Yes, I'm Hooked

There was a time back in the early seventies when, for a short time, I was a stay at home mom. I was selling Tupperware at night and babysitting two hell-on-wheels toddlers during the day, and still managed to become addicted to several daytime soap operas. After I went back to work it took me almost a year to get where I could go home and not have this crushing urge to stop off at my neighbors for an update on the lives of Llanview or to find out what disaster had befallen the staff at General Hospital.

I vowed back then to never get hooked on another television serial, and have remained true to that promise for the most part. But, now we are in that new era of the internet and I find that I have become hopelessly hooked on blogs, or to be more precise, certain blogs. I use to read quite a few on a regular bases, I slowly let some fade away. But, my dear Frank became attracted to several of my favorites and now he will read them to me. I love the sound of his voice and he is so good at adding all the nuances to the text that I would much rather listen to him then read them for myself. Regardless, I am now addicted to keeping up with the happenings of poor Mahala over in Frog Pond Holler. I can’t help but cry along with the suffering of that sweet lady with cancer that slept with Robert DeNero; or laughing at the adventures of Risible Girl. (By the way if you want to check them out the links can be found on my blog.)

I hate to admit it but I do a better job of keeping up with the lives of these strangers than I do with my own siblings and their families; most of whom live within 10 miles of me. In fact one of my brothers and his family are just three houses down the street. Why is that? Well between work, church, community involvements and their children’s activities most of my brothers and sisters are seldom home and I feel guilty intruding on what little private time they do have as a family. I can pop in for a visit with the Old Lady of the Hills any time of day or night and how long I stay will not interfere with either of our schedules.

That is why all of my spare time recently has been spent setting up and maintaining family blogs for both sides of my extended family. I would rather be able to read about the activities and events in the lives of my own relatives than strangers halfway across the country. Yes the blogs I read are written by people with a talent for writing that can make even mundane things seem interesting as well as find a way to add humor to living with cancer, but, I know there is an equal amount of talent in my own family. But, regardless of whether writing comes easy or not, I would welcome the feeling of closeness that comes from being included in the daily happenings of those you love.

So I hope that all of you reading this will get on the blogging bandwagon and find a way to use blogging as a way to occasionally update everyone on what is going on in your lives.

A self description, the person that lives in my skin.

Hi all. It has been a while since I have written anything here. It seems I have been ill for months, and that combined with the holidays and trying to keep the wolves away from my door, have taken up all my time. But, I hope to be more active now that things are starting to settle down in the new year.

I am not ashamed to admit that I belong to a singles website. It is not the first site I have belonged too but, I suspect it may be my last. I gave up a long time ago on the validity of dating sights as a way to actually meet dating partners. I now belong to a religious site (Catholic) simply because it has great message boards and it's members are all very devout, faith-filled caring people that have been able to teach me a great deal and are an everyday source of emotional support and spiritual growth for me. Regrettably, it also has become very addicting and some days keeps me at my PC when I should be out in the real world trying to make a real life for myself. I also have days when I sacrifice sleep in order to keep up with the boards or to write and post long cathartic exposes about myself. I have found the baring of my soul to the good folk of this site has done me more good and been much cheaper than the many hours of therapy I have submitted myself too.

Recently, someone challenged everyone on the boards to write a short descriptive paragraph about themselves that did not include any descriptive adjective's or have any "I am" statements that would tell more about themselves than the information already in their profiles. Well, I gave it a shot and below is what I came up with. I think it is a fair description of how I see myself. Now whether others agree with it or not is a different matter entirely, and to be completely honest I doubt many will. The bold truth is that there has only been one person on this earth that ever truly knew and understood me. Even with that knowledge he was never quite able to figure out how to properly show his love and support for me in a way that would uplift and enrich me, and now that person is dead, and with him went the only person with whom I was ever totally free to be my true self. Sweetie, I miss you terribly.

Now for that self description.

I see myself as a chameleon made up of tiny bits of Annie Oakley, Margaret Houlihan, and Julia Sugarbaker, with a sprinkling of Harriet Olson, and a whole lot of Jessica Fletcher. If I were a smell I would have to be the scent of lilacs on a summer breeze seconds before a slow rain. If I had to be a sound I would be the clanging of the last bell of the school day. At another time in history this gal would have, without question, donned a prairie bonnet, and walked from Missouri to Montana behind a Conestoga wagon, because she trusted her husband's decisions for their family. If you and I were the sole survivors of a plane crash on a remote mountain top, this gal could amputate your leg with a pocket knife to free you from the wreckage, build a travois and attempt to haul your butt off the mountain in a blizzard, if that was the only option for saving both our lives. For friendship (or love) I would sit beside your hospital bed till the end; drive half way across the state to deliver a spare key, in the middle of the night; or tape record every book in the library. To win a wager I might make the climb to the top of a water tower but it would require being unconscious to get me back down. Mice have me climbing on tables and horror movies keep me awake for days. Overall, I would have to say that I tend to be the last person anyone thinks about, until something goes amiss, then I become the first person everyone wants to find.