit.

It is can be horrible very difficult to deal with a family member who suffers from a mental illness. Navigating the slippery slopes of family interaction can become a dark labyrinth full of booby traps and poisoned spikes  - that's built onto a slippery slope.

This year's holiday season can be captured thusly:
 proximity*(mental illness)squared = my own little circle of hell

I have a rabid monkey on my back and there is no 12 step program for this kind of bat shit crazy problem.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I will remember that the rest of my life is fantastic. I am grateful for what I have and will not let this burden diminish everything else. Also, I will drink.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you have food, and warmth, and love.

And...she's off

In a heroic example of masochism, I have taken on an independent contract for another grant. In all honesty, I only agreed to do one piece of the grant - the needs assessment piece (a.k.a. all the damn data). I consider this an act of heroism because I am doing it as a favor to my grant-writing mentor who keeps failing at retirement. They asked her to do this; she asked me; I asked my husband, who looked at me quizzically and said, "Do you think you'll have time?" I don't. But I said yes anyway. Thus, the masochism.

I do have ulterior motives. I am hoping this will launch a very small, independent contractor side business. Because, I am clearly insane. Also, I am trying to create a non-traditional career path, which will allow me to fulfill all the hopes and dreams I was spoon-fed throughout my childhood: actually using my education, balancing work and family, having aforementioned family, and maintaining some free time to write and paint. (insert reality here, along with much taunting.)

My Internet presence is likely to be sparse for a while. I'm going to pretend someone will notice.