So, I have an audible.com membership, since I'm home working and have wireless headphones, which has been nice. I don't make time to sit and read a book during the evenings because I enjoy spending my time talking to friends or watching tv. But during the day, I can work and listen to books (sometimes, anyway).

Here's a few of the books I've been listening to:

Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson: I'm not a big 'relationship/marriage' book, but this one came at high recommendation. It concentrates a lot on the biological need for connection - it affects everything, including the immune system. For this analysis alone, this book has been worth the read. While it is obviously applicable to our primary partnerships, I've been looking at this more openly, relating it to more intimate friendships. All of our bonds deserve this healthy analysis in order to be our best for other people. It should be not be a surprise to anyone that I enjoy behavioral analysis.

Socialnomics by Erik Qualman- At the point at which I am in the book, it still seems like it's an introduction to social media and why people use it. It's starting to introduce how some of the best corporations are utilizing it. It's still pretty basic at this point and not offering me anything I'm not familiar with. My boss recommended it though, so I'll finish it.

Bonk by Mary Roach - this is a little self indulgent, but it's a genuinely scientific study of sex and physiological reactions. I've only just started it but it's written with humor and is research-based.

I'm also trying to convince my boss to give me some more formal Social Media training, such as attending Social Media Magic's university. Does anyone have experience with these types of programs? I need guidance on creating a social media strategy and implementation plan.

Okay, you hot potatoes. My birthday is coming up and I wanna hang with you (probably, anyway). However, because this year my luck includes being crazy sick for 6 weeks with childhood diseases and being pulled over twice in a 5 minute span, my birthday is on a Wednesday. You can help this suck less. Because I'm awesome we should do something awesome to commemorate the advent of my existence.

(We're going to a wedding Saturday afternoon/early evening, so we should steer clear of planning for Saturday.)

Here's some options of things we could do:

- Drive to New Buffallo to that Four Winds casino. (So I'm not a huge fan of gambling, but there's nothing to do here and it's all fancypants up there, I hear.)
- Drive to Chicago and do something (Dave and Busters, maybe? Alternately, we could DDR at MegaPlay.)
- Have a boozin' BBQ at my house (we could do this on Wednesday, actually.) We could play excessive amounts of Guitar Hero World Tour. (This seems like the most likely option.)

Something I'd like to do- if anyone around here does it- is live band karaoke. There's a bar in Chicago that does it on Wednesday nights (though not this one), and it's a cool concept, so I hoped maybe someone here would do it, too. I'm sort of over karaoke bars. Singing over a recording is so 1989.

That, or we could book a band to play my birthday party. Somewhere. I think my neighbors might mind if a band rocked our back yard on a Wednesday night. Then again, it would drown out the sound of their dog yapping...

This is also a plea for your suggestions. What would you be most likely to be able to do and on what night? I'm an adult now, so this means planning my own birthday party is not actually in poor taste, right? Whatever. I'm a MAVERICK, and that's what we MAVERICKS do.

About 3-4x a year i come to this place where I become dissatisfied with my current path in life but have no ideas about how to change it. It’s that season now.

My spirit tells me I was meant for more than this, but logically I know that there’s nothing remarkable about me that would get me where I feel that I belong. I’m increasingly more certain that I’ve missed the boat on what I was supposed to do and that I will regret it for the rest of my life.

Man, I've just realized something sort of epic.

I've forgotten how to be alone.

I used to be alone a lot as a kid. I was an only child. I enjoyed it. I'd sit in my room for hours with a keyboard in my lap and a "boom box" on record, plunking stupid shit out over a mechanical beat and writing stupid lyrics that made little sense. For HOURS. I had notebooks of songs, a typewriter I used to write stories, stacks of books I'd read by flashlight, under the covers.

Even 5 years ago, when it was a computer in the basement, I would sit on irc but I was still writing poetry, taking photos, designing shitty webpages, making candles, learning guitar, cooking, even gardening.

Now, if I'm alone, I'm grasping at my Sidekick (Who's online right now that wasn't 3 minutes ago? Surely I have some unanswered email! Hmm, what's happening on my flist?) or playing Guitar Hero. I can't even get on the eliptical without my Sidekick right in front of me.

I'm ashamed admit that this has been the downfall of all my creativity, but I'm afraid that it has.

Sometimes I feel like I've traded my intelligence and originality for what may be passing relationships. It's unsettling, frankly. I have to think that there's some way to make these relationships turn into something more. I realize that these are the "new" friendships (the "new" networking), this is what things are coming to. I wonder if I'm just not adjusting to that well and that maybe I'm abusing the system.

But frankly, I also attribute being able to maintain my close friendship with my BFF to our constant availability. We can share everything together, be a part of each other's lives even when we're over a hundred miles away. Because we don't talk on the phone unless it's necessary (I think I've gotten more concert calls from her than voice calls), but even just an IM here and there to say "argh, someone's using the washing mashine in the laundry room" tells me enough about what's going on with her evening to make me feel like I'm there, in a sense. And I want to be. Or, I can go to the bar and drunk IM with her, because I want her to be there. In that way, I can still share the experience with her (especially when there's the likelihood I won't remember it later to retell).

What's the solution, does anyone know? Trev would tell me to just shut the damned phone off, walk away, find a quiet room and do something.

And maybe I should disconnect- even for an hour a day if I can. Go read a book, read my Rolling Stone, braid a rug, or take a walk with my camera.

Surely I'm not the only one going through this. I'd love to get everyone's thoughts on it. What's the right amount of constant availability/connectivity?

take me away
I know I could use the rest

This week has been seriously shitty, even work has been full of drama. I'm sure it's accentuated by the fact that I have started every day this week with a screaming toddler and a massive headache. It is not clear if those two are independent of one another, but it is much worse already today than it usually is by dinnertime. Last night, it was down in my neck and my shoulders until I couldn't take it anymore and went to bed early, on the verge of tears.

I hope it's not my new contact prescription, as I rather enjoy seeing just slightly better. I need good drugs, seriously. Advil and Tylenol by the handful aren't cutting it.

This headache business has also kept me from finishing the photo meme, so I'm hoping I can pick that up again soon.

I do not know how people who have toddlers who are like this all the time manage to function. I've totally been wearing an imaginary "Mommy drinks because you cry" t-shirt this week.

Speaking of, I visited my brother this past weekend, and played Life for the first time with my nieces. Yes, I'd never played the game of Life. My parents did not like games, so I didn't play them. I did win, though. I was a superstar turned artist, and I lived in a tiny little colonial house. I had one child of my own and adopted twins.

My brother mentioned at some point in a conversation (appropriately over bottles of Sol, my new favorite beer) that when it happened, his father was appalled to hear that our mother had aquired a drinking problem as she'd never been much of a drinker. She'd apparently tried other stuff and smoked a bit (as it was the 70s), but no one ever thought she'd pick up drinking.(I'd make a really tasteless joke here about how I must have really been an especially terrible toddler, but I came along too late in to drive her to drink. Yes, when I don't feel well, I make completely inappropriate statements that only I am allowed to make.)

I'm watered down and fully grown

Trev's mom is coming to get her tomorrow morning to keep her and Trev's other niece, Hannah and I could not be happier about this. Instead of wasting the day away, I think I might clean the kitchen hutch out, and maybe the coat closet. Could my life BE any more exciting?

Trev's sick with what is probably a sinus infection, and I'm coming down with the sniffles, too.

It's sad we pretty much have to wait until we're grandparents to finally have the time to actually just enjoy our kids.

That said, I appreciate that I'm able to live a diverse life and bring that experience and wisdom back to my daughter. I want to be able to live young enough that I can stay relevant, aware and empathetic to my kid and their world. I've also learned enough from my mom to know that parents never believe they were the best parent that they could be, but they just hope that they did alright by their kids. I'm trying to just accept that insecurity.

All of your thoughts and conversations over the last couple of weeks have been helpful.

( I think you guys see by now that I go through these biannual identity crisis where I re-evaluate where I am in life, what direction I'm pointed at, what kind of person I am. )

I don't know what I have to do, to do all that, but I'm trying really hard to sort it out, to sort myself out.

Thanks to everyone on their responses to my end of the world post. People are all over the board really. It's a fascinating study.

I had to think quite a lot about my responses, and for a few days I was a bit all over the place about it, too. My initial concern was that maybe I'd go crazy, that I'd abandon everything and go about being a heathen (moreso than usual).

Upon further reflection, I think that while I might do some of the things I always wanted to, I suspect what I'd end up doing is what I love most - taking care of people.

So hey, let this notice serve: If that time comes... Cobra Starship dance party at our house. Bring your sleeping bags and all the food and booze you can carry.

"If the world is ending, we're throwing the party."