New Life

I'm obsessed with disaster preparedness. Just a little known fact about me that's probably going to become known fairly quickly. My "favorites" are littered with links to places like the WHO, CDC and of course my baby, the South Dakota Public Health Bulletin. I also follow the Madrid Fault - the crack in the earth near St. Louis that has the ability to cause an earthquake of epic proportions in the Midwest. (It's been quietly knitting itself back together lately. Hrmph.) I know about global warming and the desalination of the oceans and the North Atlantic Current. I know the possibility of large meteors hitting the earth and causing mayhem throughout the world. In fact, I know way to much for my own good. And it's not born out of fear, it's bred out of the fascination of human response to said disasters.

So this swine flu? Yeah. I've been reading about it for a long, long time. And after Green Canary's post about shoving lysol wipes up her nose, I knew I had to out myself. At my meeting last night, people started talking about past flu outbreaks and pretty soon I was spouting statistics about the Spanish Flu of 1918 and a previous outbreak of the Swine Flu in the 40s I believe it was. Um. The fact that I know this shit? Terribly alarming. Well, not really. We've previously established that I'm pretty weird.

However, this fascination has led me to become certified with the Red Cross in disaster counseling. I was not allowed to go to New York after 9/11 because I had a family member there and I probably couldn't be objective. Good call. I couldn't go to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina because I was still on crutches. Apparently if you go to a disaster area, you have to be non-needy. Really? Ha! I'm also certified with the police department to repond to rape and trauma victims, which if I'm honest with myself? Has been one of the better things I've ever done with my life.

But here's the thing about my personal disaster preparedness. I'm NOT prepared. I don't have a stockpile of my crazy pills. I don't have water. I don't have food. I just have a plan for who I'm going to go live with. (See? Still all about me and what I can get out of people. Ha!) It's changed over the years. Of course, when I thought my parents were all that and completely prepared to face life's challenges, I chose them. Then it switched to my first love - Dave. His sister lives on a self sufficient ranch in remote Montana. The plan was to get there and all would be utopia. Lately, I've switched again to hanging out with my co-worker. She and her family are salt of the earth farmers. They know how to grow things and kill stuff, skin it and cook it.

Believe me, I do not trust that Gay Boyfriend has what it takes to survive a disaster. And believe me again, when I read about the possibilities of quarantine, I know for a FACT that should the two of us be locked in together for more than a day, someone will die. And it will not be of the swine flu. So I have a new plan. What's YOUR plan? I want to know. It feeds my fascination.

I finished it.

Oh? You didn't know about it? Yeah. That's because I don't talk about it.

I finished my application for a PhD program in Counseling. I've been working on it for ages, because I just wasn't sure. But today, I got it all back out, called them again to see if there were still openings (there aren't, but I'm always welcome to apply ahead of time for next year, blah blah blah), and I finished it.

I quit my Master's degree just short of my internship back in 2002. Because frankly? I went insane. And who wants an insane therapist? No one. That's who. But I finished all the coursework and wrote my thesis. "The Effects of Pornography On the Sexual Behavior of Teenagers. " Yeah, don't ever google teenagers and pornography. Please, for the love of God. I couldn't get that shit off my computer for almost a year.

You only have five years to finish your master's degree before they make you start over. Seriously. It's a law or something. And I get it. There's WAY more information out there today than there was back in 2001 and I kind of like being on the cutting edge of stuff like that anyway, so I understand that. But in order for me to make use of what I've already learned, getting my PhD is the most reasonable course of action. I get more credits applied than if I were to just go back to a master's and have to re-take all those boring classes like Educational Research. But in pursuing a PhD, I get to take all the fascinating classes like Psychological Criminology and get to skip the boring ones.

I went and interviewed on campus about a year and a half ago, but I still wasn't ready. I wasn't solid in my recovery, I still had major meltdowns on a regular basis and wasn't sure I could do work full time, school full time AND keep going to meetings which I desperately needed.

So, it's done. I have no idea if I'm going to send it in or not. But one hurdle is overcome. I know if I hang onto it long enough, I'll have to completely rework most of what I wrote, but that's okay with me. I had to start somewhere. Just like with everything in my life.

I took the day off. Yippee for me! My therapist told me I was "beaming" this morning. Ha! Beaming my ass, I'm pretty sure I was still asleep.

Sioux Falls to Des Moines - 284 miles in four and a half hours.

The only good flip flop is a high heeled flip flop. I've made the transition from socks to sandals, people. There is no going back now. Amen. (Please make the sign of the cross.)

I'm going to the source this weekend. I'm visiting the matriarch of our clan. Grammie. I haven't been to Des Moines for almost four years now. It's the site of my descent into madness and there's not much there that I want to see or revisit - except for her. Oh, and my brother and pregnant sister-in-law, but I get to see them at my mom and dad's all the time. My grandma is 93 years old; she still lives in the house she and my Grandpa built after he came home from the war. She still drives her car (The one no one else will drive. Good Lord that thing is a tank.) and she goes out in her garden and pulls weeds for an hour every day in the summer. She's the one that taught me all the names of the full moons. The one that sent me the flora and fauna book of North Carolina the minute she found out I was moving there and instructed me to find certain things and take pictures of them. She is the one that watches the birds in the backyard, calls when the deer are drinking from her fountain and sends letters when the first flower comes up in the Spring. When being pressured by a newspaper salesman to buy a subscription to the paper, my response was, "If something important happens in the world, my grandma will call me." and promptly hung up.

And she's the only one in my family that never asked why when I ended up in treatment. She said only this. "I know what you're doing is the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life. I'm proud of you and I love you."

I got it in my head last Monday night that I wanted to see her. And by God, if I have that thought, I'm going to follow it. So, on Saturday morning, Kate and The Universe time will happen in my car, with loud music, fountain diet coke and cigarettes. And I can't wait!

I think it's a sick twist of the universe that every time I don't have to get up early, I wake up at the crack of dawn with thoughts and ideas reeling that do not allow me to stay in bed. Really. Every time. I suffer from all three kinds of insomnia. Can't get to sleep, can't stay asleep and wake up early. That's why I take drugs. Lots of them. It's also one of the reasons I became an alcoholic, but that's beside the point this morning.

I work for a plastic surgeon. He specializes in repairing birth defects, but that does not mean we don't do boobs. For someone who was (and still can be) horribly shy about my body, the fact that women (and their boyfriends/husbands) come in twice a week, stare at my rack and say things like, "Did you have it done? What size are you? I want mine to look like yours." was uncomfortable to say the least. Horrifying was more like it. Admittedly, I have a nice set of tatas. But to have strangers scrutinize them on a twice-weekly basis was a little much. I'm used to it anymore. Strange, isn't it? How we get used to such things and take them as par for the course.

And is that so wrong? Is it wrong to assume that people are not going to apprise my body and make a judgment? Part of my job (as the resident would be therapist - really - it's part of the reason he hired me - my education in counseling) is to weed out the people who have deluded ideas about plastic surgery. The good doctor will not do surgery on people who have unreasonable expectations about what fixing their body will do for them. Did you know that if you have a breast augmentation, you are 25 percent more likely to commit suicide after the fact? You are. And it's because of those unreasonable expectations. If I look like this, then I'll get that. If I'm more perfect, then I'll meet the perfect man, he will fall in love with me and all will be utopia. And when it doesn't happen? The end of the world seems nigh. Don't kid yourself. These women are everywhere and I get to meet them on a daily basis.

Working there has given me a healthy appreciation for my own body and for my more sane moments. I remember asking my therapist - shortly out of treatment- how a woman "like me" could have succumbed to a life of alcoholism and abuse. That presupposes that I had something unique going on because I had such an extensive education and was fairly attractive. She tried over and over to explain to me that alcoholism is no respecter of looks, race, economic status or education. But I held onto this idea that as a "smart" woman, I "should have been" more aware and headed it all off at the pass.

Well. I didn't. And asking why is a lesson in futility. Doing something about it is my job today. And that includes figuring out what it means to be okay with my body and it's attractiveness in a way that feels comfortable. I have quite a few men in my life today that respect me for a lot more than what I can do in bed. They taught me how to respect myself by not allowing me to manipulate them into seeing me as an object. Because being an object used to work for me in my sickness. It's what I learned from the Dead Guy. That I was just a bit player in his world and that my body existed to please him when the spirit moved him. But the men I know today? They do not allow me to see myself that way. And they will take me to task for any thought, words or behavior that cast me in that light.

Instead, they encourage me to be the intelligent woman that I am. To be thoughtful, to chase my academic dreams, to allow people to tell me that I'm pretty (and say "Thank you." instead of, "Are you kidding me?") and to stop using my body as a weapon against myself. My body is no longer someone else's to use for their sick and deluded purposes. Unlearning all that is a process. I'm well on my way and I do enjoy what that means. I'm more confident because my weapons today are indeed my intellect and my calm. It is the panacea to my crazy if I choose to use it. That doesn't mean I'm not also learning to enjoy my body. Because I am. It's all part of learning to see myself as a whole. Not as the sum of my parts. And I like that. I like it alot.

I've been a bad blogger lately. I get most of my hits because I comment on others' blogs. And I haven't been doing that as much. Only because the good doctor I work for is finally home from his mission trip and that means I actually have to do real work. Like pimping his horses.


The man has race horses. One of his mares won the Kentucky Derby years ago. And he's bred her ever since, but she died in childbirth last week. So, there's been a new push - for his stud horses. Yep. I've been pimping his studs. $1000 and you too, can have horse sperm. He wants to stud him about thirty times this season. So of course, in my inifinite wisdom I say, "So basically this mailing I'm doing is so your horse can have sex thirty times." And he bursts into little boy laughter and says, "Oh no! He's going to get to do it ALOT more than that!" This is followed by a 45 minute lecture on the ovulation cycle of mares and things like barometric pressure and how sometimes the stud is not interested. What? Not interested? I didn't know there was such a thing.

Anyway. I know all about breeding horses now.

And about holy cows. I seriously think he pays us so that he has an audience. He made us look at three hours worth of pictures from his trip to India. And I think half of them were cows. Because he thought it was funny that they lay around all over the place because they're holy.

I'm am fairly certain that at seven a.m. there is not enough coffee in the world to make talking about sex in the kind of graphic detail my therapist requires okay. Good Lord.

com⋅pli⋅cat⋅ed 
–adjective
1. composed of elaborately interconnected parts; complex: complicated apparatus for measuring brain functions.
2. difficult to analyze, understand, explain, etc.: a complicated problem.

This living arrangement of mine with Gay Boyfriend has turned out to be one of the best things that's happened to me in recovery. After I found psycho ex-roommate flopping on the floor and foaming at the mouth - having taken a myriad of pills, I knew I had to get out of there. And less than a month later, Gay Boyfriend, whom I did not know very well at the time, lost his renter. Gay Boyfriend is known for taking in the strays. At the time, I would have been horrified to have been called one of his projects, but in a way, I turned out to be. At least for a little while. Living here has given me some confidence in myself. And it's also given me the opportunity to see and face some of my patterns of behavior that might not be that pretty.

Last night, I was tired. And tired means crying. Stressed means crying. And angry means crying. It's kind of my go-to behavior. Ugly crying is the worst. That's really serious stuff. And I don't do that very often. But tears streaming for a little bit is not the end of the world anymore. It usually just means I need to go to bed. So I wandered upstairs in my pajamas carrying one of my birthday presents from him. Eucalyptus Spearmint lotion from Bath and Body works. And par for the course, he followed me onto the porch with his iPod. I love this man. No words exchanged except for, "Are you okay?" And "Yep." And "Let's find something that will make you smile." After a few shaky starts with Bette Midler (gag) we ended up with the Beatles, he rubs my feet with the yummy lotion and I'm off to bed. How I ended up with him, I do not know, but it's quite wonderful.

I think I come off as complicated to people that haven't known me for very long. But really? It's quite simple. What I've found with Gay Boyfriend is that when I've let myself get too far gone with any emotion or feeling and I can't seem to shut it down for myself, a few minutes of touch is all it takes. I think touch is one of the most wonderful of human senses. Sharing that kind of intimacy with someone who cares is so very calming. Skin on skin. That's all I want and it's all I need. And for today? It works for us. And I'm so glad I have him in my life. Unconditional love is a wonderful and precious thing. And the fact that he knows exactly what I need and that it's not complicated? It makes me so happy.

For those of you who might have thought I was done with therapy, I'm not. I'm done with the journals. We're still working on getting to every other week therapy. At this point, it's just a security blanket that I'm not willing to give up. I'm happy today. And I'm afraid that changing anything will throw me into a spiral of despair. I know I'll eventually get over that, but for now, I'm hanging onto my routine. So far, it's served me quite well in recovery. I'm loathe to give up what works. Someday I will, but not today.

What I really noticed in reading through those ick things, is that I do not resemble that woman at all anymore. Not one bit. Those recurring thoughts that got put on paper are not at all like the ones I have today. How is it that I get a second chance at this thing called life? Seriously. I was a goner. I wished for death on a daily basis and never got it. So I had to figure out how to live. And that's been the gift of a lifetime.

I was leading a meeting at the women's sober house today and they look at me like I'm some sort of goddess. Like I've got life down pat. I don't. I struggle on a daily basis to keep doing the things I know that keep me happy and sane. Some days it's easy and other days it's not. I don't like being looked up to. I don't like seeming an "expert" on anything because in fact, I am not. I am an alcoholic who chooses recovery today. And only for today. And that did not come easily. It only came because there were no other options. I apparently was not going to die, so I had to figure out how to live and not hate it.

Lucky for me, I got that opportunity. Some people don't. My therapist asked me once how I felt about receiving the gift of sobriety. I feel guilty. There are so many people that deserve a better life, and who am I to have received it? But I did. And because I did, I have to embrace it or I turn into the ungrateful, selfish, self-pitying bitch that I used to be.

It's so hard to describe to people who didn't know me when I was still drinking, what I was like because I am so far from that woman today. And it's not really necessary for those people to know or understand, it's just that I so badly want them to know how desperate it was. How sick and deluded and sad. And because of that, how important it is that I do the things I do today to stay on board with life. I really do like myself today. And that's something I never, ever thought I'd say and believe. But I do say it and believe it today. And if that means that I have to go to meetings, and if that means I have to do things like lead meetings at the women's sober house when I'd rather be at home in my pajamas, then I'll gladly do that. I don't ever want to be that woman again. And I don't have to be.

I tried writing in my new journal, but I like this one much, much better. And maybe only because I think I have something to offer to you. Hope and discovery. Whatever is wrong in your life today needn't own you. Let it go and it will transform you. I believe that with my heart and soul. So much, I do.

I'm not going to put a link back for you to read about my journals and my therapist's insistence that we read every single sorry word out of them from my life with the dead guy. But here is the last one. She gave it back to me today. Because we're done. Finished. Kaput. It is the closing of another chapter in my life and if I ever go back to the kind of sick and twisted thinking that graced the pages of these pastel nightmares, I hope someone shoots me. Whatever compels a person to think so ill of oneself, I will not know. Because today? I think I'm pretty okay. I think I'm smart. I think I'm pretty. I think I'm attractive. I think I have a whole lot of love to give. I have something to offer the world and if you don't want to take me up on it? Well then, get lost. I think this is what they call self esteem. And I like it. I like it alot.

Captain Keebler (aka Steve Wilson, aka Mr. Airplane, aka The Pilot, who will now be known at Captain Keebler), and I went to Omaha for the weekend. Last minute, which I'm not accustomed to, but was very happy to experience. We went to a dance venue called Jitterbugs on Friday night and I danced and danced and got some tips from the instructor on West Coast Swing, got to bed at one and got up at five to take the balloon up with some of his friends on Saturday morning. Once again, I'd like to point out what a good helper I am. It was COLD. Then we hung out at the hotel pool, took naps, then went to the Omaha Zoo. More about the murder on his blog.

My feet are happy, happy today! Flowers AND flip flops! I think I just survived another winter here on the plains.

My favorite mailing came yesterday. The South Dakota Public Health Bulletin. I know you all like to keep up with the statistics like I do. The clap is up by 19 percent and gonorrhea is up by 61 percent. What is up with people spreading diseases? Yuck.

I do have something very special for you today. You figure out what they're testing for, eh? Considering my fear of zombie attacks, this one scares the daylights out of me.

1. Be careful not to destroy the head by gunshot or bludgeoning.
2. The entire brain with brainstem must be submitted FRESH to the lab. Package the brain in a sterile plastic bag placed inside a crush-proof container. Submit to the lab in an appropriate leak-proof insulated shipping container with adequate ice packs to keep specimen chilled. DO NOT FREEZE the brain.
3. As always, the lab will not accept live specimens. Whole bodies, complete heads, or removed brains are all acceptable specimens for submission. Staff will remove brains upon arrival, at no additional charge.
4. Fill out the standard submission form with complete information. It can be downloaded online.

Why this makes me laugh outloud to myself I have no idea. Maybe I'm sicker than I thought.....

Okay heathens, I'm going to get all church-y on you. Leave if you must.

It's Holy Week. I've largely ignored Lent. All the givingupedness makes me a little irritated. Most people give stuff up for Lent to gain something for themselves. Giving up chocolate - hoping I lose weight. Giving up drinking - here's hoping against hope I'm not an alcoholic. Or some such nonesense. I don't think I've ever truly given up anything for Lent. I was always too bitter.

Having worked for the church for 10 years, I developed Easter anxiety every year. I hated it. Despised it in fact. The best part of the church year, and I couldn't find any place in my heart to tolerate it. Lent meant no confirmation classes. *whew* But it also meant summer was coming and I better have my ducks in a row for summer camp and the youth trips on the horizon. It was kind of the last push for fundraising and the end of the school year meant a lot of stressed out kids making really poor decisions. Holy Week? Church after church after church after church service. And Easter morning? Whoever decided that worldwide - the YOUTH should host an Easter Breakfast as a fundraiser needs to be shot. Egg bake? Donuts? Orange juice and milk? Gah. Yuck. I hope never to eat Egg Bake ever again. I can make it in my sleep. And in fact, many times did. Three in the morning at the church, cursing the huge gas ovens for not heating evenly. I hated it. HATED. IT.

But Holy Thursday. Holds a place in my heart. The quietness of the service. The stripping of the altar? It meant something to me. It meant the pretense of the show was over. And I'm all about limiting pretense. Suddenly the church wasn't all bells and whistles and pretty linens, lively songs and welcoming smiles. It was the reality of why we go to church in the first place. And it was my respite during my season of hate. I'm going to church tonight. It's been three years since I've been, but I have it in my head that I want to experience it once again. I have no idea what possessed me, but my head tells me to go and I'm going to follow it today.

Why I like the things I do?When asked to pick a movie last night, I was kind of at a loss. I don't like romantic comedy. I mean sure, sometimes. But no - on a regular basis. Sci Fi? Um, the guy before the dead guy made me have sex to Star Trek the Next Generation. Not in my book of fun. Zombies? No. I played a preview of something and right in the middle of it said, "Make it stop! How do I make it stop? No!" I didn't sleep for weeks after I Am Legend. So we ended up with Wanted. Now, I think Angelina Jolie - regardless of her brood - is sexy as all hell. I would never get a tattoo, but I could wish to. Makes me feel all bad and unholy. Just the thought of it makes me happy. But I know I won't ever do it. I don't even have my ears pierced for God's sake. The movie had a bad plot and was poorly executed, but the blood and guts? Ohhh. Oh so happy I was.

I played intermural Rugby in college. Yes. Me. Awkward and unathletic me. I was the full back, which required lots and lots of running and meant that no one was trying to rip my ears off in the scrum. But I remember my first game. A girl from the other team grabbed me by my ponytail and dragged me to the ground in one fell swoop. And I laid there on my back saying, "Did you see that? She pulled my hair!" And my teammates were laughing at me. It's all par for the course in rugby. It's violent and it's real. And I loved every minute of it. I'm not that violent anymore, but I still love the thrill of watching it. I'm not masochistic in any way shape or form, but I love violent movies and I love violent sports. Maybe this should have been a therapy tuesday post. Ha! Enjoy.

So far today, we have had several renditions of:

The Chicken Dance
The La, la la, letter L song from Sesame Street
Beaker's song from The Muppets
"I've Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates"

And we currently have my co-worker's friend on speaker phone, waiting for her to sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green" because we can't remember the words. I'm pretty sure "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is coming.

We're taking requests, people.

When I'm upset, I tend to drive. Long distances. The high gas prices last summer were a killer on my mental health. I drink fountain diet coke, (Emphasis on the fountain. With lots of ice.) smoke, and listen to music while I twist and turn my thoughts around until they're straight enough for me to manage again. I got a bunch of old cds out last week - sorting through which ones I want to go on my iPod. And I found the soundtrack from my drives in North Carolina. Sarah McLaughlin's Mirrorball. I'd get up early on Saturday mornings, brush my teeth, and jump in the Blazer in my pjs and those fuzzy flip flops you saw the other day. And I'd drive. Trying to place myself between the mountains and the piedmont. Figuring out where I lived in the world. And in my head.

My therapist specializes in sex offender treatment. I have no idea how I ended up in her care, but she was on my insurance carrier's list and she is a woman, so I gave her a chance and it worked for us. Serendipitous. Because she knew the soul of the kind of man that I had put my life in the hands of. Only I didn't give her enough information to help me when he was still alive. I had the feeling that there were parts of my life that would crumble if given an inch of daylight, so I kept them in the dark. From her and probably from myself as well.

She'd ask me sly questions about him on occasion when we first starting meeting. I don't know why, but I'd decided that the dead guy was off limits in therapy. I gave her nothing. But she knew. She always knew. I know that now, but at the time, I was protecting something I didn't know I couldn't protect. Those journals I wrote about last week? They are a product of her constant questions. He'd been dead about nine months. I'd lost my job. And in my unemployed drunken stupor, I decided to give it all to her. I wrote furiously for two days out on my deck. Drinking and smoking. I recall that it was raining most of the time and those journals are more than soaked in tears and mist, but they hold the entirety of our life together. And I finally included the not nice parts. See? I wanted him to be my knight in shining armour and it turns out his armour was tarnished. Very, very tarnished. And I learned to live in the place where no silver polish was going to make a dent in the blackness that decended on us. Because to ignore it was better than facing it.

I know today that the things he did to me would send him to prison for doing them to a stranger. What makes a person accept that? Naivete? Ignorance? Stupidity? I don't rant about much in my life. I like my life today, but when certain subjects come up, and I find that wall coming up, I know that somethings wrong in my head. That's what happened today. The words "sex offender" make me cringe. When the Church says, "Save yourself for marriage, do you want to be damaged good for your future husband?" I find myself believing once again that I AM damaged goods. What man wants to undo the damage done to my psyche? What man has the patience to walk me through undoing the hurt? What man will understand why I flinch when I'm touched intimately unbidden? Even if I want it. I still recoil. I hate that about me, but I'm working on it. To live in this bubble means that the abuse wins. And today, I want to be the winner. I don't quite know how I'm going to accomplish that, but I have my sights set. At least for today.

Okay rockstars.

My internet is broken and I might curl up in a ball and cry.

*edit* I am fixed. As in back to our regular programming. Gay Boyfriend failed to tell me we got a new internet service provider yesterday. I was not pleased. And I don't think he realizes what a woman with PMS is capable of. Especially since he's playing his music so loud right now, my windows are shaking. There may be a homicide, people. I've got my daggers sharpened.

Since it's not wicked cold out anymore, I have reverted to my favorite "slippers" of all time. The fuzzy flip flops. I love them. And I wish I didn't have to put on real shoes and go to work. Hrmph. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I get to go dancing tonight! And that? That makes me hop, skip and jump through the rest of the day. Well, when I'm not taking a nap.

The good doctor nicknamed me "4.0" shortly after I started working for him - as a compliment of my smarty-pants-ness that he recognized. I am smart. I know an awful lot and I love to learn and soak in new information - turning it around and around like pulling taffy in my brain. But being smart and being able to assimilate mounds of information in a short amount of time does not presuppose common sense. I don't have much of that.

One of the things my therapist says alot is this. "Your parents did the best they could with what they knew AND it wasn't enough. Your job is to fill in the blanks as an adult." Well - here's the thing. I didn't know there were blanks. And that's what led to my somewhat alternate existence with the dead guy.

When I was 18, I started journaling. My book shelves house a lifetime of existence. I rarely re-read them, but there are two journals that bear reviewing. My therapist keeps them at her office. It is not such a good idea for me to have them here. They are weapons to re-open wounds when I'm feeling sorry for myself. And when I've shown that I'm in a pretty good place emotionally, she gets them out and we read a few pages and talk. Only to fill in the blanks. It's not a lesson in masochism - it is so I understand what happened and what I can do differently in the future. It's a painful thing and it's what we did last Tuesday. She reads aloud, I cringe on the couch and she often says to me, "You know that's considered abuse. Right?" And I say something like this, "But I liked it." or "I asked for it." And we start the process of dismantling the thoughts that led me to say such things.

And now? I've got a new radar that is somewhat crippling at times and at other times, refreshing. Because I am starting to see the subtle manipulation that others use to make me do what they want me to whether I want to or not. It scares me. It frightens my core that I bought all those lies for so long, but this is now. This is my time to learn. I may have to learn late, but I'm learning and it's worth every painful moment for me to understand these lessons.

So when I got up on Wednesday morning and noticed fingerprints on my forearm, I panicked just a little bit. See? I am still not very good at this dancing thing and learning means that I make mistakes. I kept missing a turn and my partner had to grab me several times to keep me from careening into the dining room table, enchiladas in my hair and fork in my back. Those fingerprints represent fun and experience. They don't mean that I let someone hurt me again. The panic was momentary, but it does remind me that I am learning a new way of life today.

I want to talk about underwear for a moment. Panties, if you will. See, I've been doing this dancing thing and there's nothing worse than getting your underwear wedged up your crack and it's just not very nice to reach up and pull it out. I mean seriously. I'll go out on the dancefloor and make a complete fool of myself trying to learn something new but I won't reach up and pull. I just can't. My momma didn't raise me that way.

The only ones that don't seem to crawl up are my boy short types. Which are my favorite, by the way. But since they're my favorite, they tend to be the first ones used and thus, are not always available. I've got the bikini ones, but they're the worst offenders in the creep up the ass. And thongs? Um. I refuse. I completely refuse. Why on earth would you even bother? What exactly are you trying to accomplish with a thong? It covers nothing and it feels like you have a constant wedgie and that's what I'm trying to avoid here. And for those of you who enjoy your whale tail existence? You horrify me. Really, you do.

I no longer own granny panties. Again - why bother? I know, some women save those especially for that time of the month, but please. If you already feel fat and bloated and disgusting, why would you wear disgusting underwear? Why? It only exacerbates the problem.

So I've decided that not wearing any at all is my best bet. Avoiding the issue altogether is really my style anyway.