All I'm Saying there's a joke in here somewhere

Because she knows everything, I asked my site designer/trouble-shooter/patient instructor Mel if she knew where I could find a place to turn my blog posts into a book. And guess what? She did! That girl knows everything...

She pointed me to BlogBook, which produces an up-to-400-page archive of your blog, complete with photos and HTML translation so that you get real bold, italic, or strikethrough text as applicable, rather than a bunch of tag codes in the middle of your entry. You can even have it bound into a lovely hardback copy.

I haven't done all my reading on it yet, but it appears all you have to do is download some software to help you set up your pages, and then you go right along like you were creating a photobook from Shutterfly or one of those other places. Once you've got it set up the way you want it, you add it to your cart and in 10 days or so, voila! There's your blog in book form.

I can't wait to get going on this. I wonder if I should organize it all chronologically, or if I should do it by category type so that all the posts about pregnancy are in one section, all the posts about food are in another, etc. What would you all do?

I've been thinking for several years now that there's a blog-related service that someone could make a bucket of money on. So here's a chance to make some money off of me: I want someone to take my entire blog archive, all six years of it, and turn it into a set of bound books.

I don't mean that I am looking for a book deal (although I wouldn't turn one down--not that anyone would even offer), but that I would like to have a bound set of books chronicling my entire blogging experience. Maybe there would be one book a year, and they'd all be printed out nicely with color photos in the content of the applicable posts, and there could even be the post comments added in at the end of each post. Obviously, video content wouldn't be possible, but maybe there'd be a way to show the full text of hyperlinks, as applicable.

Is that something any of the rest of you would buy? Or do you know of anyone who offers that service? I'd love to have a chronicle so that if/when I quit blogging, I can still have all of that at my fingertips without having to electronically archive it somewhere. I also think I'd be more likely to read my past posts.

I'm happier 'n a puppy with two peters: the healthcare bill passed.

This makes me happy on many different levels. First and foremost, we're so long overdue for healthcare reform in the US. Our people need access to medical care in the style of nations like Japan and Norway. While we're still lagging far behind, this is a step in the right direction. Secondly, I have been wringing my hands over the potential loss of this battle since it was stated by many prominent Republicans that this would be Obama's Waterloo: not only would he lose it, but it'd be the end of the empire. And it wasn't lost. And third, I have to admit that I love the guts out of this because so many people hated it because it came from Obama, because they swallowed a pack of lies fed to them by Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck.

To those people I say, it's time to take your medicine, folks. And guess what? You're going to have insurance to help you with that.

I just spoke briefly to my dad on the phone. He's supposed to come be our babysitter tomorrow night so that Matt and I can go out to dinner for our wedding anniversary (8 years tomorrow!). Dad is a pretty good babysitter, and the price is right. However, it looks like the price just got a lot steeper: he called to see if we could give him a ride, since he "gave up driving, as of today."

My dad is 73 years old, pretty freakin' young to be hanging up the keys to the car. He's no more demented than he's ever been, so I can't blame this on the decline of his mind. When asked why he's not driving anymore, he said he had one of his "driving problems" today. For some senior citizens, that means you hit the gas instead of the brake and drive through the garage wall into the master bedroom. (Like my grandmother did when she quit driving.)

However, my dad's driving problems center around his explosive rage issues. They almost exclusively manifest while driving. There's something about being behind the wheel that brings out the competitive side in my dad, and believe you me, my dad is UGLY when he's feeling competitive. It's an insecurity issue at root, and he turns it into the most offensive outbursts of scary behavior I can imagine. This is a man who once flagged down a cop to tell him, "My taxes pay your salary, and I think you are driving like an asshole." My dad also brandished a weapon in a driving-related confrontation once.

After that little incident, dad's fiancee, for whom he would do absolutely anything, told him he had to hit the road, literally. She was throwing him out. It's just too scary for her, and I certainly don't blame her. However, he talked her out of it, but she said the next time is the last time. I'm guessing that he hit the last time today, and managed to talk her into letting him stay with the caveat that he'll never drive again.

It's all a guess at this point, but I should know more tomorrow. And you know I'll tell you all about it. In the meantime, the selfish part of me is thinking it is going to be a loooong time spent driving his ass around town over the next 15 years or so. But maybe this resolution won't last...?

Smart is borrowing Jillian Michaels' Master Your Metabolism, with the thought that using "...the three diet secrets to naturally balancing your hormones" might help me not only lose weight, but clean up my sometimes-horrific complexion. I have hormonally-caused cystic acne, and it plagues me. I didn't think there was much I could do about my hormones, but maybe the food I eat causes my hormone balance to shift to the bad side, causing my skin issues.

However, scary smart is remembering partway through the first chapter that I have four boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my freezer and realizing, "If I eat these all before I read the book, then I'll be THAT MUCH MORE impressed with how fabulous this book is, and I won't be regretting the fact (and sabotaging my sure success) that I'd lost all that weight/cleared up my complexion and now can't enjoy those cookies without ruining it all."

See what a deep thinker I am?

My little brother's wedding was last night, and I survived the family encounter. In fact, I made it through with flying colors, I'm proud to report.

I will say that going out at the last minute and buying a new dress and heels didn't hurt my confidence any. I added in some deep breathing exercise, visualization of my control thermometer dropping, and repeating, "I am strong, and I am peaceful," before going in. I really wanted to convey those two attributes, in that I didn't care to be confrontational, but I wasn't intending to give the impression that I was at all vulnerable to any silliness.

When Matt and I arrived, we made a bee-line for my dad and his fiancee', and my uncle and eldest brother were right there too. I was surrounded and supported by my peeps. The first person to approach us was my mother's new husband, who I hadn't met before. He introduced himself, and I was pleasant, but frosty. The next person up was my elder sister, who I haven't seen in nearly 14 years. I gave her a huge smile and greeting with a hug--I bear her no bad feelings, and I think she's probably just the other side of the same coin, in regard to how we were trapped in a religion by part of our family, and it's just that I had a better support network than she did in leaving. I think she'd really like to have an entirely different life, but isn't able to go out and get it. She and I visited for a bit, and I introduced she and Matt for the first time.

Next up was my niece, who you may recall is someone I was spectacularly close to until I left the Witnesses when she was nearly four. Leaving her just about broke my heart. She's now seventeen, and I was finally able to see her again and talk to her briefly. She seemed a little bit afraid of me; after all, I'm sure I've been labeled a horrible person (by her father) and talked badly about for the last 14 years. I hope that she was able to see that I didn't seem like a scary Jezebel type.

Then came my mother. She wrapped me up in a big old hug and said, "I never want to let you go." I smiled politely...and then I let her go.

Sadly, there's a huge difference between how she feels and how she's able to behave. So while she probably does have a lot in her heart for me, she can't manifest that in a way that is at all healthy for me to experience. I know she has a really hard time understanding that. She and my sister asked where Freya was, and I said she was at home with her babysitter. My mother said that she really hoped to meet her someday, and I simply replied, "Maybe someday." And maybe not.

We left after the ceremony, reception line and appetizers. By that time, I felt like I'd performed enough, and was ready to get back home. All in all, it was very stressful, but I found that I was able to manage the situation and manage my emotions adequately.

That's a pretty valuable lesson, because I've got a strong feeling that I haven't seen the end of this chapter yet. I know my mother well enough to know that she will be like a moth at the back-porch light, and she'll come around banging her head against the same old walls again...

Again, thanks to all of you for your support. Not only did it help to know I had your support, but you all really did peel me off the ceiling during my panic of a week or so ago.

It was warmer today--I was able to wear my capri pants, though it was just a titch cool. This is very good news, because I found myself weighing the costs of buying a new pair of long pants while down here vs. having Matt FedEx me a pair of my jeans and a sweater. Tomorrow (Thursday) is supposed to be even warmer, thank goodness.

As far as my angst about the family aspects of my little brother's upcoming wedding goes, I want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who responded with such encouragement. I am feeling stronger and yet more peaceful about it. A good friend of mine, after reading my post, gave me an excellent mental exercise to work on: after pointing out that I am a control freak (so true), she suggested I do a visualization of a thermometer, and imagine that it's labeled "Control." I am to visualize watching that thermometer, currently right at its apex, dropping down toward the bottom of the bulb and, at the same time, feel myself releasing the need to control back out into the universe. I've been doing that a fair amount, and it's working very well. I may still have to do some serious breathing exercise leading up to walking in the door at the wedding (while visualizing, of course), but I know that I cannot control the way the day goes. I can control how I react to whatever may come up, but I certainly cannot control what other people do, think, or how they act. That just is.

So again, thank you all so much for reaching out to me like you did. The shared experiences and support helped me to realize that this situation is not the only scary/sad family thing in the universe (which seems like a colossal understatement, but sometimes it's easy to lose that perspective), which means that it can't possibly be the most important one, either. I appreciate your help very, very much.

I'm in Phoenix this week for a work thing. I've been looking forward to this all winter, as it's the closest thing I'm going to get to a tropical vacation for the foreseeable future.

And guess what?

It's freakin' cold out. It was 46 today, which is only 6 degrees warmer than it was in Boise. I'm calling bullshit on this one. I checked the weather before I left, and yesterday was supposed to be the only coolish day, so I only packed one pair of jeans. The rest of my stuff is capris, and I'm afraid I'll either freeze from wearing those or start to smell funny because my jeans have been worn for 5 straight days.

Tomorrow's weather suggests it might be in the mid 60s, and that's got me hopeful. But, damn!

In an unrelated category, I've learned two valuable lessons already:

1) Hotel happy hours are a terrible place to recruit shuttle van drivers from among your coworkers. This is because they are all soused up on free liquor, and have no intention of driving anywhere. It's not possible to rationalize with them and explain that they don't have to drive until the following day. Van keys are to happy hour as garlic is to vampires.

2) Never accept a ride back to the hotel from a coworker who literally spent their entire adult life riding the Metro and who doesn't even own a car. They will scare the shit out of you on the freeway.

I can't wait for tomorrow's valuable life lessons. Send warm thoughts.

The one Academy Award that I cared about has been fulfilled the way I wished: Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Colonel Landa in Inglorious Basterds. Matt and I watched it last weekend, and I've never seen someone on film who could convey so much evil that it actually chilled me. And you still sort of liked him a little. So I am happy about that.

We literally just finished watching The Hurt Locker, and I've got to say, "Huh?" I mean, it was an interesting movie and all, but...what was I supposed to infer from it? War is hell? I've seen other movies that conveyed that point much more expressively. Maybe it's a man thing. Or a soldier thing.

And like 500 bazillion other people on the planet, we did see Avatar. That was just incredible. Was it Academy Award Best Picture worthy? I dunno. Probably not. I really haven't seen all that many movies that really rocked my mind. In fact, the only one that comes to mind is Life is Good. That one stays with me. I don't think I could even watch it again, now that I'm a parent.

So what do you all think? Have you been satisfied with the Academy Awards this year? What would your picks be? What's your favorite movie of all time, regardless of whether it won an award or not?

My little brother is getting married here in town a week from Saturday. Joyous event, happy tidings, blah blah blah.

I have quite a bit of anxiety about it already. Why? Because my mother, who I haven't seen in at least 10 years will be there. (Quick recap: estranged from mother because mother won't accept me as a good person unless I am a Jehovah's Witness, and so says/does hurtful things to me which translates into rejection of me. Hurts.) Additionally, my elder sister and her Satan-Incarnate Husband will be there, and they're also JWs. (Quick recap II: sister still contacts me clandestinely about once a year; brother in law is emotionally abusive, threw me out of their house when I said I was leaving the JWs, and I suspect harbored inappropriate thoughts about me which made him hate me even more.)

I don't really know what to expect. However, I know I'm going to be wound tighter than a watchmaker's ass, and so I'm not bringing Freya into a high-stress situation like that. That will be interpreted by my mother as a "cut" at her because she hasn't been allowed to meet Freya, and will likely think I'm doing it to spite her. But Freya is an emotional barometer of me, and if I'm freaked out, she will be too. She doesn't need to channel my fear and anger.

I've been consoling myself with a few helping thoughts. One is that I am a strong adult woman now, and I don't have to react to any of them like the child I more or less was when I was a JW. I know that there is very little that I can't handle outside of this situation, and I need to bring that strength into this part of my life. Another is that I have medication to help me with my anxiety, and that's going to create a bit of a buffer for me. And the third is that I will still be surrounded by a team of people who will be watching out for me: Matt, first and foremost, and my dad, older brothers, uncle, etc. Sometimes I will do a mental tally of the people who are "on my side" in life, and that little exercise will help me remember that I have a veritable army of people who do love me and have faith in me, and I can do a sort of mental rosary to soothe me.

But god, you guys. I'm so worried about this.

You know what I think scares me the most? I've got this huge set of emotional armor based on this experience and it serves me well. The thing that could strip all the armor in an instant is if I were to get a heartfelt sort of, "I love you and I don't care what religion you are; I just want us to be a family again." THAT scares the crap out of me, my friends. Regardless of what good that sort of thing could bring, it's almost inconceivably terrifying for me to think about trying to move through life without the protective shell I've developed about this experience.

Not that I'm expecting any kind of whole-hearted reconciliation like that to occur. I don't think it could ever happen.

Anyway, I'm open to all of your advice. As usual.