Questions

Question #1: What is the persistent, current need to have spandex in all jeans? Why can I not find any low-rise, flared-leg jeans that do not contain 90% spandex? Personally, I've found that straight up jeans do more to shape my body than the spandex variety. I *love* my butt in regular jeans. My butt is only only at the like level in spandex jeans. Plus, you put them on, and an hour later they're all stretched.

Question #2: Why do people insist on going into irritated mode on Monday mornings before my caffeine has kicked in? Hey, buddy, have you ever thought that maybe the fact that, whenever you call, he's always in a meeting or out is because...at the time you call, he IS in a meeting or out? It's not a conspiracy! Jeez!

Question #3: How does my dog psychically know when I'm going to brush his teeth? Damn stubborn mutt.

Question #4: Okay, no question, I just wanted to point out my fabulous new icon. Gotta love Christian Bale's chest. Yum.

Hormones talking

My mind is so scattered today...the ability to hold on to one coherent thought and keep running with it just hasn't worked. I blame my nose and heightened sense of smell today. I can smell every noxious odor, and it's giving me a headache. (I blame the really bad odors of electrical burning and roofing tar.)

But my mind has been landing randomly in crazy places.

1. I blame musesfool for the mention of spanking whilst I was thinking about the new Batman movie. I'm having really naughty thoughts about Bale now.

2. "Whilst" is a fun sounding word. I like it.

3. Did you know that you can now get regular Coke with lime? And in the mini-can variety at that.

4. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Thora Birch, Anna Paquin and Zooey Daschenel all ping the same "not outstandingly beautiful, but there's something so *arresting* about them" spot in my mind.

***

Found out something not surprising yesterday. My ex-best friend of 20 years, who I haven't spoken to (except for one 30 minute phone call) since my sister's wedding in June of 2003...she had cut off her mom as well. Her mother had been freaking and thinking that S. had chosen yet another guy that was abusive. I kept swearing that wasn't the case. My mom was agreeing with S.'s mom. I kept telling them...S. is consistent. She reacts in the exact same way to her mother. This is S. being a bitch to her mother, nothing more.

Here's the deal. Since about 5th grade (when we had our first real fight), S. has "fought" in the exact same way. She stops speaking to you. She won't tell you why she's mad, she just stops speaking to you. It's rarely logical or anything you see coming. And then, when she decides the fight is over, you're never to address *why* she stopped speaking to you.

When you're 13 years old and hate confrontation, it tends to be that you don't ever have it out. When you're 18 and hate confrontation, you still don't have it out. Me, I'm now 27, almost 28. I had just turned 26 at this last bout of insanity, when she stopped speaking to me. And you know, I know that in the past year I've changed a lot in my issues with confrontation, but that one bit, right after my sister's wedding...I think that was a life changer. She stopped speaking to me, so to cut her off from the whole "I'll call you when I'm good and ready" crap, I changed my phone number and didn't tell her.

Personally, I don't need that crap. I'm an adult. If you can't have a discussion with me about why you're unhappy with me, then get out of my space. I don't need the unnecessary drama. (Plus her elistist attitude that was suddenly being levied at me and was getting on my nerves. I'm stubborn, but she's an angel? I have horrible taste in music for liking pretty much anything, but she worships Led Zepplin and Tori Amos exclusively and knows all about good music? Online fandom is just freaky, and yet she can hole up in a house in the country with no outside contact at ALL...)

It's hard to explain, but all my life people have told me what I'm like. I'm weird, I'm stubborn, I procrastinate. And what I discovered is that them telling me means I recognized I was that way. And I noticed other things about myself. And the result is, I know my good attributes and my flaws. I also know the things about me that I'm happy with that others consider flaws (like the online fandom thing and obsession with NASCAR). You know what? I'm human. I'm not perfect. Trying to attain some level of perfection in others' eyes is useless. I can be the best me I can be, but no one else.

My ex-best friend...I really don't think she has any clue who she is. She has this vision of herself as super-worldly, above the masses, more enlightened...I don't know. But things she said about herself always struck me as narrow and not very insightful.

Anyway, where all of this is leading in connection with her mother. I predicted that S. was mad at her mom about something. Probably something to do with her daughter. S.'s mom had her birthday the other day, and S. actually called and said "Happy Birthday" (and then hung up). And due to S.'s mom getting through to S.'s significant other recently, we all got one confirmation: S. was mad at her mom about something and refused to discuss it.

*sigh*

Human nature is human nature. People behave in easily predictable patterns when you know them well enough. I knew her for 20 years. I have now pointed out to my mom that, once S.'s mom has sufficient contact with S. again and things are "smoothed over", the key is not to let things happen like that again. She has to be clued in to S.'s moods. If she notices the huffy sigh, the eye rolling, the short, curt answers...call her on it. Flat out say "Tell me why you're getting mad at me, because I refuse to do the whole 'no talking' thing again." Will it work? Probably not. S. needs therapy. She was a spoiled only child who blames her mother for far too much in her life and doesn't bother to actually try and work things out - who instead reverts back to the behavior of a 12-year-old.

Jeez, the fact that I can psychoanalyze someone with no degree and can tell her patterns of behavior so easily...LOL God it's fun when I can step back and look at it dispassionately. Thank god I'm at that stage now.