My boss and…those people. I love him anyway.

Read yesterday: The Narcissistic Family (ouch!)
Read today: Blue Like Jazz (insightful, raw, practically poetry)
Reading tomorrow: Lamb

Movie reviews:
Finding Neverland – If I had additional thumbs…well…I’d add them to the two that are already opposable and pointing up for this flick. It was magnificently romantic and clever, and I loved it even if it did make me boo-hoo just a smidge.
Closer – What a fucking downer. Morbid, melodramatic, and ugly. A horrible, horrible story with mean, shallow characters. Who wants reality on a screen? I go to the cinema to escape. Skip it.

The same comfort found in the familiar can very easily breed disappointment – even resentment and anxiety. There’s just something about a fresh place with unfamiliar faces and no one knowing you secrets. Isn’t there? Life without a BlackBerry and a cell phone and God forbid, dare I say it? Without a computer.

I find phenomenal solace walking crowded city streets, surrounded by the exotic and the curious. Just as I find ease and rest sitting on the bank of a random river in a town whose name either escapes me or can’t be properly pronounced. Somewhere – anywhere – where my dreams, my fears, and my heart can not be exploited.

As a young woman, my father was continually having to remind me that “there’s no such thing as a geographical solution”.

I think he might have been wrong. Maybe just this once.

Perhaps the shift I’m craving is just a life intermission. It’s feasible a six month sabbatical would do the trick, and that I’d be content in a tree house in Fiji or a shack in Nepal or a hut in New Zeland if I had a decent laptop and high-speed access. Oh, I’m already slipping.

If you’ve called my cell in the last few days, you know I’ve decided to spend my two week “sanity break” largely in seclusion. I’m sure you’ll also be shocked to read that I have, in fact, turned off the CrackBerry. I know, I’ll allow you a moment to regroup.

I need to rest my mind, collect my priorities and identify some sort of organizational system for them so I don’t find them in a tangle at the bottom of my purse again.

Several books I’ve been *meaning* to read have made their way to a spot on the coffee table that’s full of promise. I’ll stretch my legs and ingest just as much air as my baby lungs will allow, take in the sunshine or the murky sky and whatever bits of the moon and daylight that either would care to show me.

As of this writing I’ve already watched 3 of the 5 movies I’ve been also *meaning* to see, run countless painful errands and moved Grover to a deluxe bowl so he has plenty of room to chase his blue, blue shadow.

In any case, I thank you all for understanding my need to invest time rekindling the love affair between my body, my mind and my soul.

I wish you all merry, memorable holidays and a completely brilliant and magical 2005.

“She can fix a leaky sink but can’t stop her own tears.”

More for the end of the year reflection/improvement/thought plan. I got this via an e-mail ages ago, and just found it again cleaning my inbox. It’s a short list of simple truths we all struggle to remember in the rush of existence, and items for which we may not credit ourselves.

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
2. Don’t believe all you hear.
3. When you say , “I love you”, mean it!
4. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams.
5. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.
6. Don’t judge people by their relatives.
7. Talk slowly but think quickly.
8. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
9. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
10. Remember the three R’s: Respect yourself, Respect others, and have Responsibility for your own actions.
11. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
12. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational kills will be as important as any other.
13. Spend some time alone.
14. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
15. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
16. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.
17. Trust in God, but lock your car!
18. Read more books and watch less television.
19. In disagreements with loves ones, deal with the current situation…don’t bring up the past.
20. Pray. There is immeasurable power in it!
21. Mind your own business.
22. Once a year, go somewhere you’ve never been before.
23. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck.
24. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
25. Remember that your character is your destiny.

I found the time yesterday to visit Sweetwater – one of my “happy” places. This time, I took the camera along so you could share a slice of what makes it so magical.

A little evidence of the fun had Saturday night with my REI pals…none of the brutal stuff…gotta hold something back, don’t I?