“There’s no higher endeavor than responsible parenting. It’s right up there with Mother Theresa in my book. It takes everything: courage, faith, love and sacrifice.” -Michael Carignan

“A parent needs to be truly present. A parent should be able to reflect back to the child the love and light that they bring into the world.” -paraphrasing Jane Fonda from yesterday’s Oprah Winfrey show

I can’t imagine what God is preparing for me
Those mysterious ways
Have stretched my heart to its widest

I’m so ready to give and receive
Where are you? And how has life tested you?
How have you arrived at me
More ready to make Love with me than any man before?

And if life really is what the women say it is:
A series of undeniable nudgings and signposts along a preordained path of enlightenment,
This is surely good timing.

My confusion is for my probing
Your pain is for your pondering
God has given us this time
So that we may know our deepest desires
And purify ourselves of our deepest flaws

Arrive at me knowing what your heart is capable of
We need a common understanding of Love
So that we may never retreat away from each other into the dark corners of our hearts

I want to pulse off you
Always
Resonate
Reverberate
So we can amplify
And fill our world with
Light, Laughter, and Love

Does nail biting satisfy an oral fixation or a finger sensation?

My guess is its an oral fixation. If this is the case, why do nail biters not like to chew gum? (I only have 2 data points on this!)

Is there something else they could chew/bit/suck on that would satisfy the nervous tension? Is it the texture of the nail and repeated biting/eating that provides the stress relief? Or is it the pain of cutting close to the nail bed? Or is it the removing of an imperfection from the edge of the nail (which ultimately perpetuates a cycle of unhealthy/imperfect nail edges).

My nervous habit of choice has never been nail biting (a habit which has already shown up in my 5-year-old housemate), but for me it is hair texture obsession. I get some kind of trance-like calming/focus sensation from running my nails down a hair shaft searching for imperfections. I’ve done this from at least age 11 I think. When I find an imperfection I break the hair at that point and inspect it.

Looking for parallels, I’m wondering if the hair pulling is stimulating for the scalp, which helps disperse electrical mental energy around the skull. Just as nail biting might direct mental energy toward the front of the skull, perhaps activating the frontal lobes? Or perhaps both nervous habits are simply triggered by a lack of motion/exercise in athletic creatures, a way of activating the hands to deal with excess energy stores.

Why don’t schools teach us
How to love each other?
Why is love ed
Reserved for Sunday school and broken homes?
15 minutes a week of wisdom
Would keep
Thousands of men and women
From giving up on themselves
And doubting life’s abundance
Why are 70-year-old men
Still worried about wives cheating?
No one showed them how to be happy
Misery finds company

Steve Martin’s 5 Christmas Wishes!

*31-day orgasm once a year
*Revenge over enemies
*Absolute power over every living being
*$30 million a month tax-free in a Swiss bank account
*All the children of the world to hold hands and sing in peace and perfect harmony

I love this! Such a great commentary on the human condition :-)

Up at mom & dad’s house over Christmas holiday, and trying to explain why making 100K/year working for the oil industry is totally unattractive to me, even with the option of bankruptcy looming. It feels like a step backward, not forward; I have nothing more to offer/learn from them; I am not at all interested; there are more important things than money, etc. None of these reasons appeases my father, and I remind him that I have not asked for his advice on the matter.

All I can think to do is keep exposing myself more socially in my city, keep reading/learning about things that interest me, and keep my eyes open for opportunities.

www.astrobarry.com

This reading was scarily timely:

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You've hit a critical checkpoint in the battle to see your worldly ambitions manifest a significant outward impact. Having put so much blood, sweat and tears on the line, Aries, you should now be recognizing how much advancement you've made… and how much further there still is to go. You in-the-moment Aries folks are renowned for being better at starting things than following through to the end with them, though the unavoidable challenge ahead requires you to maintain a strategic perseverance (perhaps over several years even) that consistently prioritizes this ultimate goal over the minute-by-minute impulses to dash toward something more immediately exciting. That's not to say you won't have plenty of that impulsive get-up-and-go—it picks up again once Jupiter re-enters Aries next month. However, no matter how the temporary bursts of momentum come and go, charge and sputter, you've got to chomp down unwaveringly on that golden key to future fulfillment like a dog who'd maul anyone that tries to take his bone. This is not an easy posture to hold for long spans of time, and therefore it's perfectly acceptable if you're reaching the realization you don't have the wherewithal or desire to 'see it all the way through'. Be honest with yourself: Either recommit to adamantly refusing to budge from this dream, or come to peace with your urge to try a different dream for a while.

This is a fitting poem for this rainy day. It was written by a man (Sufi poet Hafiz), and I am dedicating it to the men in my life who have loved and lost, and question whether they can love again:

"There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.

In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,

That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,

Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife

Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain.

Others are far, far too deep
For that."