Brilliant ** Therefore, I hereby nominate Jim Paxon for the position of "Mr. Arizona," wherein if anything ever happens in our state, Jim Paxon is in charge of beating it, killing it or shaming it into moving to New Mexico.
Posted 9:56 AM by Kerry O.

Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart ** I found this post this morning, referred by Gretchen. And I am moved. What a wonderful explanation of why Halley goes to church. Furthermore, it's almost exactly the explanation I would give if pressed. And to boot, my church, and the church I grew up in are both UCC churches, like Halley's. I know religion isn't everyone's cup of tea, and there are times when it's not mine. But it gives me that basis of security and faith that I need - especially on days like yesterday. And when Ember (who has in AA - she's always had major issues accepting religion, but is spiritual), Kendra (hippie chick friend) and I were talking last week, the conversation went something like this:

Ember: Well, God will take care of that for me. That's what I'm trying to accept.
Kendra: Um... ?
Kerry (joking): Oh, yeah, Kendra, Ember's found God.
Kendra: Really? That's cool.
Ember: Well, I'm working on it. (laughs)
Kerry: More accurately, Ember has found faith for the first time that there just might be a God.
Ember: Exactly.

That's what it's all about, folks. It's not about the literal translation of "God" for some. For others, belief in one singular, physical and all-powerful object of perfection is what's believed. For most, it's somewhere in the middle. For me, it's faith that there is something to this God idea, and that something is goodness, and justice, and peace, and charity, and love. I have to believe that. And that's part of why I go to church.
Posted 9:46 AM by Kerry O.

Better ** I'm feeling a great deal better today. I told some of my friends, basically, to go away for a while. Things have just gotten too crazy lately, and I need to re-group. Last night, I was hoping to spend the evening with Joe - we had an unfinished fight from the night before (in case you couldn't tell). But he had to sleep and go to work last night. As it turned out, he stayed up a little while, I said my peace, and things seem on their way back to very pleasant. I also cleaned much of the house, which does wonders for my mood. When he went to sleep, I had time to cuddle with the dog, read, and think about things. I'm in a much better place today. Besides, today is pay day (money has been part of my stress lately...) and Friday and P.F. Changs day. How can I not be happy about that?!

Sorry you had to hear me rant yesterday. Sometimes it just gets to be too much and I need to vent. This is like a moderately-censored journal in that regard, and you get to ride along on my groovy roller coaster.
Posted 8:34 AM by Kerry O.

Enough is enough ** I am fed up. Why does everybody in the world think I have to be perfect? I don't understand it. I'm probably PMS-ing, but this is friggin' ridiculous. Apparently, now, I'm a horrible fill-in-the-blank. I'm a crappy friend, a crappy wife, a crappy everything. Fine. I cut people so much slack, I try not to make demands on them, I try to be patient. So why the hell does everyone get mad at me when I'm not perfect? I do not have enough time in the day to be perfect! Something has to give, and maybe I'm spending too much time trying to keep everyone happy. Maybe I need to tell everyone to back the hell off, go away, find someone else to pin their blame and anger on. Just leave me alone and let me live my life! Ugh! All I want to do is curl up in a ball and hide for a while. I'm sick of all this drama!!!
Posted 8:50 AM by Kerry O.

Only on NPR ** I just heard them listing events this evening on the radio. Apparently there is a concert at a rock venue known as Bash on Ash tonight by someone called Hay-zoos Jones (a/k/a Jesus Jones). Hmmm, maybe the announcer needs some night classes in being hip.
Posted 5:03 PM by Kerry O.

Cheap thrills ** It is truly amazing what happens to your utterly crappy day when someone hands you a great big box of your first-ever, bright, shiny, beautiful business cards. With my name on them. And my phone number. And pretty embossed Prudential Financial logos. That totally made my day. Have you ever seen that Monster.com (I think) commercial where the guy gets a job, he's sitting in his little cubicle, someone hands him a box of his own business cards, he opens it up and pulls one out... and sniffs it?! I did that. :-) Only they didn't smell like anything but plain ol' paper. Boring!
Posted 4:50 PM by Kerry O.