Stage directions

Another night with that heavy shouldered, itchy eyed, restless leg feeling that means I should go to bed. Instead I'm here at the keyboard. Again. Damn it.

There are times when I feel like I'm seriously off kilter, and then there are days like today when I wonder if I'm the sanest person in my little corner of the world. That's not exactly a hopeful thought. A truer picture is that I love a lot of drama queens, and tonight, only God/dess knows why. I sure don't. Maybe the idea of making a big fuss if things didn't go my way got trained out of me early. Maybe I'm just too used to settling and need to learn to kick up a bigger fuss. Maybe I'm just a damn good friend for the drama queens of this world. After all what good is the world being a stage if no one is in the audience.

However I bounced from one grandiose performance after another today. Hell, I'm too tired to think of the perfect Shakespearean counterparts for comparisons. I promise there was almost one perfect pre- out, out damn spot Lady Macbeth in the bunch, but the other characters slip beyond my tired brain. I think it's accurate to say that I've dealt with women who think they do run the world, ought to run the world, used to run the world and one day will eventually run the world. Me, I've just been run around, over and out, and I'm sitting here wondering why I didn't just say to everyone, "Just shut the fuck up." Well, I did come awfully close, closer to really blowing my top with anyone outside the family than I have in a long time, but it involved taking care of the womanchild. Interesting, that was what made me blow the last time. Valuable Life Lesson: don't piss off a mother lion, even if she's deluded herself into thinking she's a rabbit.

All I wanted was to work at a deliberate, accurate pace, the kind that wins races, the kind that leaves you with that burst of energy at the end to have a big finish. Then I wanted to relax with a little peace and a few laughs. I wanted to enjoy weighing in tonight at Weight Watchers, and I did for about the five minutes it took me to realize that I really had lost a little over 6 pounds this week. (That makes 13 pounds in two weeks, a big beginning. This is typical of a diet for me, a huge start that rapidly slows in a couple of weeks. That's when it will get hard.) Instead I let other people blow it for me.

I truly value my tact and general soft-spokenness, but I have got to get more assertive. I've been called a bitch before and sweetly said thank you. I can do it again.

assertiveness