I think I know what’s triggering all this anxiety; being found attractive and being attracted to someone.   I have to find a way to disarm the anxiety.  I have to find a way to please myself and not worry about other people.  It would be wonderful to be emotionally mature and be able to do the give and take that normal, loving people do.  I am trying, I swear to God, I am. 

It’s always been easy for people to take advantage of me by saying, “If you don’t do this or that for me, I won’t be your friend.”  I have yearned for acceptance and love my whole life, so I compromised and did it.   Over and over again. I just didn’t want to lose any friends.   As I grew older, I said “Screw it! I don’t want people in my life.”

I want to please people so that they’ll like me and not abandon me.  Remember that about me. It’ll be very important later on.

Yeah, I know. I’m not the only person that’s been chewed up and spit out like a used piece of gum.   People react in different ways.  Mine is withdrawing into a shell until I feel as if I can deal with the issue. Other people get mad.  To each their own.

Ok. I admit it.  I want a hot lip lock. I want to play tonsil hockey.  I want to pounce and devour.  I want to run my fingers over bare and vulnerable skin, to make someone I care about feel good, tasting the salt of their skin and the shiver of flesh anticipating my next move.

Can you tell where MY mind has been lately?  I don’t feel guilty.  We’re sensual beings, after all. Even 235 pounders like me.  Well, maybe I do feel guilty as somehow society has told us bigger people that we are not entitled to live like normal people—or to be seen as sexual—unless we drop the weight and get with the “program”.  Never mind the majority of Americans seem to be overweight….

Still, I’m worried about all the time I think about it.  Which is all the time.  Seriously, maybe something’s wrong with me…maybe I’m compensating for long time. Maybe my hormones are finally kicking in.  (I AM 34, you know.)  Not that I’m healthy enough for sex yet, but I sure do want it.  BAD.  Bad enough I’m getting distracted at work.   Maybe I’m still….needing some help.  (NOT that kind. Eeesh. Psychiatric help…that’s what I’m talking about.

And of course, I’m not actually doing sinful things.  (Well, besides feeling as if I’m about to burst into flame!) I live a chaste life.  Still, I’m hungry….

For prospective parents.  The “man” makes you go through testing to drive a car.  Why not get tested before being able to be in charge of nurturing a life?

Octu-mom, I’m sorry, needs some psych help and to have her kids taken away. And the fertility doctor should be investigated.  If not have his license taken away or suspended. 

Actually, I’m not sorry. There is no way she can afford to take for fourteen children, emotionally and financially. It’s just not possible for one (Ok, two…counting her mother) person to care for so many young children.

It’s a sad situation, all the way around. Hey, I understand wanting a baby, but in a interview, she made it sound like having children filled something in her. That’s NO reason to have children. At least my cousin, who has ten of her own, can feed and shelter them with no public assistance.

Start rant: TO ALL THE PEOPLE ON WELFARE; STOP HAVING CHILDREN. GO GET A SHOT, OR THE PILL, OR STOP HAVING RELATIONS. STOP POPPING OUT CHILDREN THAT LIVE IN POVERTY. BE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT. End rant.

Before I go off the deep end, I’ll close this post with an appropriate quote: There’s too many people making too many problems…and not enough love to go around.

Yes, it’s from a song. Betcha can’t guess which one.

I’m back. You may all rejoice. The swelling in my ankles has gone down….since I re-cut back on my soda intake. (I’d been drinking tea and non soda beverages…but the Soda Monkey jumped on my back again.) Which means I feel better and am less moody.

That’s a good thing for anyone who lives with me. Grumpy Randi = Bad Randi.

My birthday is next Saturday, March 7th. I’m the big 3-4. Not old, but not a spring chicken. So I guess this would be a good time for reflection… (March 5th will mark my sixth year of blogging. Sixth!)

I feel as if I have made improvements in my life.

I realize that I want to be healthy.

I found out that I do like most of me.

Life is WORTH living…and living well. If I could make people believe, it would be that.

People are not as hurtful as I once thought they were.

Kindness and goodness still flourish in people

I’ve also learned that religious people can have both common sense and a sense of humor, which is refreshing. It also makes it easier to relate to them. (Such as my favorite…Sister Mary Martha. You don’t have to be a Catholic to like her writing or point of view.)

I still have weird dreams of being a nun, not every night, mind you, but every once in a blue moon. I don’t think it’s a call to become Catholic, but rather to be more spiritual. I have my belief system..which is neglected due to a lack of lazitude,

Bad me. Bad, bad me.

I’m back and ready to rock the blogging world.

My “news” has been too heavy lately.+ I need to focus on more light-hearted posts for like, say, the next year.

OK, so that isn’t going to happen, as I am (a self labeled I have to add here) a cautious optimist. I prefer to be more positive, but I won’t be surprised if the worst should happen.

Hope for the best, expect the worst is my motto. That way, I’m never take off guard. I know that’s a rather wimpy way to live, but I’ve always been on the wary side, even as a kid. (Except when running and falling down a steep, rocky hill or climbing into the barrel of a dissected washing machine. And then plunging into the neighborhood swamp in said improvised vehicle. Good times.)

So I will make more of an effort to post and post light entries. We’ll see how it goes.

(ruffles around looking for light news. Tosses out articles announcing more layoffs ahead for ‘09 and how we’re all going to die, die, DIIIIIIIIEEEEEE. Honestly, people can be so negative.)

Ahh. Here is it. I just read a news article that went like this: Football Bad for the Brain. Ya think? Really? 250 lbs plus men running at each other? Bad for the brain? Nyah. Well, watching it can be bad for the mind, so maybe the journalist has made a point.

Just teasing. Maybe.

+Sidenote: I feel so much better, like a tremendous load has been lifted off my cerebellum. I swear, that friend of mine must be a psychic vampire or something, because I am happy now. Not depressed or anxious or anything like that.

I don’t have anything to say.  Nothing I haven’t said an hundred times before.

I’m beginning to sound redundant. Oh, not that I’ve run out of things to gripe about: the snow, economy, friends, intolerance to religion…what have you. It’s just all been done before. I feel as if I’m just running in a blogging hamster wheel, churning the same notions that a million bloggers have done before me.

Ok, now I’m whining and I don’t mean to.

I’m just trying to find a purpose to blog. I could give into what’s calling me and become a Catholic, turning this into a religious blog…but I won’t give up on my interests. (I am fully aware that there is a Higher Power. I should say, that there is one.) Comics, Simpsons, WoW and writing fan fiction. Oh, and rock ‘n’ roll.

(I’m also fully aware that one doesn’t just BECOME a Catholic, it’s a long process involving much reflection and study.)

I could blog about the problems going on in the world, but that gets me depressed.

I know that I’ve dropped Simpson Sunday (because our houseguest HATES that show.) and I do intend to get around to it….as soon as he finds a place. Maybe Aunt Val needs to make an appearance.

But all I know for certain is that this apathy means I need to make a shake up!

Err. This isn’t a post about a crudtacular pop band. It’s about a panic attack at work. Oh boy.

Had one at work. At a office “Christmas” party in a small room with twenty co-workers. If you could call a raffle a party….

Anyway, I just felt so crowded by people. The room was spinning and people were getting louder and louder. I made some snipy comments…when all I really wanted to do was get under the table and vanish. My panic attacks usually include heavy breathing, but there have been times I felt as if I were having a heart attack. I also have PTSD, Agoraphobia, and Social Anxiety Disorder…Whee!

Some of my co-workers looked at me like I was a freak. Yeah, I am, but I’m a person too.

I confided in my supervisor later, and told her that I was sorry for any misconstrued comments, and she said that she understood. Let’s hope she does.

This is where I’d say that it sucks to be me, but it doesn’t. I still love me…for the most part….panic attacks and all.

When I was in Job Corps– a government run program designed to give the poor and disadvantaged youth trade and job skillz– the medical personnel gave me drugs to try to help my depression and general neurotic behavior. That’s what I get for confiding to people who work for the government, I suppose.

I moved into another room because if I had stayed there, the geology of her face would have been rearranged. I wasn’t the only one who she irritated. But Zoloft made me meaner than I normally am.

Prozac turned me into a sad sack, crying and wailing over the least little thing. I got a B on a paper, I cried. If I had to do a dorm chore I hated, I sulked and cried–well, when the student leaders weren’t around. I hated my weakness. I hated the mood drugs they put me on.

When they wanted to put me on Lithium, I balked. I didn’t want to take a chance on another drug–my body chemistry reacts to drugs in a weird way.

I just try to weather through the emotional storm, through the highs and the crashing lows. I just carry on because I have to. Life is always better than the alternative.

Sometimes it just feels like such a struggle to make it through the day. Of course, some of my lack of energy may stem from the fact I have a 250lb frame, but I won’t go there. Yet.

Lately, it’s been really hard to go to work, to find the motivation to keep soldiering on in the rat race. I have no choice, really, but I find myself dreading the work week. Once I’m at work, I’m glad to be there. I’m thankful that I have a job that pays and treats me well. Honestly, I love the people and I like the job I do.

Why then, do I feel so resentful when I don’t want to go to work? Here’s one of my mental conversations:

I don’t want to go to work. I want freedom; I want to be free of corporate America. I want to write–this job is sapping my creativity. I want to learn and grow.

I know that’s a real mature attitude to have, but hey, it’s the one that’s currently in production by my psyche. (Or where ever ‘tudes come from.)

Let’s face it. I can want to write until my skin turns blue. Wanting never pays the bills. Here’s another dose of self-esteem killing reality; Only popular writers end up making a living from their craft. And never, ever in my life have I been popular. I’m liked, appreciated for me, but I am not a popular person.

Heck, I couldn’t even hold onto the pack of friends that Dustin introduced me to. Adonis, I am more than sure, thinks I’m a freak. (As people have mentioned to me, no one is going to find a 250 pounder attractive. And I have certainly acted goofy enough to scare him off.) Some have moved away. Some have refused my gentle advances to be friends–as a rule, I ask to hang out only twice. Then I get the hint and move on. Some refuse to even get to know Dustin has endorsed as a good friend. Not that I particularily blame them….he has burned a lot of people….but still. It’s a little unfair.

Bitterness and a cynical nature have permeated me lately, bogging me down. I don’t like being bitter. I like being sarcastic, but that’s not the same thing. I’m going to have to find my brightness again. I know it’s here somewhere, dimmed by dreams that may never be and bills that never end.

Regarding my social life? I’m just going to keep on looking until I find the friends to whom I belong.

Be the change you wish to see in the world–Gandhi.

I believe I’ve posted this quote before. I’ve always liked the quote but now that I have had time to contemplate and analyze it, I’m not sure I do anymore. Yeah, I do tend to think ideas to a pulp.

There are too many people that want to be the change they see in the world. That is to say, there are too many different “factions” of humankind that want to mold the earth in their image.

Religious folk want everyone under their particular banner, believing and acting as their beliefs dictate. Countries are lining up to be the next Superpower, so they may take over influence the world. PUSHY, militaristic feminists that say men aree bad and inferior. PUSHY gay and lesbians who deliberately force their opinions on others, or try to “recruit”. Ninety-nine point five percent of GL do not wish to foist their lifestyle off on the impressionable and vulnerable…but there are some that do.

Too many people want too much change–in their favor, to deny rights to those that are different or poorer, to try to make others conform. From my experience, coerced anything is not worth squat. In my kinder moments, I almost believe that abrasive people who use their [insert political or faith platform] point of view, truly want to help people. But then, a sneaking suspicion that they are loud-mouth bullies jabs me in my mental gut and back to reality.

I’ve got a better quote: Be part of the change that saves the world, put aside differences and just work on issues that matter.