Fair’s fair.  If some of you want to get even, go for it.  Virgos are famous for being able to dish it out but not take it.  But I am making an appointment with the shrink to talk about being well-adjusted so lay it on me.  You people know me now, as well as anyone, since I spill my guts here on a regular basis.  If you’ve seen something the shrink and I might want to talk about, now’s the time.  And you can just ramble on like I did.

Edited to add:  my list for you is random; in no apparent order.

buyit  suggested I list my five impressions of you so, for everyone whose name I see on the previous post, I will comment beneath here.

I must seem terribly self-absorbed.  But, hey, this is my journal so if not here, where?  And who better with than ya’ll.  I hope you’ll go along with this because I think it could be interesting.  Most of you know each other or at least you’ve been reading each other’s comments for long enough to have a pretty good picture by now.  What if we listed the first five adjectives that come to mind when we think of ourselves.  I’ll do it and then you do it in your comment.  I’m anxious to see how you’d describe yourself, how that will compare to my impression of you.

And I think we should list them in the order of their dominance.  I know this will be hard and all I can think of at this point is well-adjusted:).

1.  honest

2.  scattered

3.  good-natured

4.  what’s the word for ignoring household chores for longer and longer periods of time while spending more and more hours with the stock market and writing and classes and …

5.  inspired

6.  unrealistic

I felt like I had to add a sixth one to balance it out because while it’s great to be inspired, if it’s at the expense of reality, as I fear it might be, then I need to look at that.  I’d say these were my dominant tendencies.

I can’t wait to see what you say about yourselves.

It’s 2:00 a.m. and I can’t sleep.  I keep thinking about the fact that a friend of mine doesn’t see me as well-adjusted.  I would go as far as to say I might very well define myself as well-adjusted.  The thing is I trust their judgment.  And I think they have a pretty good idea of who I am.  So that only leaves the idea that I don’t.  That’s intriguing, don’t you think?

I might not have made that leap, had they not made some comments about their writing which I found to be utterly false.  People can have such funny ideas about themselves and it’s unnerving to find you may be one of the many deluded.

I was talking today with the oldest, who is even better than I at reading people.  She made the comment that lately she just can’t tell, that people surprise her all the time.  I don’t know why I mention this except that maybe all those assumptions I make about patients or even all of you, maybe those are off, too.

The idea that your perceptions are off, especially about yourself, well it’s just limitless. 

Ahhh, what a day.  What a weekend.  It’s always a little bit of a letdown come Friday night.  The market’s closed and will be for two whole days.  I can only imagine what scary things are transpiring after hours.  My oldest called Saturday morning, though, so I forgot all about my stocks and met her for lunch.  She works on Hawthorne, a trendy street in southeast, and after she went back to work I took the necklace we’ve been making and went to the bead store for some more beads.  Mostly for help because there was something off about it, and I couldn’t tell what.  Sure enough the color of the fill was wrong plus there wasn’t enough of it.  I LOVE playing with beads. 

Saturday night I took the youngest to dinner and grocery shopping.  Her dad kicked her out so she’s living with a friend.  I’m too far away is the reason she won’t come here, though I know she much prefers staying with the friend.  He told her if she didn’t take her SATs, and if she was determined to get her septum pierced she could go live somewhere else, he didn’t want to have to look at her.  Told her she was stupid, etc.  She moved all her stuff out, and he called the next day to say he didn’t mean it. Even though her motives are mixed I am proud of her for getting off the dole.  She has been working almost full-time, getting out of high school after lunch to go work until 7:00 every night.  She has saved $4,000 for her trip.  This is why she’s not taking the SATs, because she’s going to travel.  She wants to write:).

Sunday morning I went to church of all things.  I have been in the mood for weeks, and I finally did it.  It was lovely.  I really like this church because of the music and the windows and the people.  Next week I’m staying for coffee and cookies.  It’s a place I discovered in 1988 but I hadn’t been back since they sent my children home with something to color that said they were sinners.

Today I got my first issue of Investors Business Daily and I am having such fun pouring through it with my marker.  I can’t believe how far I have come.  I had a fabulous day with my stocks, where those picks that had been a gamble are really starting to pay off.  I can’t wait to see what the tape (ticker-tape at the bottom of the screen) looks like in the morning. 

In response to eneventure :  I think what it means is that the Xanga people have found some new marketing tool they can use that requires more information from us.  Maybe not more information but it would really help them out if we updated their files:)  Because when I got those Emails from my favorite people I, of course, went to do it.  But when prompted to start filling stuff out I baulked.  People, we are already friends.  Let’s keep it here.

Tonight’s is protected but you’re all on the list.

It’s official, I have a short story in a magazine.  And since several of you wanted to know, here’s the link:  www.lulu.com/wingspan   I’m kind of embarrassed about it;  the ending seems too abrupt so maybe you’ll be the only people I tell.  But my hat is off to the folks at Wingspan Quarterly, they did a great job on their first issue.  

I had every intention of writing another short story or resubmitting the two they declined, somewhere else.  But I lost my momentum.  Not that I really had any.  I think short stories are hard.  I like novel writing better.  And blogging.

And cooking.  Here’s the fabulous new recipe I made tonight.  It was in the paper.

Sun!  We’ve got sun!  I took Bridget to the park and she ran her ass off.  I love how she is with other dogs, kind of like me at a party.  Except that she’s more of a pistol and she gets a little too worked up.  There was a young doxie who started making playful gestures.  I wouldn’t say aggressive except that when you take on a dog five times your size, you’ve got some moxie.  So Bridget gets into it and pretty soon the dog who had been running with her, trying to catch her — When I show up at the park if there’s a dog who can really run, the two of them immediately find each other — he gets jealous and starts barking at Bridget and this pint-sized thing.  This unnerves the doxie and riles Bridget, who picks up on the sudden insecurity.  Frolicking turns to taunting.  I HATE this about my dog.  And I believe it’s my fault for letting her have so much power around here.  It’s hard to get her attention when she gets crazed like that.  I had to race over there and use my cane to encourage her in a different direction, like a sheepherder.  It came in handy but I wondered what the onlookers thought.  Not that I give a shit, really.  I took the cane to protect my knee from the irritating habit Bridget has of leading whatever dog is chasing her, over to wrestle under my feet.  One or both of them crash into my bad knee so now I place the cane in front of my knee just in case. 

I’m going to go pick up fir bows while the sun’s still out. 

Today I went to see a friend’s condo in the Pearl.  Located in the newest, most heavily planned part of Portland, I was anxious to see how it turned out.  They had moved their mother in but were going to retire there once she was older and needed to go to a place which provided meals and nursing.  Today was that day, four years too soon.  They still have a kid in high school and will need to stay in the district so it’s going on the market. 

Most of the furniture was gone, which helped me imagine living there.  I’ve always wondered how it would feel to look out on the city, just a few floors up from where I shopped.  This was a corner unit with a deck overlooking the park.  In the summer you would look down at the outdoor tables of the cool new Mediterranean restaurant that’s on the main floor.  For those of you who know Lovejoy and 11th, in the Pearl, you know what kind of planning I’m talking about.  It’s a new kind of city with a trolley, so you don’t need a car.  But if you had one you could park it underneath.  The idea of owning a parking spot in the Pearl was too good to be true.

My friend was heartbroken as we peered through the window of the restaurant’s bar.  “This was going to be my place,” she said, and it did look cozy.   Starbucks was across the street and I think Whole Foods was a couple blocks up.  Everywhere you looked it was beautifully landscaped and clean, clean, clean.  As we were leaving I noticed a man leading two standard poodles into the building.  His hair was fluffed out like his white dog’s.  “Everyone here has dogs,” she said. 

I could almost imagine it, maybe if I were 70.  Standing up on the deck I’d felt like it was my city, my neighborhood.  After a while you’d come to recognize all the neighbors and their dogs.  I liked it.  I don’t need any condo with immaculate grounds.  I’d rather be in some funky place with some real street action.  But I could see myself, sitting on a deck with one of those container gardens, waving to people.