The personality test scores above reflect my attitudes today.  On other days, I would certainly score near the same on stability and orderliness, but might score markedly differently on extraversion.  I am mildly bipolar (type II, hypomanic) and can be maniacally extraverted or depressively isolated and introverted, depending on transient brain chemistry.

I really like the "trait snapshot" provided along with the results above:

Reflexively, I started to dispute some of those traits.  Then I thought about it and realized that they are true now and I need to update my self-image to reflect recent growth. 

This one came as a surprise.  I even took the test a second time to make sure there was no mistake.  A few years ago, the same test rated me as "moderate" in schizotypal because I admitted that I "believe" I have psychic ability, and antisocial because I admitted I'd been in jail and have stolen things.  My answers to those questions haven't changed.  Maybe the testers have adjusted their parameters.  I know that at earlier stages in my life I would have registered moderate to high on paranoia and obsessive-compulsive.  In those areas, I have changed through increased self-awareness and personal effort.

Four years ago, I had only recently heard of NPD from my daughter, Angie.  I had known Greyfox for about twelve years at that time, and from the start I had recognized much of his behavior as pathological.  "Pathological" was the word I applied to it because that was how I had learned in school, at work, and in group therapy, to characterize such dysfunctional ways of coping and relating as I observed in Greyfox.

The first psychopathology I noticed was some exaggerated responses to frustration and thwarting, when he told me about prior incidents such as one when he had jumped repeatedly on and destroyed a Christmas tree stand he couldn't get to work as he wanted.  It also seemed odd to me from the start that every time I expressed some opinion or belief contrary to one he had expressed, he apparently changed his mind. 

As I got to know him better, I became aware of his tendency to exaggerate small injuries, illnesses, or disappointments.  He would become angry when the weather wasn't to his liking.  One of his most difficult quirks for me to live with was the irrational time pressure he lived under.  When we would be preparing to go somewhere, he would hustle and bustle about, hurrying me so much that I'd forget things I needed to take or not get everything done that needed to be.  Eventually I learned to cope with that one by sitting down and refusing to work under such conditions.

As I began to inform myself about NPD in 2003, I found all of those traits of Greyfox's and many others in the NPD symptom lists.  I was gaining a new more diverse and specific vocabulary in which to discuss his psychopathology, and was also learning why he had seemed to go out of his way to agree with me early in our relationship and then suddenly switched to the opposite extreme, responding with hostility and derision each time I disagreed with him. 

Pathological narcissists tend to put their lovers and "friends" (they are generally incapable of true friendship) on a pedestal early in the relationship, when they are receiving narcissistic supply from them.  As long as he believes the other is a useful source of narcissistic supply, he will respond to disputes or differences of opinion with ingratiation.  Then, as the lover or acquaintance fails to support his narcissistic fantasy world, the N takes narcissistic injury and gives up on the person as a source of narcissistic supply -- no more pedestal, no more ingratiation, just rage as the narcissist's fantasy life is threatened by the other's differing views.

When I went to school, mental illness was classified as either neurosis or psychosis.  Narcissistic Personality Disorder wasn't defined until the 'seventies, and wasn't included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual until the 'eighties.  DSM IV was published in 1994, and a "text revision," DSM IV-TR, came out in 2000.  With all the recent progress in neuropsychology, the current DSM's obsolescence is a given, but it is the official diagnostic bible and we are more or less stuck with it.   Its classifications and definitions are certainly superior to those in currency as recently as thirty to fifty years ago during my school days.

Personality disorders are considered as distinct from organic brain disorders, although increasingly it is acknowledged that they involve abnormalities of brain chemistry and neurological function.  They are divided into three clusters:

It is not unusual for a person to possess traits of disorders from all three clusters, and quite common for someone to display traits of several disorders within a single cluster.  Cluster B disorders, in particular, are often accompanied by abuse of alcohol and other drugs.  Behavior may be perceived by family and associates as arising from the drug abuse.  What is more likely is that a person with a Cluster B disorder is dysphoric and lacks normal societal inhibitions from self-medication.  Drugs may alter and intensify the symptoms, but even in abstinence disordered behavior will persist.

DSM IV says that NPD is characterized by:

I have referred above to narcissists in the common shorthand, as Ns.  It is common for those with diseases and disorders to be referred to as patients, clients, sufferers, etc.  Some writers in the field claim with only slight facetiousness that it is incorrect to call an N a sufferer, because he makes others do the suffering.  I also tend (along with other writers) to refer to the N as he because the majority of Ns are male, and the one in my life is.

At a vulnerable and receptive time in his life, as he was detoxing from a near-fatal alcohol binge, Greyfox took the 4degreez personality disorder test.  With the help of that self-diagnosis, transcending his NPD (and the histrionic PD that he diagnosed at the same time) became part of the self-healing he undertook when he went into abstinence on all his substance addictions (except caffeine and sugar).  If not for that self-diagnosis, given the rage with which a typical N greets anything he interprets as criticism, his prognosis would have been much less optimistic.

A narcissist's prognosis in therapy is usually dim at best.  They are most likely of all personality disorders to resist or discontinue therapy.  Theirs is also the personality disorder most likely to frustrate or abuse a therapist so that he or she will give up on them and quit.  Trust between N and therapist must be strong and the therapist must be able to tolerate a lot of resistance and abuse. 

Greyfox trusts me.  He has said that I'm the only person he will trust to the extent of swallowing any handful of pills I offer him.  It's not only because he knows I wouldn't knowingly do him harm, but because he knows that I am knowledgeable about nutrition and such.  While my son and I were supervising Greyfox's detox, I gave him a similar bunch of supplements to those I had been using to kick my sugar addiction, to help him over the withdrawal from alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, etc.  They were effective in preventing the withdrawal miseries, and they might also have helped him cope with his narcissistic rage and begin his recovery from NPD.

To help him transcend his NPD, I just did more of what I had been doing for as long as I knew him:  I confronted his pathological behavior whenever it came up.  It started working then as it had never worked before, for several reasons.  Probably most importantly, he was finally ready for it.  He wanted to change.  I was doing a better job of it, too, since I'd gained a broader vocabulary for talking about it.  Instead of referring to psychopathology or pathological behavior, I could point to narcissistic rage, ingratiation, narcissistic supply, etc.

And I had a lot of help.  Greyfox developed an interest in spiritual growth and self-improvement.  He read E. J. Gold, Neale Donald Walsch, Deepak Chopra, and others.  He still reads a lot of such inspirational material, and there is ever less and less narcissistic behavior for me to confront.  Instead, we talk about his progress.  He is developing empathy and compassion for the first time in his life.  He has decided to forgive me for having attained some landmarks in personal growth before he did.  The effort he has put into his therapy, and the progress he has made, makes me very glad that I chose to take on the role of therapist with him, but... Don't try this at home, kids!  It is being done here by a couple of certified loonies.

Through the efforts of Roberta Stewart, widow of Sgt. Patrick Stewart, who sought to mark her husband's grave in a military cemetery with the Wiccan Pentacle, a federal court has issued a ruling compelling the VA to allow pentagrams along with crosses and stars of David.

I was working on today's blog entry when that news flash came on NPR.  I wanted to share it.

I don't remember when I last blogged about this topic, so I suppose it's time to do it again.

If I write every day, or even every week or two, about how I have been feeling physically and the symptom du jour with which I am currently coping, I feel as if I am whining and letting the damned disease dominate my life.  If I go too long without mentioning these things, I feel that I'm giving a false impression about myself, and letting down my blogring buddies in Fibroland and Living with Chronic Illness and Pain, as well as those in Xangroup Therapy, the blogring I created as a place to vent, find support, and lend support to others.

I'm really glad that the snow is finally going and the weather has warmed up.  Warmer weather means easier living for me.  This was a rough winter, the roughest one since the year 2000, when I had just been hit by this most recent exacerbation of my long-undiagnosed and often misdiagnosed auto-immune neuromuscular disorder.  With seven years to get used to the discomfort, the sensorimotor deficits, and the limitations they impose on my activities, plus having the internet as a source of information and support, even though this exacerbation is physically the most severe I've experienced to date, it is the easiest on me mentally and emotionally.

Such apparent contradictions are nothing new to me.  Throughout my entire life, most of the time, most things, including myself, have been comme ci comme ça, so-so, a little of this and some of that.  There are always trade-offs for every benefit and compensations for every deficit.  Every cloud has its thorns and every rose a silver lining.   Things never get really "good" or "bad" for me.  The ambiguities just get more intense sometimes.  I call it my curse/blessing pattern, and it's clearly evident in my natal chart.

This winter I fell down a lot, fumbled things, and burned myself tending the woodstove both because of the motor nerve impairment that makes me clumsy and the sensory nerve impairment that blunts my pain reflexes.  Cold outdoor air took my breath away, and every trip to town put me into contact with perfume, petrocarbon emissions, cleaning solvents and other forms of air pollution that made it hard to breathe.

Fortunately, I had my son Doug here to do most of the outdoor chores, and Greyfox to do mercy runs up here from town with supplies, so that my exposure to the cold and to city air was minimized.  I also have a no-cost prescription for Singulair through the manufacturer's patient assistance program, and a huge supply of albuterol from the dumpster at Felony Flats.

I have to accept some of the responsibility for the severity of my symptoms this winter.  I took another "pill vacation."  I was getting literally sick of taking pills.  I'd set up my OTC meds and nutritional supplements in four daily doses, each one containing about twenty capsules, caplets and/or tablets, give or take half a dozen or so.   Two a day were to be taken on an  empty stomach and two were to be taken with food.  In addition to the trouble I was having with scheduling my eating and pill-taking, there was something in one of the four daily doses that caused nausea.

A few weeks ago, I came back from the pill vacation.  My new med regimen is set up for three times a day, the nauseating stuff has been left out, and I'm having no trouble with scheduling.  I learned something from all my previous on-again-off-again, comme ci comme ça pill-taking experiences that may keep me from ever wanting or needing another pill vacation.   My new regimen is easy to remember, easy to follow, and most satisfying of all, it has cleared up some of my brain fog and has energized and inspired me to new creative highs.

I had always tried to take empty-stomach meds first thing in the morning.  My stomach often rebelled at that.  My new med schedule might not work if I had to follow a normal person's schedule, but fortunately not much about me or my life is anything like a normal person.  On my new med schedule, I have my caffeine and a little food to bring my blood sugar up in the morning.  Around noon, I eat a little something more and take one of the "with food" packs.  I eat again at 4 PM so that my stomach will be empty by 6, when I take the empty-stomach meds.  An hour after that, and for the rest of the evening, I am free to eat ad lib.  Then I have a snack with the third pack of meds around midnight.

It isn't a cure.  It has provided some improvement in my mental acuity, energy level, and my attitude.  I have seen no change in the levels of pain, or of sensorimotor deficits, no decrease in recovery time after exercise.  That's okay.  I'll be happy with what I have, if only because that is preferable to the alternative.

With the return of warmer weather, I do my best to get outside for a while every day.  If the light is decent, I take a camera with me.  Here are some of the shots I got yesterday:

 
lowbush cranberries, kept frozen beneath the snow since last fall, to feed the golden crowned sparrows and other songbirds that are now returning to mate and nest

a sprig of perennial clover, the first fresh new green growth I have seen this year

the muskeg, with snow almost gone but ground still substantially frozen

This is mostly old business, but I'm going to deal with some newer stuff now before it becomes as old as some of these other items.

The Washington Post has an article about what Seung Cho's former roommates remember about him.  It seems to me that Cho's roommate might have been a wee bit naive, or he was being disingenuous with a reporter.  Or maybe I'm just reading something in here that others don't see.  The roommate says that Cho had an "imaginary girlfriend" named Jelly, and he told his roomies that Jelly called him "Spanky."  Once, when they found the door locked, Cho refused to let them in, saying he was "making out" with Jelly.  All of this brings to my mind K-Y Jelly and "spanking the monkey," and suggests that Cho had a wry sense of humor.

Several times I have mentioned that I made a list of blog topics during the time of our latest computer hardware problems.  We were only down for a few days, but the list was a long one.  Since I got back to blogging again, sometimes posting more than one entry a day, I have scratched some items off the list and have added more.  The notepaper is filled with scrawls and scratches, some in my hand and some in my son Doug's from times when I'd think of something while he was at the keyboard and I would ask him to write it on the list for me.

That filthy, stained, increasingly illegible list must GO!  I have more or less resigned myself to leaving a few of the items unblogged, because I don't recall quite what I had in mind when I made the notes:

Okay, scratch them.  If they were worthy ideas maybe they will come back around again.

The passing of Robert Anton Wilson was already on the list when Kurt Vonnegut was added to it.  Perhaps I can cover both of them in one entry.  With a little bit of effort, I might be able to cram Robert A. Heinlein and Timothy Leary in, too -- four of a kind, but I doubt if all of them would have seen it that way.  Okay, so "dead heroes" goes at the top of the new list.

"Paranoia" is certainly getting a place on the new list.

I might end up scratching off Benedetto Supino because I'm not finding any recent information on him and everything I found is from suspect sources.  If I can't get an essay out of Benedetto, maybe I can get one out of the difficulty of finding credible sources on certain topics.

I was gathering info on Druids a few days ago when I interrupted that quest to cover breaking news.  That one stays on the list, too.

I suppose it would be worth the effort to do something about what it's like being an old soul, if only for the value of venting.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder keeps getting in my face.  It's time for an update/expansion on that, I suppose.  Okay, it stays.

hmmmm... it says here, "Shroud of Turin," and that's close to the other thing, "You can't believe anything!"  I do believe those two might be related.  I still need to track down some supporting sources on that one.

Huitzilopoctli... What was I thinking there?  He's really just one aspect of Tezcatlipoca, whom I've already covered.  But then again, I covered Tezcat's other aspect, Quetzalcoatl, so I might as well do the dark side too, or maybe not that but Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli for something different.  I definitely want to cover at least one Aztec deity again soon.

It says here, "cats (bistro)."  I can get that one out of the way quickly, right now.

The late, great, gone but not forgotten Pidney was a talker.  She used to call out plaintively for Raoul and ask us for a map and a motor scooter so she could take off to Krakow and Rio looking for him.  (It's true... follow the link, and also this one.)

Tabby, one of the two females from Hilary's last litter, whom we had spayed this winter along with her mother and her sister Fancy, turns out to be another talker.  She is even more vocal than Pidney (pictured here) was.  Tabby's vocalizations run into several syllables, where Pidney's tended to be just one or two.

Tabby's English is heavily accented and a little hard to understand, but she apparently has a traveling jones just as Pidney did.  Tabby (I want to get some pics of her, but she won't sit still), however, is not content with a motor scooter.  She has asked for a map and a Ferrari.  She also mentioned something about a barrista at a bistro in Barstow, but I didn't catch his name.

She has mentioned Hanover several times, but I couldn't pin her down on whether she means the one in Germany or one of several in the U.S.  Perhaps she means the one in West Virginia, in Wyoming County, since "Wyoming" is also one of the things she says repeatedly.  Updates on this topic are undoubtedly upcoming.

Also on my list is something about Felicitas Goodman's research on, and Greyfox's and my experiences with, various postures for meditation and/or shamanic journeying.  The short version of this is that the position your body is in when you enter an altered state affects your experience, but I  want to expand on that.  This might become a series of essays, and probably properly belongs in the FAQs at KaiOaty.

TSOG:  our Tsarist Occupation Government, the Thing that Ate the Constitution, could provide ample material for a fine rant.  It goes onto the new list.

The old list has now been crumpled and tossed into the trash.  The final entry on it was, "fibro," as in fibromyalgia, AKA M.E./C.F.I.D.S.  Unless something else pops up to distract me before I get it done, that will be my topic for today.

Okay, if you've read this far I might be safe in assuming that I have your attention.  If you have any feedback for me or input for my new list, such as a topic you'd like to see me add or subtract, you have my attention.

Yesterday's Mars Square Venus entry was composed in a hurry as my son Doug waited for me to vacate this seat for his regularly scheduled Friday game session.  I have an hour or two this morning before he will be breathing down my neck again, so I can add a few things I had been thinking about even before they came up in comments.

Crazymomma said, "...speaking of anger, aggression and wars... seems Mars is affecting me
too because i can barely stand myself Im so angry these past days."

Some of us are more strongly affected by one particular transit or another, depending on planetary placements in our natal charts.  I mentioned in a recent post about the rare shouting match that Doug and I got into a few days ago.  Between then and yesterday, he had continued to be snappish and surly to an extraordinary degree, and I had asked him where all that emotion was coming from.  He hadn't a clue and said he was wondering the same thing.  After he read my post yesterday, we talked about it again.  He seems to have gotten a better handle on the energies now... which brings me to this other comment:

BoureeMusique asked, "...where does free will come in?"

FREE WILL trumps everything else.  Laws, mores, social trends, taboos, beliefs, the pronouncements of oracles, and the placements of the stars, even all combined, do not equal the power of a human being's focused Will.  Even if someone doesn't realize he has a choice in the matter, he is choosing his own course when he opts to allow any external force to impel his actions.

Some people believe that astrology can predict events because the stars and planets exert forces that act upon human beings.  I don't know how it works, and I never did believe that it worked at all until boredom and some idle time in bed led me to read a book in which I wouldn't have otherwise had the slightest interest. 

I am still skeptical about some widely-accepted bits of astrological lore such as the Part of Fortune, and I can think of some alternate explanations for that supposed "force" of the planets.  Way back in the first half of this lifetime of mine, I wrapped my mind around the concept of synchronicity, that everything in the universe is connected.  It seems as reasonable to suppose that we can find in the stars maps to synchronistic correspondences, as to assume that they are exerting some force upon us.

I don't know how it all works.  I have observed that some of it does work.  As the Kahunas say, "Effectiveness is the measure of truth."   I have found it useful at times to observe that some of my urges and feelings might be related to or reflected in certain planetary positions and alignments.   A little heads-up like I got yesterday helps me focus my will on my aims and avoid being swept along with the cultural currents.

The astrological axiom in my title is a translation from Latin, attributed to some ancient Roman astrologer two or three thousand years ago.  I used to know who said it.  As I searched online today for that attribution, with no success, I found this:

Other comments on yesterday's brief piece characterized my entry or some facet of its subject matter as, "scary," and, "evil."    Regarding "evil," I have devoted more than one entry here to dualism, moralism and judgmentalism.  This time, I will again quote Shakespeare:  "There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so."  For more details, I refer you to my essay on Flim-Flam, Hocus Pocus, Mumbo Jumbo and Gobbledygook.

Fear is another of my favorite topics, and this is what I have to say about that:Litany against fear:

When the breaking news hit my radio, about NASA's Houston headquarters being evacuated and SWAT teams sent in because of a gunman in that presumably high-security area, I thought, "WTF?"

The next thought to cross my mind was, "Mars."  It has been my experience that when broad patterns of human behavior or current events come to light, they are often reflected in astrological aspects.  Mars is associated with aggression, anger, conflict and war. 

I picked up my ephemeris, turned to April, 2007, scanned across today's date line for Mars's longitude (10° 27.6' Pisces), and scanned for any other planets near the tenth or twenty-fifth degree of any sign, since the strongest aspects are multiples of fifteen degrees.  I didn't have to look far.  Right next to Mars is Venus, at 9° 12.5' Gemini, square Mars.  Square aspects indicate tension, conflict, difficulty.

These two planets have been within orb of that square aspect since late last week.  The exact square will occur early next week, and they will remain within orb of aspect until the first week of May.

There is more.  I had charts calculated for the Virginia Tech shootings and NASA incident.

I was merrily working along today on a mixed bag of blogstuff that might still get posted later on, when I noticed the date.  I posted my Happy Stoners Day celebration two years ago, and reposted it last year.  It is still there, and I still don't smoke.

Sitting at the computer this morning, reading comments and backtracking Xanga Footprints, I saw the first mosquito of the season drift slowly across my field of view.  I had made a couple of interesting discoveries in my feedback log, but the mosquito distracted me by reminding me that it's breakup now.  The snow is melting away and all sorts of things are surfacing outside.  I picked up the camera and went out to see.

One pot of pigsqueak (Bergenia cordifolia), the pot I didn't get divided and repotted last year, has emerged from the snow.  Last fall, I propped this one up above all the rest on an upturned pot so that it would be uncovered first and get a head start on the blooming period.  That's a risky move, because those exposed leaves are more vulnerable to frost now if we get more cold nights.  On the other hand, since I need to wait until it's done blooming to divide the roots, having a longer time to grow new roots in the new pots will help them survive next winter.

The green you see above in the Bergenia leaves, and all the rest of the green in this batch of images, is "evergreen," chlorophyll that has been frozen under the snow since last year.  In more temperate areas Bergenia remains green through the winter and doesn't get that bronze frost damage.  Those red leaves will die and have to be removed.  Because the roots are cold tolerant, the plants survive in our climate but they lose foliage and get set back every winter.  Long summer daylight helps compensate for some of the setback.

The green below includes two kinds of moss and a few sprigs of lowbush cranberries, AKA lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea).  To get to these, I had to leave the path and wade through granular snow over my boot tops, nearly to my knees in the deep areas.  I cut across the yard, through the trees, toward the road, and found a 6-inch flowerpot with a few inches of soil and leaf debris in it, twenty yards or more from where I'd left it last fall.  Maybe the wind carried it over there, or it might have been some animal.  It's a mystery.

Here's a closer view of Vaccinium/low bush.

I kept thinking about the search engine surprises.  After I came back
in the house, I was still thinking about them as I saved my pictures. 
When Greyfox called me from the library, I told him about some
half-amusing, half-disturbing search strings that had brought people to
my site today.  On my Footprints page, the "referrer" column is most interesting to me, seeing some of the sites that link to me, and reading the search strings people have entered in search engines that have led them to my site.

Below are tufts of bear hair clinging to a tree in my yard, about halfway between the house and the corner of our lot.

Someone early this morning found my site by entering in the Google search box, "Virginia Tech shooting was Illuminati plot."  Someone else arrived at my Xanga by searching with Google for, "Virginia Tech shooter had brain tumor."  The first one is mildly amusing and very intriguing.  I wonder if the searcher had heard somewhere that it was an Illuminati plot, or if this is someone who in inclined to believe that just about everything that happens is an Illuminati plot.  Of course, neither of my entries about the shootings mentioned the possibility of an Illuminati plot, but since I'd written about the Illuminati in days just preceding the shootings, that entry was still on the page.  I can imagine the frustration the searcher might feel upon sorting that out.

At first, I found that second search string mildly disturbing because I couldn't imagine how anyone might think that even if Cho Seung-Hui had a brain tumor, such information would be public at the time.  Then I realized two things:  (1) many people would either not have thought it through that far or would not understand that fact even if they'd thought about it, and (2) it is possible that if he'd been known to have a brain tumor before the shootings, it might actually by now be public knowledge.  I suppose it's safe to assume that an autopsy will be performed on Seung Cho, and that we may eventually learn if there were any gross abnormalities in his brain.  Neither of those assumptions, however, is a sure thing.

The image below was captured just around the corner from here, on the track to the cul de sac.  Today is the first time I have been able to walk out there since the snow got deep.  That looks like a big leather sack, torn open and spilling sawdust.  In a way, that's what it is.  It's a moose's stomachs.  Seeing it there, I saw some clues that suggested a few conclusions about the moose and how its gutpile came to be perched atop that big pile of snow.

It was a small moose.  That was evident from the size and shape of the
"nuggets" spilling from its intestine.  They were ovoid but more nearly
round than those of older, larger moose, and they were smaller than
those of a larger moose.  Also, during the winter I had seen only one
set of moose tracks in the neighborhood, and they were small footprints.

There was nothing here but the gutpile, no bones or skin, so even though it was probably an orphaned calf it wasn't killed by a four-legged predator.  The gutpile was located where the snowmobile trail crosses the cul de sac, and there was no road access to that spot, so the meat and hide were probably hauled away by snowmachine and the poacher might have approached the moose on the snowmachine trail, too.  It had to be a poacher, because moose season was over before snow fell last year.

The amount of snow under the pile and its early emergence suggest it was killed about two months ago, and that is about the time I noticed the moose tracks around here.

There was further evidence that this little moose had been staying in this area for a while before it was killed.  The willows in the lower left corner of the image below are about ten feet from the gutpile, and most of the willows in the immediate area have been eaten back as these have been.

Okay, that's it for the gross stuff, unless you think birch trees with their bark peeling off are gross.  I deliberately did not take any shots of other animal droppings, which are plentiful and fragrant this time of year.

Pussywillows are still the only flowers showing.

Now that I've got your attention....

Seriously, the title above was to have been my research project and blog entry for today.  I have been thinking about Chavin de Huantar (3,000 year old Andean archaeological site), the Mayan civilization of Central America, and the huge ancient city and ceremonial complex in north-central Mexico that was called Teotihuacan (place where men became gods) by the Aztecs when they moved into the area and found the ruins.  I know there are connections among those sites and the ancient cultures that lived there, and I wanted to learn more and then write about it.

UPDATE:  The project was finished almost two years later, and can be found HERE.

It's not going to happen today.  I'm too scattered, having a flare-up of ADD or something.  I did perform the task that Greyfox set for me, phoned in an order to a wholesaler who doesn't have a toll-free line, because he wanted the merchandise faster than he would have had it if he mailed them the order, and he can't use his cell phone or the free phones at the library or the credit union for toll calls.

Other than that, and keeping Doug and myself more or less fed after a fashion, all I have done today is flit from one thought to another and listen to show tunes from Avenue Q playing in my head.  First off, this morning I was hearing There's Life Outside Your Apartment.  I mentioned it to Doug, and about the time he complained that now he had the song running in his head, the one in my head switched to It Sucks to Be Me.  That just would not do, so I forced myself to switch to Schadenfreude:

I was thinking about etiquette today, too, as I stood over the sink slurping soup from the side of a bowl and shoveling the solid parts into my mouth with my spoon.  Introduced to etiquette as a pre-teen, I could see the reasons for some of the rules but a lot of it never made sense.  It wasn't the way I'd ever seen anyone eat, either, which is probably why the old woman for whom my mother was keeping house had told me to read Amy Vanderbilt and Emily Post.

The rules about closing your mouth to chew and not making pig noises as you eat do make sense to me, but they are not practical for someone with chronic sinus problems who needs to breathe through her mouth a lot of the time.  The strictly prescribed way to spoon soup away from yourself, lift the side of the spoon to your lips and tilt it to pour soup in without spilling or slurping... what a challenge!  I prefer shoveling it in, thank you very much.  My true preference, however, is a soup mug.  That's something Amy and Emily never covered.

Doug and I had a funny little shouting match recently.   I asked him for his opinion on something I had written.  He said, "No opinion."  It isn't unusual for him not to state an opinion, and as odd as it seems to me, I think there are many times when he really has no opinion.  Neutrality is his usual stance.

He chuckled at me when I groaned and expressed my opinion that he might try being a little more decisive.  Then I sighed and said, "Oh, well, if you had an opinion, I know it would be a positive one.  You'd like it."  I was baffled when he came back at me with something to the effect of, "How dare you!?"

"How dare I what?" I asked.

"How dare you dictate my opinions?" he asked with feeling, much more feeling than I ever get when I'm asking for opinions.

"Wait just a minute here," I said, "I'm not dictating anything.  I know you don't have an opinion.  I was just saying that if you were to have an opinion you would like my piece because it is a well-written and insightful piece and you are an intelligent person."

We went back and forth that way for a little while, with me laughing at the contretemps and Doug either being sincerely offended or credibly faking it.  I kept restating my position, that since I know my kid is no moron and can recognize good work when he sees it, I was simply saying that IF he were to form an opinion, his intelligent and informed opinion would acknowledge the obvious merits of my work.

I was laughing so hard all the way through this that I was having trouble making myself understood.  Eventually, I got him to laughing, too, and we had a great gigglefest for a while there.

  

Chocobos are nifty, too.