hey buddy, you got change?

I don't usually write posts in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday, that's because I am usually at work. Not today. Today I am curled up in my bed trying not to die. Actually, I feel fine, except for one small thing... every time I move the world starts spinning. So as long as I am staying relatively still I am fine. I'm guessing I have some inflammation of the inner ear going on. It started when I woke up this morning to use the bathroom at 4:45. I stumbled into the bathroom. I had just woken up from a dream that I was back at Carleton about to start my junior year. In the dream Jamie and I were joking about how we didn't have much time left at college which in the dream seemed so funny to us because we still had two whole years left. Two years in terms of college time seemed like forever. I woke up from the dream so sad. I wish I could redo my entire senior year. What a waste.

Anyways, so I woke up, stumbled into the bathroom, nearly missed the toilet and had to grab onto the wall to stop myself from falling into the shower. "Whoa!" I thought to myself, "how much did I have to drink last night?" I thought about it and realized I had nothing to drink the night before. There was no reason for the world to be spinning like this.

I finally managed to make it back to sleep and had a dream that Carol Burnett was my shrink. That has nothing to do with this story other than that it was really funny.

So here I am, hours later, having successfully wasted most of the day but starting to get very bored. Still have a bit of a fever and am trying to entertain myself without moving.

During my many hours of laying pathetically in my bed today I thought about a question that a friend had recently asked me. Would I be willing to get back together with my ex-boyfriend if he changed for me? Would I want him to?

That's a tough question. I've only ever had one boyfriend who tried to change me (Brian) and I really resented him for it. Yet, I think there are times when people can change and want to change and just need to be given the opportunity to change or need to be given a nudge.

I have made changes for boyfriends in the past and they were positive changes that either I didn't realize I needed to make until they showed me or that I needed help with changing. I've gotten better with money, better with communicating, and I've dropped some of my more annoying habits. Change can be good. Other people can help us become better/improve ourselves.

But to change FOR somebody? I think it has to be a change that you WANT to happen in your life. If you change just to make somebody happy then you will end up resenting them.

You want somebody to love your for who you are, faults and all. So you should be willing to love somebody else for who they are, faults and all. If you need them to change for you to love them, maybe that's not really love.

On the other hand, I believe you can love somebody and just not be compatible with them. Does that diminish that love?

I guess my answer is no. I don't want my ex to change for me. People need to make changes for themselves. If those changes just so happen to make them into people that I would get along better with, well who knows...

Remember the times

Michael Jackson is dead. Michael Jackson. King of Pop. Wacko Jacko. Whatever you want to call him, you can't deny the impact that he has had on this world. He was a talented man and his music has brought joy to so many people.

When I was a little girl I asked for his Bad album for Christmas. I ended up getting three copies!

How many times did I lip sync to Man in the Mirror as I watched myself in the mirror?

He's gotten some bad press but I have to be honest with you, I liked the man. So he hung his baby out over a balcony. Big deal. It's not like he dropped it! And while I think he could have used some better judgement with those kids, I doubt that he molested them.

I, like so many others, was watching some of his old videos tonight. He was a star. He just got it. You can't teach that. He was a natural performer. When he was up there singing you could see the light and the energy pouring from him.

And he was cool. Daring. Think about the things he did! The moonwalk. The crotch grab. The white glove. All those crazy outfits. He was a trendsetter.

On a side note, did you know the Sheryl Crow was once his back up singer?

My biggest regret is that I never got to see him in concert. He will be missed but his music will live on.

too hot to handle

Yesterday was hot. Oh so hot. It was so hot out that when I stood next to the balcony window and huffed on the window, the glass didn't even fog up. I'd never seen that before! 

I woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. That wouldn't have been that surprising seeing as how it was 80 degrees out but I had the air conditioner going full blast so I wasn't too hot. That's when I realized what it was- I had just broken a fever. No wonder I felt like such crap yesterday- I had a fever- but it was so hot out that I didn't even realize it! 

that's a first

I've written drunk emails before, it's true. Maybe even sent a drunk text or two. But last night was the first time I've ever written a drunk blog. 

I have to admit that upon waking up this morning, hungover as all get out, an image of myself plopped down in front of the computer popped into my mind. "Oh no!" I thought, "What did I write?"

I was pleasantly surprised to find the blogs that I wrote last night to be somewhat coherent. At least as coherent as the blogs I write sober in any case! 

What I find amusing though is that I didn't just write one drunk blog entry. I wrote three. What can I say, when you gotta blog you gotta blog. 

awesome book

I recently finished a book called Disabled Fables by Dan Montville. I highly recommend it. Don't just get it from the library. Go out and buy it. This man deserves your money.

The book is about a family that raises a disabled child named Oscar. Granted, this book meant slightly more to me because for a brief time in high school I dated Oscar's brother, Alex, but this book can and will touch anyone who reads it. 

Have you given to charity this month? Go to Amazon.com right now and by a new copy of Disabled Fables. It's the least you can do. 

The book is funny. Granted, I am a sucker for a good pun, but the book is seriously laugh out loud funny. And sweet. I may be PMSing but that does not at all diminish the fact that tears came to my eyes while reading this book. 

My uncle is mentally handicapped. You may not know that because it didn't affect my life much. My uncle was put in a home before I was even born. I thought that he had been in a home since he was born. That is not true, he lived with my father's family for many years. My Uncle Tommy, unfortunately, hates being around a lot of people. He is the middle child in a family of 15 children. Being around a lot of people was sort of unavoidable. As he got older it got to be too much for him and they decided for his safety that he would be better off in a home.

I've never even met him. He doesn't like new people.

But Oscar still lives at home. Wreaking havoc and winning hearts all at the same time.

It is so interesting to read a book about your friend's life while they were growing up. When I was dating Alex, I knew that he had a disabled brother. When we were talking on the phone my freshman year of high school ("Hey, whatcha doing?") I knew that he was making his brother peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kitchen but I never thought much of it. I also knew that he often had to call me back later because right then he had to go search for Oscar who had taken off again. 

I'm pretty glad that my parents haven't written a tell all book describing all the details of my pre-pubescent life.

But this book is very special and highlights the remarkable sacrifices that a family has to make when they have a child with disabilities. Yet at the same time it highlights the funnier side of it. 

On a side note, I was talking about this book with a client of mine who happened to have a brother with Downs Syndrome. She laughingly said, "Yeah, when I was growing up, I thought every family had a child with disabilities." 

This was because growing up her family not only belonged to, but started many support groups for parents with a child with disabilities. While the parents were at the meetings all the children were just thrown together. My client was even sent to the same summer camp as her brother. A camp for children with disabilities. All the children looked at her funny, because she was the weird one. 

I know that in this brief blog I haven't really captured what was so great about this book, but trust me, you should go out and  buy it. Come on, have I ever led you wrong in the past?

How much money is enough

Is there such thing as enough money?

Do you make enough money or do you wish you made more?

I often say that I have my dream job but I wish that they paid me 4x as much. I have enough to get by, but with 4x my salary I would have enough to take some awesome vacations, to put money in savings, help others in need and pay my taxes. What more would I need?

You sometimes hear about people who take jobs that they hate out of school just to pay their bills but once they get their bills under control they are going to find a job that they really like. 

For most people this is complete and utter bullshit. 

Once they get used to living at a life at $80,000 they can't imagine going down to a life at $40,000. You get used to living a certain way. 

I have a friend who I am proud to say took a job out of law school that he sort of hated. He didn't full on hate it. There were days that he enjoyed it, but for the most part it sucked. Yet, it paid a lot of money so he kept at it. Within two or three years he paid back ALL of his law school loans. And then what did he do? He quit that job and took a clerking position (at less that half his current salary) with regular 9-5 hours that he knew he would enjoy. I applaud that. 

Could you do that? Are you happy with the money you make? Would you cut your salary in half for a job that you loved?

I just waited twenty minutes for a cab. That might be an under estimation. I had, in fact, resigned myself to taking the #20 Madison bus at 12:20 AM.  To all of you non-Chicagoans that might not sound that bad, but to people in the know, that basically means that I had given up hope and resigned myself to riding through the ghetto in a trampy little black dress in the middle of the night. 

Let's just say, it would not have been good. But after the twentieth cab driver passed me up, I realized that the bus was not only a possibility, it was a probability.

And then... I saw it... a taxi cab... with its light on. A beacon of hope on this dark, humid summer night. 

When the driver saw that I was alone he decided to stop. He was sick of having groups of drunk kids in his cab. He drove me out to my house and we had a little chat. 

It was much different from the chat that I had with my cab driver in the beginning of the evening. My first cab driver was telling us one joke after another... Did you like the landscaping that they did in D.C. on inauguration day? Huh??? Yeah, didn't you see it? They got rid of all the Bushes! Ba-dum-bum!

This cab driver was a large black man who was a citizen of Israel. His people being sold into slavery was the last plague that they (the Bible) talked about. If you look in the records of Christopher Columbus and the like coming to America you will see that they called the land "New Egypt." And in West Africa in the jails where they held the slaves before they were shipped off you can see traces of the graffiti that the slaves wrote... in Hebrew! 

It was an interesting cab ride.