The last heartbreak – 338

I now realize that in the process of defending my mother I may have slandered my brother. He did go through a wild period, but that’s behind him. Now he is just kind of gruff and overly influenced by talk radio.

It is time for my final traumatic even. I liked a boy once and he did not like me back. It made me very sad. Wow. That was easier than I expected.

Yeah, I can be a bit gorier than that. I have mentioned before that usually I just fall in love at first sight, and when I have to talk myself into it, it does not go well. With this guy, whom we shall call Bill, it was neither. I knew he existed, but he really was not on my radar at all until I went to talk to someone next to him, so sat down by him. It occurred to me that I was about to be really rude, so I chatted with him for a bit, and this led to me later inviting him to an opera.

In my previous dating history, things usually got awkward at some point either during the date or after the date, but everything was fine. There was nothing earth shattering, but there was also nothing bad. Later on we were out with a group of people and he mentioned that we had gone out. That was probably the turning point for me, because him mentioning it meant that he was not ashamed to have gone out with me. Remember, I had this core belief that no one could ever like me. I started to have hope that maybe he could like me, and I could be with someone, and it was exhilarating.

I did take leave of my senses. We both had the same monthly meeting and I remember gazing at him and thinking, “He’s so cute.” And then I would tell myself, “No, he’s not. He’s a skinny balding accountant.” But I kept gazing, and he had become cute to me.

Alas, I was not cute to him. Well, I don’t think that’s fair actually. I don’t think cuteness had anything to do with it, but he did not reciprocate, and I took too long to see it because once hopes had gotten up it was too hard to let go, and this is where we get to the heart of the problem. My liking of him was not really him so much, though he was a great person, but it was really about feeling like I had a chance at all. Not being desperate and with a twisted self-esteem, he had no need to fall for me.

I guess my liking of him was symbolic and his rejection was horribly symbolic. I was still at the not trying to think about things too much stage, but what it felt like it meant was that I had been right all along. It was a joke to think that anyone could ever love me, and the pain of knowing I was right was unbearable. I was so angry with myself for ever believing otherwise, even momentarily, because it had robbed me of all of my ability to cope.

I had gotten used to periodically have a few days of anger and depression, but this lasted at least six months. I am not sure of the exact length of time. I know it was long enough for him to date one other girl, then break up with her, then date someone else and get engaged and married. It was long enough to do a comedy routine about it, and get his compliments on how funny it was. (I am usually better adjusted than I was then, but it is not unusual for stand-up comics to be basket cases.) It was a long time.

I have never been less functional. I still went to work, but I would be sitting at my desk with tears running down my face, and wondering if an allergies excuse would work if anyone caught me. I was fighting with my family a lot too, because they had no idea what to do with me. The thing I had feared most, and tried to hold at bay for as long as I could remember, had come true. That could almost have been a relief for some fears, but this one meant that the rest of my life was going to be like this, barren of love, and hope, and I did not feel like I had the courage for a future that bleak.

Obviously, in a situation like that, death has a certain appeal. I never really considered suicide, because that is wrong (simplistic reasoning, but it works for me), and also I am too responsible. It’s a rotten thing to do to the people around you. I was just sort of hoping that maybe if I worked really hard for a year, and got things squared away financially so that no one really needed me anymore, then maybe I could just sort of die somehow—like maybe I could get hit by a car or something.

The funny thing was that a year or so earlier I had been thinking that my life was meaningful, and that even if I died without getting married or having children, it would have been a good life based on the things I had already done. I had believed that once, but I couldn’t feel it anymore. I couldn’t seem to feel anything that didn’t hurt. People tried to help me, but they couldn’t reach me. I even lied to the therapist. She was trying to get me to see that I could be loved, and I said I saw it, but I really didn’t. I just said it because I knew she would keep at it unless I conceded her point. Really, nothing worked.

And then, I realized that nothing worked. I was walking down Cornell, going from the gym to Safeway, and I realized that I was not getting over this on my own. If I was capable of healing from this on my own, I would have done it already, and it occurred to me that maybe I needed to pray for help.

I did it that night, and just poured my whole heart out about everything, and begged. I did not feel anything then, but the next day I realized that I didn’t hurt anymore. I had in fact been healed.

It was the first time that I had really knowingly drawn on the Atonement. As an independent, capable, take-charge kind of person, I don’t ask for help a lot, and I don’t really repent that much. There were times when I had come kind of close, but there was never such an obvious and instant healing, and I will be forever grateful for it.

It’s not that everything has been a cakewalk since then. For one thing, just because you finally learn that a false belief is false, you don’t necessarily know what is true. I could get that it had not been impossible for anyone to love me my entire life, but I still had doubts about how likely it was that someone was going to love me now. I hadn’t exactly been beating boys off with a stick, and waiting to get your head on straight until you are in your early thirties (now mid-thirties) doesn’t exactly improve your prospects. Even if you have gotten a completely accurate worldview, there are still all these bad habits accumulated from when you weren’t seeing clearly. It’s tricky, is the point I am trying to make. I am still learning as I go.

I had thought I had defined myself by my intelligence (and my weight), and others have defined me by my kindness, but I had not realized until going through this how crucial my cheerful nature was. I had always been pretty sunny, and when that was gone I did not even recognize myself. Having lost that for a while, it is more mine now. Yes, I was resilient before, but I would lose it every six months or so, and there was this dark story underneath it all that I didn’t want to see. Now that is gone, my happiness is more real. I had heard it said that you can’t love others until you love yourself, and I did not believe it because I did love others without really loving myself. Now I love others much better—there’s less to get in the way. I do still feel my mood slipping when I am not taking care of myself in terms of sleep or nutrition, or when I am not being true to my dreams, but that is part of loving myself too.

I have no idea whether I will get married or not. I like to think it will happen, but it may not, and if it doesn’t my life will still be plenty meaningful, and it will not be a statement on my worth as an individual. Perhaps it will merely prove that boys are dumb. No, I don’t think bitterness and male bashing are the keys to happy single-hood. I have worried about the time I have wasted, but I have gotten other answers that make me feel okay about where I am and where I will end up, and so what happens in the middle should be okay as well.

Addenda – 339

I realized after the last post that I might have left the impression that my mother was not a good parent. I can’t leave that, because I don’t think that, and although she is not internet-savvy, so her stumbling upon this is not an issue, that is one of her sensitive points. I suppose she worries that she was not a good enough parent, but I think she did okay. If you have the impression that my father was not a good parent, I probably can’t contradict that one, but I can share something kind of good about him that has stayed with me.

We were talking once about when he was growing up, and they moved a lot, looking for better situations. I think he attended something like thirteen different schools. He said he didn’t like it, and he knew it wasn’t going to be like that for his kids.

It wasn’t. We moved once, when my younger sisters were born and we needed a bigger place. That was right before I started first grade. At times he would talk about the fantastic financial opportunities if he went to work in Alaska or Saudi Arabia, but ultimately we stayed here, and all five of us graduated from the same high school, with only two of us ever even having been in a different school district.

I hate moving, and I love having roots, so this worked well for me. You could argue that even the move from Wilsonville was one move too many, as my older sister and our brother had a rough time with the change, but she had a rough time with everything, and he already had one possibly bad friend there, so he might have gotten a bit rough there too. You don’t really ever know.

I am glad we came here. I know Wilsonville has grown a lot now, but at the time I doubt there would have been gifted programs and AP classes, and there certainly weren’t shopping malls (not so much for the shopping as for the hanging out). I know for many people the suburbs are a symbol of all that is wrong with the world, but I like the mix of city and country, and this is just home for me.

Regardless of my opinion on the move, the point is that my father did successfully identify something about his upbringing that he did not like, made a conscious decision not to emulate it, and was successful in its implementation. You could argue he focused on the wrong thing (like the fact that he was not speaking to his parents when he died might have been a good reason to never disown anyone, ever), but it was something.

I know that besides my always feeling vaguely ashamed of something, I also never felt understood. Any time I was punished or in trouble, they did not understand where I was coming from, and that was so frustrating. With Dad, it did not matter how carefully you phrased it—he always settled on the worst possible meaning. Therefore, the thing I would try to do differently is be really understanding, and let my children have a voice.

That’s all well and good, but I expect that I would neglect something else, and that would end up being the thing most important to them. That’s how it works right? First of all, if I am doing something right, that won’t be their point of devastation, so the whole viewpoint will be different. Also, things just go wrong, and there are obstacles and hardships, and that is life. My sisters talk about not letting their kids get fat, but trying to keep them healthy, while good, if coming from your hang-ups could end up leading to a different hang-up. Perhaps it is just as well that none of us are reproducing so far.

One book that has influenced me is “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. I would want to try and make sure that I am expressing love in a manner that is felt by the individual child. One thing that I think has been hard for me is that I am very physical, and no one else in the family is. It’s not just that it is unnatural for them to hug—it’s distasteful to them. (I believe that is why food has been a natural substitute, because it is very physical and tangible.)

Of course, looking for the individual love language is really just a part of looking at the individual, which I think is really important. Mom will tell you that she raised us all the same, but she got vastly different results. It has a lot to do with the starting material. I just want to be in tune, able to recognize and respond to needs. I am trying to follow my intuition a lot more lately, which has its own challenges, but I do believe in inspiration, and in prayer. That and I have a mental note to re-read Food Fight (Brownell and Horgen) before I have children start school, and Reviving Ophelia (Pipher) before having teenage daughters.

The other thing I wanted to revisit is that after writing about my particularly formative experiences, I think part of the reason that they cut so deep is that I did not stand up for myself. In both cases I acted like I was ignoring what was happening, but I wasn’t. In junior high, a girl did start picking on me once the way Suzy had. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I know I said something like, “I wouldn’t talk with that face”, and I think I said something about her looking stupid. She was getting ready to hit me, and I was going to hammer her, but her friend dragged her off because after all, she had started it, and the friend was getting kind of embarrassed.

So again, we have a completely unprovoked attack on my attractiveness by a girl who is considered attractive, but instead of taking her insults to heart, I’m kind of proud of myself. I probably shouldn’t be, because I wasn’t really being very Christian, but I’m not sure that I am really evolved enough for turning the other cheek at this point.

I did have to turn the other cheek once. Well, maybe it has happened more than once, but this time it was with a mission companion. She was new in the field, and going through a rough time. I said something to her that my trainer had said to me (about interrupting), and it hurt her confidence more than I knew, and then it just kind of spiraled out of control where she kept getting offended by everything I did and started really trying to offend me. I did not take the bait, and it was the first time I felt like I really understood what being meek meant.

I did make her talk it out (it took threatening to go to the mission president), and when I realized what I had been doing I apologized, and tried to work on it, and we ended up becoming really close and doing good work together. However, for the next while I would find myself periodically feeling a little angry, and upset that I had been cast as this villain, even though we were past it.

Perhaps I needed to mention it at that point. I did kind of make one remark once after we were dogged by an appointment. I attributed it to that particular disappointment, but I think she was a little suspicious. I felt it was really important not to lash out at her though, because I needed to prove to her that I was not her enemy. Maybe it would have been possible to acknowledge my hurt without hurting her more. After the next transfer I was much worse off and entered a horrible depression anyway, and then we ended up back together and she was really supportive, so I guess it all worked out. Unless it was suppressing that hurt that left me vulnerable to the depression, but I still think it largely came from the new companion looking askance at me any time I did anything differently than her trainer had. Personally, I had always found her trainer very annoying, and had no desire to emulate her, but everyone else loved her.

The point is, it may not be right, but unless there is a really good reason, where my forbearance can help you, do not cross me or I will cut you. Probably just with words, but no promises.

Personal Narrative – 344.5

Back where I started. I am on a new medication, which led to dropping one and changing the dose on another, and I think my body is kind of adjusting now. I will say that the best advice I can give is to not get diabetes. If you have any kind of risk factor for it, do your best to eliminate all of the other risk factors. Anyway, that’s not what we are talking about now. We are talking about Weltanschauung.

I think for me the most impressive part about that word is that it is in the Microsoft Word dictionary. I have a bad tendency to stick in an extra “g”, and it lets me know I am wrong.

I am not sure that it is the best word for what I want to describe. Paradigm might also work, but as far as I can tell both of those words are really more for groups. It is not improper to use it for a person, though, so we’ll stick with it.

The point is that we all have a way of viewing the world and sorting out information about it. I feel like it is more a story than a picture, so that is why I am sticking with personal narrative for the title. I am sure that some type of frame of reference is necessary, but it can become of a set of blinders. Sometimes we filter out things that contradict our beliefs, when possibly the correct lesson is that our beliefs are wrong.

I was thinking about this after the Virginia Tech shootings. Based on writings from the shooter, he really believed that all of his fellow students were spoiled rich kids wallowing in utter depravity, and my mind was just screaming that they weren’t. It’s actually the wrong question, because even if his analysis were correct, becoming consumed by hate and killing would still be wrong. I guess that was the part that struck me because he was clearly miserable, and it was based on this fiction out of his own head.

It was also relevant because we were going through another eruption with my older sister. Her worldview is that everyone is against her, although she is not homicidal, for which we are all grateful. Still, you cannot convince her that she has some responsibility for the way her life is. Twice when we were having discussions on this topic she has been told that she is not a victim, and contradicted it. Clinging to her victim-hood seems to give her a sense of importance, and it certainly saves her from having to do a lot of work, but it does not make her happy, and again it is completely unnecessary.

So, I am and have consistently been better adjusted than those two examples, but I have also had blinders on. Because of the two events covered in previous posts I saw myself as unlovable because of my weight, and really believed that it was all anyone could see. When I did not get asked out on dates or have boyfriends, I believed it was because I was fat, but now I wonder whether it was also at least partially because I believed they would not ask me out, and that such an idea would never occur to them unless it was as a joke.

If someone had seemed interested, and I could have gotten past the suspicion that I was being set up for fate like Carrie’s (minus the psychokinetic payback), my next step would have been to wonder what was wrong with him. Then I would have probably killed things with my inferiority complex, totally overcompensating and being subservient. Without my religious beliefs, I probably would have gotten into masochism so I could at least pretend I was controlling my pain. I am really grateful that those were instilled early.
Instead, I just became this nurturing friend type. I got my gratification from lending money and giving thoughtful gifts and sometimes baking. I was actually pretty popular in terms of being well liked. It probably helped that my elementary school fed into Mountain View, but they changed the boundaries so my junior high was Five Oaks, meaning that I knew a lot of people. I did a lot of activities, though I never held any leadership positions in them (bad idea if you want scholarships), and when I worked at McDonald’s fellow students would come in all the time, so I could talk to pretty much anyone. I just didn’t get invited to parties, or on dates, or any of those social things. I was voted most intellectual for ninth grade graduation, and I was glad of it, but I really would have liked prettiest eyes.

Honestly, with some of the stories I heard later, it was probably safer not being more socially involved. Drugs and alcohol and sex never even came up. Still, it was kind of sad, and it was hard to escape. I wanted to lose weight, but when you are doing it because you are trying to fix yourself so people can love you it’s a horrible amount of pressure. Once you factor in that eating was my only coping skill, you can see how it accumulates. My conflict was that I was always feeling that this scenario was true, and always desperately hoping that it wasn’t, and really pretty set against thinking about it too much anyway. It was easier to have a cookie.

At times there were things that gave me pause. For one thing, I always was against having people fix me up, because I just knew it would always be a fat guy, and I didn’t want that. However, Karen once told me she had thought about fixing me up with a coworker that I had found really attractive. The reason she didn’t was because he was fond of alcohol and cigars, which is a turnoff for me, not because of my heft. Jennie once invited me to dinner with a friend of her husband’s, and the situation did kind of scream “set-up”, and he was also perfectly eligible. My friends thought better of me than I did, but it was still easy for me to think that they were delusional.

Another moment I remember was when another friend was getting married, and I bought her some lingerie, which my sisters made me exchange because it was too small. They swore we needed a 3X, which was my size. I couldn’t believe she was that big. She didn’t seem to be my size. I didn’t think anyone was my size, but there it was.

Probably the moment that was most fun was when my sisters and I were discussing a friend of theirs that was also very considerate, always doing thoughtful things and bringing little things, and I was saying how she was doing it to compensate for her own insecurity, and it was nice but it would be better for her if it was coming from a place of strength instead of weakness, and then I got this funny feeling, like I was a hypocrite, but I really was nice from a place of strength, and I was totally not overcompensating. It all came back to haunt me later.

So I was wrong about myself, and it made me wrong about others too. My mother did nag about my weight at times, but probably not as much as it seemed. My friends did not find me physically repulsive. I don’t know if there were boys who liked me, but it I can believe that it was possible. I hated going on job interviews because new people see you, but I almost always got the jobs I really wanted (of course, none of them were modeling jobs). I just did not allow myself to see these things, and kept my field of vision tightly controlled.

My point with this is that it is vitally important to be able to open your mind to other possibilities. I don’t know that it would have been possible for me to not get messed up in the specific way that I did. Dad could never be wrong, and somehow I think that led me to believe that people hate you and are mean to you when you mess up or are weak. I did not realize this until I was 21 and out in the mission field, and my companion began to really despise herself because I was always right and it made her feel inferior, and we had to work that out, and I came to learn that sharing weaknesses can be really helpful to others.

Mom was raised that you correct faults in children, and you brag about them to others, but complimenting them to their faces and confirming your love for them isn’t really necessary. It is not child abuse, and I love her a lot, but I feel like that was not ideal for me. Then, the first time Dad cheated on her, when I was nine, I felt a real need to protect her and take care of her, and I was probably too young for that. I don’t think I really went through normal teenage rebellion with her, though I may have covered that in my mid-twenties.

Of my siblings, my brother kind of ignored me (he was seven years older, and the only boy with four girls, which was not easy for him), my older sister resented me from birth for displacing her as the youngest and as the only girl, and although I am close to my younger sisters now, it took us a while to get there. They are five years younger, and as twins were pretty self-sufficient. I was lonely, and the first few girls of my age that were potential playmates were fairly bratty. I didn’t have a best friend until third grade. I’m just really lucky Jennie’s family moved here, or it probably would have been a lot longer. From first through fourth grade the queen of the girls was Suzy, and then Michael displaced her, but neither of them liked me. We did shop at K-mart, and sometimes Goodwill too, and there are always things that other kids can criticize you for.

This is not supposed to be a pity party, but it is just a list of ingredients that made it fairly easy for me to be susceptible the way that I was. I have mentioned before that under the 9 personality types model, I am a people pleaser. What I did not specify was that the underlying emotional wound for that is shame, and yes, I always had this sense that I was not good enough, and that I was bad.

So, I don’t necessarily think that I could have avoided getting to where I was at fourteen. It does seem that it should have been possible to snap out of it sooner. If I had been willing to shine a light into the dark corners, and find the truth of things, well, the truth does actually set you free.

This is why the open mind is important. You need to be able to see when you are wrong, especially when it is hurting you, and leaving you open to hurting others. We need to pay attention to what is going on, and take times for quiet contemplation, and we need to be brave because some things seem like they will really hurt, even if in the end dealing with them hurts a lot less than not dealing with them.

It was probably easy for me to avoid this showdown because I really was very functional. I would just get these dark periods about twice a year when a little thing would set me off and I would be angry at everything, but really just about not feeling loved, and I would fight with my mother and in about three days it would pass and I would be okay again, and I would not seem like a doormat because I cracked a lot of jokes and I did have some spirit, but I was not taking care of the most important things.

Really, what I was doing was building up pain until it could not be contained anymore, having some slip out, and then regaining control, putting the cover back over the hole. Next time will be about when I lost the cover.

Sporkphelia -- ?

Why no number? Did I encounter a weight that was so horrible I could not bear to display it? Did I chicken out of the whole thing? Or did the battery on the digital scale die? Yeah, it was the battery. It’s not exactly convenient, but it’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m actually not sure what the worst thing is, but today’s topic is a key contender. Yes, we are going to review that thing that happened when I was fourteen.

So, to start off, I will say that I have always been very boy-aware, and that was especially true in junior high. The big thing from about fifth grade on was going steady, but I had crashed and burned so spectacularly the time I tried it that I disgustedly swore off having a boyfriend until high school.

(Basically, I had liked Stephen since fifth grade when he was new. Part of being his friend was that I was there for him when Lora dumped him. By the time he got around to asking me out the next year, I was initially thrilled, but suddenly felt trapped and realized that I was more interested in both Geoff and Jason, and so I dumped him abruptly and cruelly the next Monday, even though I had suggested that we just go till summer, since we would be going to different schools, and I felt like I was more evil than Lora, and fickle, and not ready for this at all.)

Anyway, so I was interested in boys, and thought about them a lot, but I was not planning on going steady with anyone or thinking in those terms. One day at lunch, the kids at the table next to us were goofing off, and Jason (a different one, whom I have never mentioned before) asked me to go steady (we called it going with someone). I ignored the question. Then, another guy there, Matt, started asking, and yet another kid, Steve, started egging him on, and they just wouldn’t let it go. They kept it up all through the lunch period and even followed me to my next class until I finally shouted “yes” at the door to get rid of them.

Junior high school age boys being stupid is nothing new, nor is horsing around at lunch, so it shouldn’t be so such a big deal. There were probably two factors that made it worse. One is something that even the few times I have shared this story, I have not shared, but I am going for it now, is that after school as I was heading for the bus, they were out there and Steve came up and started ripping my shirt open. It was a snap up shirt so that was pretty easy to do. I instinctively brought my knee up to his groin, and just kept walking, snapping back up. It just added that extra level of shame to everything that had already happened.

The real problem is just that I was a joke. Even when I kicked Steve, he just laughed it off. One of them said, “Her daddy taught her how to kick.” Everything about me was a joke for them. Because there were parts of them asking me out earlier that were a little exhilarating. It was attention from a boy—that’s good right? Even though these were not the boys I wanted, they were paying attention to me. Except it was ugly, and demeaning.

The real message that I ended up carrying away was that a boy liking me would be a joke. And since my other core belief was that I was fat, I figured that was why it was a joke, so no one would ever love me until I lost weight, and as long as I was fat I just wasn’t good enough. It should have been extremely motivating, but it was hard to take healthy actions with that much emotional baggage, especially when it is largely unacknowledged. I mean, yes, I consciously did not expect boys to like me, because of my weight, but really taking a hard look at why I felt that way, or how deeply I felt it, was just off the table.

From then on I just always kept myself in friend mode, with the hope that someday I would be able to fix myself, and then someone would love me. My happiness was always going to be deferred until I lost weight.

So, one problem with developing the core belief at six that I was fat was that it really became a self-fulfilling prophesy when it should have been very possible to grow up healthy with a normal body weight, when I never even knew that was an option. Likewise, I may have missed out on some key things by believing myself not capable of love. Looking back now, I can see some cases where people might have had crushes on me. They would not necessarily have amounted to anything, but I sometimes wonder now if it was really that boys were never interested in me because I was fat, or maybe that boys were never interested in me because I never seemed remotely available. As it is, my prom dates were a friend who would later turn out to be gay in tenth grade, stag and really shouldn’t have gone but felt like I needed to because I was in charge of the chaperones in eleventh grade, and a blind date set up for me by someone else my senior year.

When I was doing my writing therapy, there were a lot of regrets, most of them having to do with boys, and I thought they were related to fear. That may be partly true, but on a lot of them I can look back and see that it wasn’t even fear, it was me not even believing I was worthy to take the chance, and that is even more depressing.

The other part that frustrates me, with both cases, is that I didn’t even like these people. Suzy was not nice, and she had a pinched walnut kind of face. Adam thought she was really cute, but I’m the one he kissed when opportunity struck, so even if he was a freak, on the scale where she is adorable I am still desirable. As for Matt and Jason and Steve, they were so far off my register that I didn’t even have code names for them, and that was a list of about forty boys who had code names. They weren’t good looking or smart or interesting, and yet they have had the biggest discernible influence on my life. Why couldn’t I have listened to someone with some merit?

I doubt they were trying to emotionally handicap me and tarnish the next thirty to twenty years of my life—not because they were truly nice or anything, but I doubt they were that ambitious. But right now all I can do is focus on what I am going to do with the next thirty.

The good news is, there is only one major tragic recounting left, and it is actually the most positive one, because it was the turning point. It was just hard getting there. However next time I will be waxing philosophic about Weltanschauung.

For now, I have included pictures of me at seven and fourteen. They look a lot different now.

Hair of the Spork – 337.5

Don’t get too excited by the downward movement yet. This is still right around the same five pounds that I always lose and gain territory. What happens in the next week should be critical.

Anyway, last weekend was my annual foray into standup comedy with the ward talent show, and I riffed a little bit on attraction. Although I can fall for people without these traits, I do have certain criteria to which I tend to be attracted. Since falling for one specific person, dark hair, light complexion, and blue or green eyes really get my attention. I am very drawn to kind eyes and a good-humored smile. Finally, the two times that I was blindsided by love at first sight, they both happened to be tall and have good hair and well-defined biceps.

It wasn’t something that I had thought about extensively, but one time when I was coming away from an encounter with Cute Cafeteria Guy, and savoring the moment mentally, I realized that the way I was looking up to him was kind of familiar. My prime range appears to be 6’2” to 6’4”. I have no rational explanation for it; it’s just the way things work for me. Maybe it is a matter of opposites attracting, because I am short, have no upper body strength or definition, and my hair is problematic.

My mother has curly hair, but mine is curlier. My brother has coarse hair, but it is fairly straight. My younger sisters have some wave, and their hair is very thick, but it is pretty smooth and silky. My hair is thick, coarse, and so curly as to be more frizzy (seriously, it ties itself into little knots), and quite dry. Also, from my father’s side of the family, the gray started moving in pretty young. It’s a difficult combination, and has led to quite a bit of angst.

The first trauma I remember was when I was about four or five. Our neighbor cut my hair into a pixie shag, and Mom was not crazy about the shag part (I guess because she had to brush it), so she sent me back for a full pixie. Shortly afterwards we were at K-mart, and in those days (at least in Tualatin), you had to wait for a buzzer to go off for the restroom doors to open. As I was waiting for this, a strange woman helpfully moved me over to the door of the men’s room, because clearly I was confused. I was too mortified to correct her, but I was very indignant when I went back to my mother. I had already liked it better when there was still some shag, and now just because I let her have her way, I now looked like a boy! Well, I suppose if there must be gender confusion, it is better to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

Over time I was just never happy with salon haircuts. Now by salon, I mean Supercuts and Great Clips, so you can’t really expect that much, but it was vexing to me that I was paying people to leave me unhappy with my hair when I could do it to myself for free. I understand the pitfalls. First of all, standard procedure is to cut the hair when wet, and to cut all of it the same length. When my hair dries, the individual strands kink up to different lengths, so you just can’t guarantee the result. Generally speaking, the worst thing they were doing was cutting my bangs too short. I hate the way I look with my forehead uncovered. I used to think it was because of the scars (one from a car accident and one from chicken pox), but I think it is actually the shape. The point is, I eventually started cutting my own hair, and I still do.

I am starting to wonder if I could have something better. Yes, I can generally avoid slashing my bangs, but it is really hard to get the back right, and the top is sometimes hard, and I usually stab myself with the scissors at least once.

I am also thinking of letting my hair grow out. I had kept it longer for a while. I was able to amaze people by pulling it straight, because the ponytail would rest right at the bottom of my neck, and then I would stretch it out and it would be in the middle of my back, and my friends enjoyed the optical illusion. It’s just that one time when I was trimming I got carried away, and I justified it because after all, I had it in a ponytail all the time, and what was the point of having the length if I never did anything with it?

It’s still a valid point, but it is nice to have the potential to do something. I have thought this many times, and tried, but the period of growing one’s hair out is really pretty irritating, and I have also caved before getting very far.

Still, I have done it before. I know I have because in a video from my senior year, I have my hair in a banana clip cascading down my back, and yet in junior high I had cut off everything but a rat tail. I remember this clearly because Mom hated the tail, so I braided it and cut it off, but kept it on a bobby pin to reattach. I did not tell my friends about this, and one time when I was at Washington Square with Karen, she started playing with it and I knew what was going to happen but I didn’t tell her, and it came off in her hand and she really freaked out. Also I tried to bleach it by soaking it in peroxide, but it did not work. Good times.

Anyway, here I am trying to grow it out again. As it gets longer and thicker, it is taking me back to the 80’s, but not in a good way. The other day I was thinking I had Billy Hufsy hair, and I never liked him. I guess it will pass.

I have often thought about shaving my head, so that I could just start over, and maybe it would grow back more manageable. There are two things that hold me back. One is that as a stout, capable single woman in her mid-thirties, I cannot afford to look any more butch. It is just not a statement I want to make. Since I have changed job positions and am now rating everyone else’s work, a few coworkers are calling me a nazi, so I guess I could try working the skinhead vibe instead, but it’s not really an improvement and how do you differentiate? Combat boots go either way, and to a lesser extent, so do tattoos.

Regardless, even if I worked out all of these issues, there is my other fear that it would not grow back all the way, and I would be left with bald patches. I know I am trying to move away from fear-based decision-making, but some things are just too scary. I just need to toughen up and power through.

Maybe I should try headbands.

I am thankful for prophets -- 341

I haven’t been sure whether to just go over all of the dark stuff sequentially, and get it over with, or whether to break it up with other things. I guess this is a combination, as it is something else, but still a bit heavy. I just feel that I want to write something about President Hinckley passing.

To back up a little bit, the first president I remember is Spencer W. Kimball, and I could not have necessarily told you a lot about his teachings, but I remember feeling a strong love for him. I was born in 1972 and he became the president in 1974, so there wasn’t really much chance of me remembering Harold B. Lee or Joseph Fielding Smith.

I should also note that my parents joined the Church after they were married, and even before Dad stopped going we were never that orthodox. General and stake conferences were days off for us. I can’t recall ever watching General Conference until I was already out of high school, and I don’t think I knew there were Christmas broadcasts and Saturday night sessions of stake conference until I was out in the mission field.

My point to this is that although I am sure there were lots of people who were confident that Ezra Taft Benson would be the next prophet when President Kimball died, I had no idea. Plus, I was so attached to him that it was really kind of sad, but I remember lying in bed thinking about it and the words of “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet” came to mind, and it was reasonable, because we would have one, and everything would be fine, and it was.

At this point it was 1985, and I was in junior high, and maybe the youth leaders did not work the same magic as the primary teachers, or youth are less susceptible to magic, but I did not really think about President Benson much. Once I graduated from high school and started going to the newly restarted singles ward it was helpful, because then I did start attending conference, but even after getting my mission call my first real memory of President Benson was at the Missionary Training Center where I saw some video footage of him and was struck by the love in his eyes. What I remember about President Kimball is that I loved him, and what I remember about President Benson is that he loved me.

The problem is, by the time I really started paying attention to things, he was already pretty sick, and I didn’t really get to hear him speak, though I read older talks. At some point I learned the traditional ways of succession, and that President Hunter was next in line, and that he was also not in very good health. My speculation was that President Hunter would die first, so that the next President would be healthy, but then in the April 1994 conference he spoke, and he was powerful, and the next month President Benson died. I thought, shows what I know—he could go on for years. And then in nine months he died, again proving that I know nothing.

I had always like President Hinckley as I started becoming aware of him, and indeed he was eminently likable. I remember being curious what his theme would be, as it had so clearly been temple worthiness with President Hunter. At the time, all he said was “Carry on.” It was simple enough, and yet he was remarkably energizing. Suddenly he was traveling everywhere, which was a big change from the last few years. Instead of being out at Conference due to ill health, he would speak in four of the five sessions. It was amazing.

My strongest memory is from 1997, when I learned that you could read conference talks online, and I brought up Priesthood session, which is the one I had not listened to, and I read his announcement of the smaller temples. This flash of spirit came over me. I don’t know how else to describe it—it was too fast to really register any details, but I was so moved and knew it was what was right and what was needed and what would work. It was so beautiful that it could happen.

Two other things stick out for me. One was the announcement of the Perpetual Education Fund—again something so inspired, and so helpful at providing greater equality of opportunity to members all over the world despite economic and cultural disparities.

Also, I remember when he was talking about the effects of Hurricane Mitch in the Honduras, and about a little girl whose father had died saving her from the flooding:

“I would hope that at this Christmas season, when there will be no gift-giving among these devastated people, this small orphan girl might receive perhaps a little taste of candy, something sweet and delicious,” President Hinckley said. “I must see that that happens. Perhaps just a little will be present enough for that tiny child in La Lima, Honduras.”

I just felt his love very strongly then. Surely there were other times—he was never less than loving, but these will be my main memories. Based on that, how could I not miss him?

At the same time, I have been feeling a little guilty for the past few conferences that I was wanting him to stay while he was getting older and more tired. Really, I have only felt guilty since his wife died, but that was a hard thing for him and now they are together again. Amazing growth happened during his tenure, but amazing growth happened when it was President Kimball as well, and just as I believe that President Hunter’s call to temple worthiness paved the way for the smaller temples, I believe that President Lee’s focus on correlation was important in allowing members to lengthen their stride when asked to do so by President Kimball.

I don’t know what lies ahead. Most likely President Monson will serve, and how long he will have and what challenges and blessings will come is still to be seen, but it is a good journey and I will stay around for it. I thank Thee, O God, not just for one prophet, but for all of the prophets, ancient and modern, and the connection they create to Thee.

Sporky Pig

If the title has not tipped you off, my greatest shame is that I am fat. Clearly this one is not a secret, because if you have met me, chances are good that you have noticed it. There is not really a way to hide it. At the same time, it is amazing how reluctant I have been to talk about it, or think about it, or even weigh myself. I didn’t want to know.

Sadly, that is a big part of how I got here in the first place. There is a story here, but I think I am going to backtrack a little. I have referred to the therapeutic writing that I did, and the idea for that pretty much came from my own head—I have not had an actual therapist guiding me. However, I did have two emotional processing sessions once, and they have had an influence.

I may not be using the correct terms for it. I used the term emotional processing once while talking to a friend to describe me trying to sort out my thoughts and feelings about some things (see, I do a lot of that). She was surprised at the term because it was used for the type of therapy one of her friends practiced. Basically she would use kinesiology to find ages and emotions that needed to be explored. We covered three, but the big one was from when I was fourteen.

We will cover that incident later, but what was interesting to me was that I had a very clear memory of it, and I had noticed how clear the memory was before, but without assigning it any special importance. I thought it was just a dumb thing that happened that I had a clear memory of. Anyway, after discussing it, and seeing that it was in fact pretty significant, I started going back to some of my other sharp memories.

The memory that applies here comes from when I was six. I was on the playground at school, and I was just sitting on this concrete thing by myself and thinking. I could go into my own little world pretty easily back then. A pack of girls in my class came over, led by Suzy A., who was their leader. She started criticizing how fat I was. I remember looking at her, and seeing that my thigh was twice the size of hers and being mortified, even though externally I was ignoring them.

From then on, I always knew I was fat. I hated it, and I tried not to think about it, but it was always there. There were two problems with this. For one thing, I was never thinking in terms of getting fatter, it was always just staying fat. However, there are different degrees of fat, and it would have been good to have paid attention and stopped at some point.

The other problem is that it simply wasn’t true then. I was bigger than Suzy, but she was really under-grown. Some kids tend to be more spindly, and some are more solid, and I was always getting my growth spurts in ahead of time. I was also always one of the taller kids until junior high, when the rest of the kids caught up. Now when I look at pictures from back then, I seem pretty healthy. I didn’t stay that way though, and I didn’t really even know that anything was happening until it had happened.

I think it is a big part of why I am so passionate about honesty and clear-mindedness now. Perhaps you can’t blame a six-year old for being emotionally vulnerable and easily devastated, but surely I should have been able to figure it out sooner. However my coping strategy was always the suppression route. Don’t talk about it, don’t think about, and don’t let it be real. At thirty-six, I now realize that ignorance and avoidance don’t actually change reality, and are not productive in general. I know, give me a gold star.

So that was how I saw myself, and it hurt, and what hurt more was that I believed that was how everyone saw me, or that it would override anything else that they saw. People can make a lot of assumptions about the obese. It’s like you are wearing a poster board saying gluttonous and lazy. Except, I’m not lazy. I work hard, and at times I have even been exercising regularly, which did give me better energy but never made me small. Gluttonous? Not as often as you might think. It’s always been more complex than that.

I was thinking about that a few months ago. I was at a church meeting and the talk was about reaching out to others with their struggles, and I was thinking about how I am pretty functional, regardless of what I have going on (perhaps that was prideful of me), and then I had this flash, “Sure, and it only took you two hundred extra pounds.”

Ouch, but I am beyond that now, right? I have friends that I talk to and I write out things that bother me, or talk about them, and I am not lugging around the same loads of emotional baggage anymore. I have thirty years worth of bad habits, so I am not expecting anything to be easy, but I should be capable now. I’m at least going to find out.

There will be obstacles. I have been an emotional eater, and so there is the possibility of falling prey to that again if you give me a bad enough day. There are also medical issues that will make things harder. In addition to a genetic predisposition to obesity, forty of my current pounds happened after a bad reaction to some medicine, and since I am on insulin, that encourages weight gain as well. I also have a sedentary job, I live in the suburbs where you go by car everywhere because things aren’t close enough for walking, and the corn lobby ensures that most processed foods contain high-fructose corn syrup. Add in all those things we all know, but still fall prey to, like bigger restaurant portions. So maybe really only eighty pounds is emotional, and forty is corn syrup and forty is family and so on. The causes only matter in that understanding them may help me to beat them.

I don’t really know what my ideal weight would be, or what dress size I would end up. Right now the focus is going to have to be more on trying to be healthier, and trying to take good care of myself, because I do often put my needs last, and that needs to stop.

In the past, in addition to the repression, which is kind of hiding things from your self, I have also tended to conceal most of what is on my mind. I wouldn’t tell people things that I wanted to do, because then if you fail they know, and it makes it worse, and you certainly wouldn’t tell anyone your weight because the horror of that must be contained at all costs.

Well, I am telling you that I want to lose weight, and my current weight is 344.5 pounds. It is in fact horrifying, especially when there men who are a foot taller than you and weigh less, but again, it’s not like concealing the number makes me look thinner.

There will be a lot more to write about this. This will not become a full-time weight loss blog anymore that it has been an all-music blog or an all-writing blog, but every subsequent entry will have a number by the title, and that will be that day’s report from the scale. Now I really need to make it move down.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I know I promised more shame, and that is coming, but I thought I should review my birthday happenings. For one thing, I have previously written about changing the month, so some of you may have been wondering about that.

I did not make any scheduling changes. This was not my primary reason, but I was advised that having it in May would make me a Taurus, and I was not stubborn enough. This particular friend (Karen) advised that she could buy me as an Aries, if I went with April, but my older sister already has April and it would not be fair to infringe. The funniest thing about that is my family will tell you that I am really stubborn, but I tend to only be stubborn for a cause, and apparently a Taurus will be irrationally stubborn over little things. I had not known this but (after hearing it) the next time someone was being really obstinate over something silly I asked if she was a Taurus, and she said yes. Perhaps there is something to this.

Actually, my primary reason for wanting to reschedule has been that I am always so busy in January that I don’t have time to plan anything good. Twice this has led to me having no plans, and my friend Tara has plotted with my younger sisters and thrown surprise parties, of which the one last year was also a karaoke ambush. Since I said that I would do karaoke for my birthday in May, and then didn’t, I cannot complain about this, but the song selection was terrible. I have a theory about karaoke, which is that vocal talent is a pale second to attitude, and you just need to own the song. I cannot own a song that sucks. So, the closest I could come at Silver Dollar last January was “There is a Light that Never Goes Out” by the Smiths, and it was a little blah. Fortunately, in April I got another chance in Huntington Beach, and I got “Just Like Heaven” by the Cure, and that worked much better. I also did a duet of “Oh Ricki” which is really hard. There aren’t many rests, and you feel like you need to do cheerleading moves, so it is pretty exhausting.

Despite the presence of karaoke, both of the surprise parties were a bunch of people at a restaurant where I thought dinner was happening one on one. There are things that are fun about this, and one of the highlights is seeing how much people care about you, even if it is a little disturbing how adept your loved ones are at deceiving you. The downside is that you really mostly end up visiting with the people you end up sitting near, and if the wrong seating combinations happen some people may not have a good time.

When I throw a party, I like to throw it in a house, and have lots of food and music and side activities and mingling. I have thrown two Mardi Gras parties, one luau, and a Saint Patrick’s Day party (the Great Irish Potato Feast) that were pretty awesome. I don’t throw these at my house though, because the layout is not right, and while the dogs are great for every day living they are not ideal in party situations. Also, it might be overly self-aggrandizing to throw that type of bash for one’s own birthday. I thought about it for 29, 30, and 31, but work was always so exhausting at that time of year that nothing happened, and it was always a little depressing.

The past few years I have taken vacations right around the time of my birthday (usually a couple of weeks later) and that has been great. However, with Australia coming up in the fall, I can’t do any other big vacations this year. (I hope to spend my next birthday in Playa del Carmen.)

This year I had kind of been thinking spa day, and some commercials for Dosha increased that impulse. The commercials specifically mentioned the new one in Bridgeport Village, but apparently they only do hair, so I ended up making an appointment for the Spa Retreat package at the Dosha on 23rd and Glisan. I was having a hard time deciding between the Retreat, the Sampler, and the Experience, but I think I made the right call.

Since I was going to be in the area, I thought I would also stop by Saint Cupcake, Everyday Music, and Powells, and maybe run by Lovejoy Studios, but the day did not go quite as planned. I found I was running late, and I really needed to eat something before going in, and I hadn’t. If I had been even fifteen minutes ahead, I would have eaten at Snow White House, purveyor of delicious crepes and friendly service. I did not have time, so I just jumped on the streetcar and figured I would find something near the spa. Then the driver announced that the car had a malfunctioning door, so in two stops we would have to all get off. The next stop was Hot Lips Pizza, so that is what I ate. The next car came before I finished, so I only had half a slice, but they are pretty big slices.

Looking at the clock there was no time to check out the studios—it was just get off at Marshall and walk straight to Glisan. On the way I saw that I could easily have eaten at many other places, but the important thing is that I was not late, and I did not pass out at any time.

I have to recommend Dosha highly. I don’t know about their other locations, but the service here was highly attentive and everyone was great. I’m not sure I was wearing enough black, but hey, it was Northwest Portland. It had been about two years since my last massage, so I was due. It was only fifteen months since my last manicure and pedicure, and this was my third massage, third pedicure, and third manicure total. Clearly I spoil myself. I had never had my hair styled before.

So getting to the spa had involved a few difficulties, but being there was great. Once leaving, things stared getting hard again. To protect the pedicure they give you these flip-flops, but they do not offer a lot of support, and it was really cold out. There had been snow. If I had thought ahead and brought my Tevas, I probably would have toughed out the cold, but I only made it a few blocks before I decided to just put my shoes back on. I had messed up the paint on one toe, which required retouching, and that one did end up getting messed up by my shoes. The other toes are fine, but it is not perfect. Fortunately, I will not be wearing any open toed shoes for a while.

I made it to Saint Cupcake’s and was quickly disappointed. They were better than the place in Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, and the prices were much better, but not as fabulous as people have said.
It was getting later and darker and I would have gone straight to the bus, but I needed to go to the bathroom now, so I did go to Powells, but not EM. At Powells I also purchased the third Harry Potter book (forgive me, Henry) and Howards End. Then I hopped on Bus 20 to Beaverton Transit Center, where I intended to get dinner at Jin Wah, which I believe is my favorite restaurant. I liked eating there better when they were a diner, but the food is still good—it is just bigger and fancier.

I realized I was right by Catherine’s and the Avenue, and maybe I should at least look and see if I could find something new for the dance. I ended up getting a shirt and a skirt from Catherine’s. Then I went to dinner. I had my favorites, Cashew Chicken and Pot Stickers. Actually, my favorite Cashew Chicken was at the Chinese Kitchen, but they have been closed down for some time. I had thought about putting in a movie at home, but I got interested in the book, so focused on that.

The fun continued Friday when I took doughnuts into work. I went to Donut Day, because I believe in supporting local business, I think Krispy Kreme is an overrated marketing phenomenon, and that after the frying temperature cools off the grease turns to knives in your stomachs. They are nonetheless what people always bring in, even though they end up staying around for days and no one feels good about eating them. I was pleased to see that my doughnuts were all eaten quickly, and no one felt horrible afterwards. Score one for the little guy!

After work my friend Tara picked me up and took me out to dinner for my birthday and as a prelude to the dance—Portland’s first ever mid-singles dance. It was pretty fun. I can see that I am much older, because I get tired faster and am not as limber. Also, I have a harder time finding my groove, which I partly blame on the music and partly on my dance partners. I only cast that blame because I ended up recovering some old moves that were kind of cool on two separate occasions. Once was dancing with a guy, Mike, who is a really good dancer. I thought I had lost my ballroom ability when a cha cha with some one else was not working out, but Mike could lead and it made a huge difference. I think we were basically doing a West Coast Swing, but we were not thinking about the steps, and that was great. The other time was when they played “My Sharona”. That song just unleashes the rhythm in me. Anyway, it was a pretty good night.

And it was a pretty good birthday. Not all of my plans came to fruition, including the plan to take pictures of everything, like my cupcake and my painted nails (I feel like such a hussy), but I can live with it.

http://www.dosha.org/
http://www.powells.com/
http://www.lovejoystudios.com/
http://www.saintcupcake.com/
http://foodcartsportland.com/?p=38
http://portland.citysearch.com/profile/8416089/beaverton_or/jin_wah_restaurant.html
http://www.everydaymusic.com/
http://www.hotlipspizza.com/

Sporkful’s secret shame

Before I start, I should mention that for at least fifteen years of my life, my coping strategy with everything was pretty much repression. Now sometimes when I feel emotions about something, I am not always sure if they are proportionate. Is this really that terrible? Why am I crying? Anyway, with a couple of incidents that recently had me on the verge of tears, I believe the cause of the overreaction was my shame about not driving.

Did you know I don’t drive? I try not to make a big deal out of it, but it has been a big deal to me. There are invitations that I will decline strictly on the grounds of transportation being a problem.

I started out normally enough, in that I got my learners permit when I was fifteen (almost twenty-one years ago), and I took a driver’s education class, though I may have been sixteen then. Clearly I wasn’t rushing towards driving, because the main incident we are getting to happened right before my seventeenth birthday.

In class I drove on one-way streets in cities, and on highways and freeways, and even over that bridge with the weird surface in Portland. I was not terrible, but I was very nervous. It is just so easy to cause damage to another person or property, and there are a lot of things going on at once. Obviously after the class I would need practice before being ready to get my license.

My main problem was that I did not want to practice driving with my father. I was already nervous, and he yells and swears and berates and is not in any way a calming force. I realize driving instruction is stressful for any teacher, and it might be worse when your pupil is your child, but I could not stand the thought of getting in that car with him. Maybe it was a carryover of some of the tension that was already between us. It’s not like he didn’t want us to be afraid of him.

Anyway, I wanted to learn with Mom, at least at first, and initially he seemed to agree. Our first practice session did not really get anywhere because the Colt wouldn’t start. The symptoms were similar to vapor lock, but the conditions were wrong for that. So I had not really had any family practice yet, and then one Saturday when we were the only two people at home, Dad called me to get in the car.

He just wanted me to drive around the block, and he actually stood outside the car (probably not legal), and I wanted to cooperate. I did not want to be a problem child. But I hit a car.

The Driver’s Ed class car was an automatic (Toyota Corolla), and the Colt was a stick, so maybe that made things harder, but as I got to the top of the cul-de-sac I was having trouble turning enough and I could not clear this car that was parked on the street. I was moving at such slow speed that there was no damage to either vehicle, but I was still horrified, and I was getting out of that car. Dad was angry, and tried to force me to get in and keep driving. He came close to hitting me, but there were people gathered around (because I had just hit a car), and he restrained himself. The owner of the parked car could see that there was no damage, and he was being very nice, but that did not help my father at all.

Basically, I went past him, out of the car and back to the house. I suppose he brought the car back. He didn’t talk to me that day. I think I stayed holed up in my room anyway. Sunday morning I was up early, and he came to me in the kitchen and told me that he couldn’t believe how stupid I was, and he was ashamed of me. I believed then (and still do) that the real issue was that he had lost control over me, but I just could not give it back. He didn’t speak to me again for two and a half years.

Well, after that it was very hard to get back to driving. It was awkward enough just living in the same house in my disowned state, and me driving was certainly a sore subject, so it didn’t come up. Then I was a college student, and a missionary, and a college student again, and when I came back home he was already gone and I took on a lot more family responsibilities. Some of those would have been easier with a car, but money was always an obstacle to owning a car, and that made it less imperative to get the license. I did take additional driver training, and I am not even bad at it, if for no other reason than that I am super careful. I still just kind of hate it though.

There have been good things about not driving. If I did have a car payment, insurance, and gas to worry about, I would not be able to afford the mortgage, and I would not have paid off college as quickly. (I sure wish I had stayed debt-free, incidentally.) My being able to help others, and be a fairly benevolent landlord, has a trade-off in that my other family members are pretty good about giving me rides, even though sometimes it is still a hassle and I don’t even want to bother (this was a big part of me not joining a foreign film club). Also, I have had great conversations with people who have given me rides, and done a lot of unofficial counseling, and I am grateful for those opportunities. Despite all of this, it just seems like driving is something adults do, and something I should be able to do, and yes, I have found that embarrassing.

There was also some misconception on my part. My sisters have told me that for their first years of driving they had nerves too—getting comfortable doesn’t happen for awhile, so maybe I am not abnormal, and I just need to push through the fear.

Also, even though I am genuinely scared of the driving, it is possible that some of that knot in my stomach is not really the car, but my father. It was really traumatic being cut off like that. I had nightmares a few times. Possibly the reason I loved managing the sports teams so much were that the coaches were like father figures. I didn’t even ask them for advice or do that much with them—I just needed to have them there. And no one ever knew. It was our family secret. I sort of told myself it was a relief not having to deal with him, because he was jerk on a regular basis, and conversations were no longer happening, but I don’t recommend it for your teenage daughters.

After two quarters away at college (after Mom had refused to let him turn my bedroom into an office), he said he wanted to start over. It was not an apology, but I was ready to hug him and tell him that I loved him, and I meant it. I sensed at the time that if we ever fought again, we would not be able to find our way back, so we never had important conversations after that. Everything was shallow, where I said things that were supportive of what he said, and then him contradicting me anyway.

That was the end of his first child disownment (there had only been siblings and parents before), but it would be followed by disownment of all my other siblings, reconciliation with my sisters (but not my brother), disownment and reconciliation with my sisters again, and then a final disownment of the four of us once divorce proceedings were started. He did open a window to reconciliation when he sent us an email announcing his remarriage, but I didn’t take it, partially because I couldn’t thing of anything to say that sounded right. (I hope you treat this one better than you treated the last one?)

The last time he disowned us, I was worried about doing anything then that might cause issues with the divorce proceedings, but I thought that when all of that was over, I would write to him and give him a chance, but that I would be done pussyfooting around, and it would be an honest relationship or none at all. Then, when it finally was done, I no longer wanted to write to him. Maybe it was because when there was email from him I felt that same pit in my stomach that I get when I think about driving.

(I think the reason he did send the wedding announcement was that I had scanned in and emailed an invitation for his fiftieth reunion, which I thought he should have, and he took that as an opening, replying to that and sending a separate message with a question about some paperwork. Therefore, our email addresses were included on the message he sent to everyone with a picture of them holding the marriage license and a date. His communication skills are as good as ever.)

When I was in Italy, different family members would ask about Dad, and would be sad that we were not in touch, and I would explain that I did not have time for him. He takes more emotional energy than most people, with very little payoff, and so it’s not the best investment. I don’t just mean payoff for me in having a rewarding relationship, but I don’t think he gets very much out of it either. I do have other family members who depend on me, and a job and church responsibilities and friends and this life. One thing I have realized during this period of self analysis is that I cannot do everything that it would be good to have done, and it actually can be okay if the only thing you do with some family members is to leave yourself open to later inspiration. It was sort of scary, like “Really? I can ignore this?” When I realized, yes, I can, it was very liberating.

I don’t know what will happen with Dad, but I am okay with that. For driving, I want this to be the year that I get my license. Again, I do have limited resources, and right now the most important thing seems to be writing, with a few strong sub-currents of emergency preparedness, physical fitness, and the local mid-singles group, but that’s okay. I think I will start practicing towards the end of April, maybe the 26th.

I can’t truly say I am looking forward to it, but I am okay with it being there. I remember once that I was looking for something on Aloclek, and I saw a sign for a stunt driving school. I don’t know if it is still there, but that’s something that should help conquer fear right there. Establishing that level of control over the car would be amazing, so maybe I will take that course, or do a loop on a racetrack, once I have my license. I’m not going to let fear rule me. It’s not practical.

And so that’s my deep dark secret, and I can put it out on the internet, and the world will not end, and I will not lose friends, and things are pretty much exactly as they were on the outside, but on the inside I am better. I read once that Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying, you are only as sick as your secrets; there’s a lot of sense in that.

My next area of deep shame will turn out to be no secret.

Out with a fizzle; back in with a bang.

You know, "bang" does not look right in lower case letters, but I don’t think I can justify capitals and grammatically you should only use an exclamation point with dialogue. Just pretend this is exciting.

Obviously, I did not finish my plan of writing twelve days in a row. Mainly I was overbooked with a big project at home that took a lot of my time, but also the next topic on the schedule was political and kind of dark, and it didn’t feel very Christmas-y. I will get to all of the topics on that list, but I really needed to take a break, and then come back.

I do love Christmas a lot, but the New Year is also very special to me. On a family level it is Mom’s birthday and it starts the round of other birthdays. Mainly, for me, it is about fresh starts, and getting another chance. Usually even when I have really rough years (or at least rough Decembers), as I approach New Year’s Eve hope starts seeping in again and I feel optimistic for the future.

This year I feel like the optimism is pretty well grounded. Having finished my rigorous self-evaluation and mental processing, I feel like I am more emotionally healthy than ever, and more ready to move forward. That I have been writing regularly helps a lot, because that has just not been true in previous years even though it has always been desired.

Obviously, I hope to do a lot more writing in 2008, eventually followed by some selling. I don’t think I will be actively selling until after the writer’s strike is resolved. I have not checked the official WGA policy yet, but I believe their demands are fair, and I do expect to be a member some day, so it seems right to wait. Also obvious is that the sooner it ends the better, but it is worth holding out for a fair deal. Kudos to Worldwide Pants, and may they be an example to the others out there.

There are some other major goals that I have, and I hope they are not too ambitious, but that everything can actually be accomplished. My next few entries will be about these issues, how they came about, and what I will be doing about them.

Some time ago I realized that shame is kind of a useless thing. If you are doing something wrong, you should change it, and if it is right, don’t worry about it. That’s a little simplistic, because change can be very hard, and not worrying about the appearance of things can be hard as well.

Based on my experience, I think it is more common that the things that really bug us and hold us back are the wrong things. Sometimes they aren’t even real, like when you are embarrassed because of what other people will think, when they would not think about it at all. A lot of my therapeutic writing was knocking down false perceptions, and getting rid of fear.

I don’t feel like I am expressing the concept really well, but it will make more sense over the next few entries. Get ready to explore the dark side of the spork.

On the importance of not sucking

I knew I was going to be using this topic, but I thought I might be more humorous, and actually I am feeling fairly serious now.

After the San Francisco trip, a friend picked us up from the airport and we regaled him with stories of our time there. He asked us, “Why do Mormons suck?”

I replied that they don’t, and raised the counter question, Why do so many fundamentalist Christians suck? You could keep going with that too. Why do so many lawyers, or Intel employees, or short doctors or republicans or men?

It is easy to make generalizations like that, because it is easy to discover proof that people suck. Working in customer support for so long, I could give you many examples showing that humans in general are willfully ignorant and mean-spirited, with an over-inflated sense of entitlement. However, when I talk to people I often find them kind, and smart, and interesting, and having lives and problems that I can really relate to.

Some groups may be more prone to sucking, especially if the membership within that group brings a feeling of superiority. This should really never happen with a religious group, especially a Christian group, because that should teach you that you are sinful and you need Christ to be saved. If He could sit down with publicans and sinners and not be looking down at them and sniffing in disgust, well, how can you look down on anyone? That it happens all the time anyway is not a reflection on religion, but on people.

There is great importance in not sucking if we are going to represent Him. If I believe I have something true, and good, and joyous, that needs sharing, the last thing I should want to do is alienate anyone. That seems fairly obvious. I suppose people don’t realize that they are doing it, or they think it is okay for that type of person. We can’t really put an asterisk next to “Love thy neighbor” and list our preferred exceptions. It just doesn’t work that way.

For the San Francisco trip, we did get a general feeling of superficiality, and that is bad, but the real problem is that they were disorganized, and that’s not a sin. It’s just inconvenient when you are planning a large event involving lots of people.

Thinking of other people who suck, it is usually snobbery. I suppose the concept of sucking brings in a vacuum, which implies a certain emptiness. Maybe that makes it easier to sustain an illusion of superiority. There’s generally no valid basis for it though. What, you’re better because you can sing? Because you have never smoked?

There is a frequently used joke that goes something like, “Every time I think I am becoming humble I realize I am mistaken.” I don’t find it funny because paradoxes annoy me, but okay, perhaps it can be hard to recognize an appropriate level of humility even if you find it. However, I don’t think it’s necessary. The opposite of humility is pride, and pride is enmity with God and man, so if you work to rid yourself of any enmity by growing in charity, the humility should take care of itself.

I just know that the people I like and admire most tend to be very accepting of other people, and interested in them, and usually they are also interested in lots of other things. In terms of curiosity and passion, they are full.

I also know that we all tend to do a little better with a personal touch. There was recently an essay in the Oregonian about a local woman who had her hours cut at work, and it covered her experiences applying for aid, and the utter humiliation and futility of so many of the hoops set up for people in need. It was depressing, but it generated a big response of people wanting to help. I could give lots of other examples of individuals whose hard luck stories generated big responses, but on the whole the Oregon Food Bank is strapped and other charities are strapped, and need more help.

Studies have shown that charity ads with a face and a name receive more response. We may feel bad over 1000 anonymous displaced persons, but tell us about a specific person, and what they have lost, and we will feel it more deeply, and reach farther into our pockets.

This may be partly because one person is manageable. I know I can’t fix 10,000 people on unemployment, but I can give one family a merry Christmas, and it is comforting in how finite it is. More to the point, I think when we have an individual and their details we connect more.

Because of this, I think a key component of not sucking will be looking outward and making connections. Don’t stay in your insular little world where you can be smug and snug! Make eye contact and voice contact and pay attention to the little details. The world is a richer place when you actually pay attention to it.

This is not always easy. I have no patience for stupid people. I don’t feel so bad about it when they are willfully stupid, and just don’t want to think or know anything more, but I feel like I should have a lot more compassion for the ones who can’t help it, and all I really have is impatience. I have bonded with a few, but I still always dread the next one. This is wrong of me. Still, that’s a relatively small amount of people.

Snobs? Heck, I just met one today, and it was amazing how desirous he was of avoiding conversation, but I had to try in case he was just shy or did not realize that we knew each other. But it was amusing because I got in a little jab at him and then I had a brief online conversation with my sister where we rolled our eyes at him.

Do those two confessions make me sound like a nice person? Probably not. It’s still something that I’m working on. I can say that I have never regretted getting to know a person, but I have regretted passing opportunities by, and not speaking up when someone seemed down, and not paying enough attention when someone seemed to need something.

Are Mormons lame? They can be, but it is a matter of personality, or a poor understanding of how to live the religion. There is nothing in the religion that dictates we should be so. Do Mormons suck? Some do, sometimes, but they should know better. Feel free to tell them so.

The Sad Ballad of Cute Cafeteria Guy

About two years ago when I started this blog, I committed to not using my own name or the names of my family members. This was to protect me in case I ever want to call my boss stupid or something like that. I decided it would be too complicated, and probably unnecessary to find code names for friends, but if there was a love interest I would use a code name and I gave three examples: Mr. Intimacy Issues, Gerard, and Cute Cafeteria Guy. They weren’t really hypothetical.

Oddly, Gerard is back in the area, and based on my horoscope I believe he is going to call me Wednesday. Mr. Intimacy Issues and I have the same relationship that we did then, and there is no reason to change his code name. Well, there’s no reason in terms of accuracy. Everyone who knows both of us recognized him right away, so I guess it isn’t a very good code name. Quite a lot has happened with Cute Cafeteria Guy, and I thought I would take a moment to reflect on that.

I would say I have been in love twice, and both times it happened at first sight. Some times I have talked myself into liking someone, and that is always a mistake. At other times you get carried along in an unexpected rush of attraction, and maybe you know it is not love, but the flow is pretty strong anyway, and this was more like that. I was not initially attracted. There was nothing wrong with the way he looked or anything; it’s just that my first thought was that he had to be gay.

Perhaps that sounds like an unfair stereotype, but there are generally two types of cashiers that we get in the cafeteria. The most common type is an older, outgoing woman who doesn’t have a lot of skills but does need some extra money. We also get younger girls who haven’t figured out what they want to do yet. There are occasional departures from this formula, but there were never young, handsome, straight guys.

He was remarkably friendly, which did nothing to discourage the stereotype. Still, he did not really give off that vibe. Later on as we started visiting more he mentioned a daughter, but that was still not definitive. I was by this time definitely attracted to him, and I was starting to feel that he was attracted to me. I know his eyes would light up when he would see me, but he was still so friendly to everyone else that it was hard to know how special I was. That’s the problem with nice guys.

At this point I knew quite a bit about him. A lot of it was good, like he was also an artist and a drummer, and those were things that just made him more attractive. I also knew more about his previous job history, and it started making more sense that he was in this job.

Other things did not mesh. He liked hot dry places like Arizona, and I am a complete green Oregonian. We both liked Law & Order, but I prefer SVU and he liked Criminal Intent. They were little things, but they were symbolic of the more important disparities making a successful romance unlikely.

The biggest issue was time. Often I felt like we were on the verge of making a breakthrough, and someone else would come into line and I would have to go. It is hard to progress very far in one minute a day. It was still a minute to look forward to.

The most flustering moment did not happen with him. I needed something quick, so I went through a different line in the other café. The cashier (one of the young girls) was really excited, and she knew my name, and she said “You’re Jason’s girlfriend!” Then she excitedly let me know it was his birthday, and I should go wish him a happy one.

I just said that he had mentioned it, and we had talked about his birthday earlier, but my mind was still reeling from the girlfriend thing, and from being known by name. Obviously, she could not really have thought I was his girlfriend, or she should have expected that I would already know about the birthday. I think what was in her mind was that this is the girl that seems to like him and he seems to like back, but that is longer and complicated and it just came out girlfriend. It seems we were a topic of workplace gossip.

It was interesting, but it was such a wasted opportunity. I should have said something like, “Did he say that? Then he better ask me out!” If I could have said something kind of light, but that confirmed my interest, I think that would have been good. I was just too floored in the moment to think of anything. Anyway, that moment slipped past, and then later he started mentioning a girlfriend, and then I saw him with the girlfriend, and one day I came up behind someone congratulating him and he was getting married that weekend. I congratulated him too, and really, I never expected us to work out, but it was kind of a bummer.

Friends tried to be supportive, but the supportive comments ranged from “It won’t last” to “Now you can flirt with him guilt-free.” Actually, marriage to me means you don’t flirt at all. I was worried about it being weird, but he never came back from his honeymoon. Yay?

There were good things about it too. First of all, he was a truly nice guy, and it was fun interacting with him. Also, it was nice believing that someone could like me, and not having it end in catastrophe (that sentence references some horrific times). The best thing was, and I will sound like a terrible person here, but I need to do that periodically, after seeing her, I am cuter. I can’t say that very often, but it made me feel like I was not completely delusional.

I also learned some things about myself. It was analyzing my attraction to him that helped me pinpoint my ideal height range, which gave me insight into why I was not attracted to certain other guys. This is a shallow insight.

The deeper insight came once when I was going to meet a friend, and I had missed him at lunch and I just decided to go see if I could see him for a minute, without any reason than saying hello, and I did. As I walked away, feeling like a dork, I realized that I cannot imagine being smooth. I have mental pictures of what my life would be like if I were rich or thin or other things, and my ideas may be wrong, but at least I can conceive of something. Being suave is completely alien. And I also realized that I felt just the same way that I did in junior high. However, that was when I stopped believing that I had any romantic chance at all, so it makes sense that I stopped developing there at fourteen. This crush was a big steppingstone for me. Romantically, I think I am close to sixteen now. I’m almost ready to date.

Odd. After yesterday’s entry, I was just thinking how I am turning into this curmudgeon griping about modern times, and one month away from turning 36. Well, 30 is the new 21 and 40 is the new 30, and my RealAge is 34 but relationship wise I am still in my mid-teens (jail bait), so yeah, I’m turning 36.

I wonder if I can find it on eBay...

It seems like I keep coming back to music and movies and television. They are things that I think about a lot, and generally enjoy. One thing I have been pondering lately is my first real record album, Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic. The album was released in 1975, when I was three, but I believe I got it in 1977 or 78. The reason I believe this is that for a long time I thought it was by the Steve Miller Band. How could I be so horribly mixed up, and why would that lead to the later purchase date? Good questions.

Basically, I remember a shopping trip at K-mart, and probably the Tualatin K-Mart, which is the one we went to when we lived in Wilsonville. We moved here in 1978. I was taken in by the cover art, but I was told that I would not like it. I wanted it anyway, and got it, but I remember that it did not sound at all the way I thought it would. I believe it ended up going to my brother. The other strong memory I have is of my older sister playing Swingtown over and over again, which I remembered as Spacetown. I think we all got to pick a record, and that she picked up the Steve Miller Band Book of Dreams, which came out in 1977 when I was 5. Looking at that cover art, I can totally imagine her choosing it because she was really into horses. And I did not start reading until after I started first grade in September of 1978 (kindergarten was only offered privately at that time, and a bit expensive for us), so any confusion on titles should be forgivable.

There are several things that I think about with this. One is that the answer wasn’t really that I wouldn’t like it—just that I wasn’t ready for it. I should have held on to it and played it once a year until I could appreciate it. Five-year olds do not tend to be that forward thinking.

My other thought is that it is sad that with CDs being so small now, cover art is kind of a waste. For technical aspects I do prefer CDs to vinyl. I was always worried about scratches with records, and I can play CDs on computer, and burn my own and still have better sound quality than cassette tapes, so that is all worthwhile, but there is still a bit of a loss there.

I also like shopping online, and I’m sure downloading individual songs is convenient, but there is another loss right there as more record stores close down. Having a central place where you could browse for new things to catch your eye was good, and it is a good venue for finding local artists, and just that people would buy the whole album was good. Will people even make albums with a theme or unifying concept anymore if they keep finding that they lay fourteen tracks and people only buy three? A lot of things are fundamentally changing, and not necessarily for the better.

One of my favorite memories is calling Mike one night, and we just spontaneously decided to go over to Tower Records. He had heard this new song on the radio he wanted to check out, which happened to be Roxette’s Look Sharp, and I wanted to get The Promise. I assumed it was by New Order, because it sounded like them, but he was saying it was When in Rome, whom I had never heard of. Obviously he was right, and he did gloat a bit, but the point was he had just gotten out of the shower and his hair looked great and the moon was full and we came away with music. For a junior in high school, that was a great night. The last two record stores that people have really recommended have both closed down. I guess I can try EM, but things just aren’t the same.

The other train of thought is that when I call Toys in the Attic my first real record, I did have some others. They were all Disney or Sesame Street. When I did make the transition to pop shortly thereafter, it was a Shaun Cassidy record. I got it because I knew him from The Hardy Boys on TV. Clearly this would still not be as edgy as Aerosmith, but I am still wearing my hair in pigtails and scared of the dark at this point. In fact, Dah Doo Run Run becomes a defense mechanism for me, as I use it to drive scary thoughts away by singing it in my head. I’m not sure why I never had an Osmonds record because we watched their show too, but my older sister had two. Also, my older sister had a Bay City Rollers record we would listen to, because they had a Saturday morning show.

Perhaps it is fitting that my real introduction to pop music came through television as well, when we got cable and there was this channel called MTV. Clearly the television had influenced my previous listening choices.

To be fair, I think a lot of it is time-dependent. The 70’s seem to have been a fairly depressing time for music, at least on the radio stations we got. I just have very vague memories of Cat Stevens and the Captain and Tenille. In the car there was always a lot of Neil Diamond, the Ray Conniff Singers, and Abba. I could easily never hear any of them again.

We did play At The Hop a lot, so I still have a strong fondness for fifties music, but then these hippie/folk influences crept in and they lost me. What I didn’t know was that groundwork was being laid for good stuff to come.

Again, this is stuff that I want to know more about—what is the musical industry and who influenced whom. Actually, it looks like we might have better music during Republican presidencies. Perhaps it is a therapeutic reaction to bad socio-political situations. Who was in the top 40 five months after Watergate? Some day, I will know.

The Critic--Christmas Special Edition

Over the years, with three big fans of holidays, animation, and cute characters, we have accumulated quite the selection of Christmas specials. We don’t really watch them that much though, because things pop up on television, and we are all busy. The two that we bring out pretty reliably are The Muppet Christmas Carol and A Muppet Family Christmas because we like them a lot, and I can’t recall ever seeing them on TV. I guess the Family Channel does not have the broadcast rights, as that is where we see most things.

The point is that we have things that I have either never seen, seen once when they were still relatively new and barely remember, or a few that we have seen a lot. We decide to go through and watch them all this year and see what we want to keep, and what VHS tapes need to be converted to DVD. We still have a lot to go through, but here is a partial breakdown.

Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas –This is one that I could just barely remember. Between the stable of Jim Henson’s regulars and based on a story by the Hobans (of Frances fame), I was hoping it would be wonderful. It is a little too slow. The music is pretty good, and I love what they do with the birds (there are ducks, a heron, and an owl that are all pretty cool), but not enough happens. Maybe it is also too grim. The ending ends up being happy (a bit contrived as well, but they didn’t take the easy way out with a protagonist winning the talent show) but before that happy ending Emmett and his mother just get more and more downtrodden. Maybe they focus too much on the dead father.

The Leprechaun’s Christmas Gold—I can’t help but notice that this was the last Animagic special that Rankin Bass did, so maybe the were running out of steam. Maybe what they were really out of was songs that inspired them, because Christmas in Killarney seems like an odd starting point. I guess you think, hey, this is a Christmas song, and it is Irish-themed, so toss in leprechauns, a banshee, and Saint Patrick. At this point, someone should have noticed that you aren’t going to really get a plot that flows. It doesn’t flow, but lurches from one odd contrivance to the next. The voice actors don’t really put much into it either, but how do you find your motivation when there is no logical reason for it?

Mickey’s Magical Christmas—This starts with the premise that all the Disney characters are at a club, and have just seen a great show, but they are snowed in. They try to bring the Christmas spirit to Donald, but he is a tough nut to crack, possibly because the special itself is really uninspired. Scanning over the crowd is fun, but the clips are old and not that great, and there is clearly no budget to bring back any of the real voice actors, so it all ends up being rather a disappointment.

Rudolph’s Shiny New Year—This has some cute bits, but is a bit too long. They were padding it out to fill out an hour instead of thirty minutes I guess. It is a keeper, but probably not one that we will bring out often.

Nestor, the Long Eared Christmas Donkey—If you have seen The Small One, this is a lot like that, only instead of just being kind of weak and lazy, the little donkey has really long ears, putting him more into Dumbo space. Abused for his difference that ends up allowing him to save the day, clearly there is a kinship with Rudolph. Also his Mom dies protecting him (Bambi?), so it is cheap and manipulative, but it gets me anyway. Character-wise the mutant donkey looks really cute, but the voice is annoying, making this another keeper that probably won’t come out that often.

Previously I had a top three, which were Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. I have since realized that I like remembering the Charlie Brown one better than I like watching it. The tree becoming better with a little affection is sweet, and Snoopy dancing is cute, but it’s simultaneously too slow and precious.

What has taken its place is The Year Without a Santa Claus, which is truly excellent. I like the music, the story moves, and I could get nitpicky on plot but it is fun enough that I refrain. It is closely followed by Santa Clause is Coming to Town, which is nice in that it has a romantic subplot, and a really cute penguin. I like the Winter Warlock too.

The first two Frosty specials are good, and Rudolph is still a favorite. The Grinch is probably the best for me now. I love the facial expressions they do with Max, and it is about the only special that does not make Christmas coming depend on Santa Claus. The quality and continued value of these leads to another gripe of mine—inferior sequels.

I don’t know why they can’t make good Christmas specials anymore. Even in the 80’s, when Christmas specials were produced solely to tie in with merchandise lines, they were watchable. The Glow-friends Christmas Special is actually pretty good, and the He-Man/She-Ra one has its moments. So how can you take a great character like Rudolph and make something so utterly dreadful as Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys? And how does it manage to be both annoying and boring at the same time? Shouldn’t one override the other?

Frosty Returns did one thing right, which is that they got Mark Mothersbaugh to do the music, hence there is a little bit of redemption in two musical numbers. Otherwise there is nothing really original or well conceived about the plot or the animation, and somehow what annoyed me most is the ending. He’s just leaving because he’s bored now? When did Frosty become fickle?

Finally, well the Jim Carrey Grinch movie is a remake, not a sequel, but it is bothersome how it completely missed the point of an excellent book. I hadn’t been thinking about it too much, because avoidance was working well, but the Sunday School teacher referenced it last week, using it as an example of how Cindy Lou’s goodness rubbed off on the Grinch. And you know, I doubt he even knows about the real one. Again, kids today! I am on my way to becoming Dana Carvey’s grumpy old man character—“And that’s the way it was and we liked it!” And yeah, probably people in their twenties don’t remember Dana Carvey either. Bah!
We’ll see how the rest turn out. I am curious about how Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July will be. I only saw it once and it was so long ago I have no idea. I am also looking forward to watching It’s a Wonderful Life in its entirety. Somehow when I catch it on television he is always already at the bar and things really start going downhill.

After that, maybe there will be an idea for a new Christmas special. Can a modern one be good without having the glow of nostalgia around it? Maybe we just need to find a good song that Rankin and Bass missed. I don’t think “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree has been taken yet.