Update on the recap

I've woken up this morning in a rather pleasant mood with the minor exception of the sneezing - sore throat situation, which has actually morphed into something else which I'd rather not detail because it's kinda gross. However, it's not painful, exactly.

Last night I wrote that I was going to have a cup of tea and go to bed. But then I didn't feel like going to bed so I decided to play in Photoshop to see if I could figure out ways to salvage portraits in which the flash was too harsh. I found the shot that I liked the most and played with it until I came up with something, which I posted.

This reminds me that yesterday I realized that I've historically been too hard on myself about changing my mind over things. I changed my attitude about mind-changing. I changed my mind about going straight to bed after the blog post.

Also, several things I've seen on the internet in my morning reading reminded me that I also had a semi-long angst-ridden walk around my old neighborhood yesterday. I didn't leave that out of my blog post on purpose last night; I was really excited about being inspired to make fun of Uno Spin.

Also, I don't use semi-colons for the fun of it; I do it because I recognize their proper usage and my obsessive-compulsiveness often gets directed into punctuation and grammar. My obsessive-compulsiveness also gets directed into counting things, like books sold for the book drive at work. I count things. Lots of things. Like sometimes, ceiling tiles. But do you know what would be a much healthier way to direct some of this OCD? Hand sanitizer. Maybe if I directed a bit more of my nervous energy toward clean hands I wouldn't have the sneezy-throaty issue.

Okay, back to my walk. I don't remember the exact cause of the angst, but I do recalling wanting to direct it in a way that would not result in me raging or crying at the dinner table. When I got back from the walk, I raged at my brother some more. That's when he told me (again?) that now I should try to move from verbal raging into directing the anger into sports. Then I told my aunt's cousin that Catholic school has evil effects on little girls' psyches. Somewhere in there, I realized or was told or both that I'm fine just the way I am and the only one I should blame for trying to change me is me. True. Yep. Incidentally, me believes bitch is an empowering word that carries too many negative connotations.

There was also dinner table discussion about John from Cincinnati, which as some of you know, was my favorite TV show for the one season it was on the air. My father watched every episode twice. I didn't watch each episode of the show twice, but I have on many occasions been compelled to relive things that have happened to me. I'm not going to do that any more. It's unhealthy. I may write about my days but I'm not going to obsess about them.

In John from Cincinnati, the title character would (among other things) repeat to other characters things they or other people had said, with little to no vocal inflection. This would eventually incur action on the part of the other characters. I believe this would occur because the things he repeated or caused them to relive had a certain amount of hidden weight that they had not previously recognized. In life it is not possible to stop other people from acting like John. I have been angered by people doing such things in my life and I really wanted it to stop. But now I realize that I will stop being angry at people who do this once the hidden weight is gone. I think most of it is gone for me. It's all a matter of admitting emotions and accepting myself as I am. However, to reiterate my new acceptance of my prerogative to change my mind, I would like to state that John from Cincinnati is no longer my favorite TV show and I am pleased that it is off the air.

*****

Random bookish asides:

I never liked T.S. Eliot.

In high school, I skipped a very large section in the middle of A Farewell to Arms because I just couldn't stand Hemingway's hero any more. This is ironic because soon after I became rather stoic myself. Screw that. I'm done. Though I wouldn't mind living in the Hemingway House. Even with the cats.

I do not believe that The Complete Idiot's Guide to Amazing Sex should be segregated from other books.

I've read nearly every book by Anne Rice.

Arthur Miller led a really fascinating life but I still don't want to have to re-read his plays.

*****

Also, I sometimes will even answer to bitch. Also also, I sometimes will even answer to Jilly. Also also also, I greatly savor the usage of "sometimes" in these sentences.

*****

And one last thing: the major reason I was not inspired to rage at any of my friends via IM yesterday was that the stickers on Kerri!'s blog improved my mood immeasurably.