I'm now the Webmaster for the big computer user group I belong to. So tonight I wanted to spend time updating the website - doing my job. So naturally my fiance decided that my desire to code was an insult of some kind to him. And he took offense that I wanted to code. Apparently he assumed that since it is Friday night, we were going to get together. I wasn't against that but I just let him know I will be coding. So he gets all in a huff about that? We don't get together every Friday night. We didn't have plans. I have my kids this weekend, which generally means I'm probably not going somewhere.

I don't see where he gets off being offended that I wanted to work on the club website.

He promptly threatened to go to a party he knew about. Evidently this was bait; I didn't take it.

You know what? I don't like being suspected every time I turn around...I think he is suspecting me of something, though I'm not sure of what.

I am an industrious person. I like to code. That makes me a bad person?

I think not.

I should put up with this kind of stress?

Why?

Well, life is too weird. What can I say.

Who would have thought it was so difficult to trust a man again? I begin to see I was really damaged by my failed marraige. I like to say all my trust circuits are burnt out, but I just noticed how terribly true that is. I hope I am capable of someday trusting whole heartedly and simplemindedly again. Right now I am not capable.

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I finished taking a Project Management class today, I slept through half the class and got a 92 on the final exam. That should tell you how valuable the class was.....n't.

I have good children. But they will grow up and maybe they will go away. One already did.

I also have a good cat. But she is old and sometime probably within the next 7 years she will go away too. Each year that goes by, the risk of her going away increases.

I face a risk that I will end up living alone.

What can I do to mitigate this risk?

1. Get another cat
2. Get married

Which mitigation strategy costs less money?

This is a no-brainer. Get another cat.

Which mitigation strategy will have a greater impact on my life?

This is also a no brainer. Get married.

Which solution would I rather pursue?

Now we are getting into the problem area. I tend to think I would rather do both.

Is the risk of being alone an acceptable risk? Should I do nothing about it?

If I do nothing about it, it is definite that I will eventually be alone. Is it likely that this will bother me?

Let's look at the historical data. I have been alone from time to time when both my kids were away. The cat was with me. The cat's presence did not help at all. I felt terrible. But let's analyze the situation a little. Was I lonely because I was alone for the night, or was I lonely because I missed the babies?

If it is simply that I missed the babies, then my problem is Mama Hormones. I can handle being alone. It depends on what mood I am in. In one mood, I crave to be alone. In another mood, the emptiness of the house makes me crazy.

At this point, then, I will do nothing about the risk of ending up alone. I am not convinced, yet, that I need to do anything.

People are always talking about finding themselves. They say you should spend time alone and get to know yourself. I do not think I have every really REALLY spent time alone. Maybe I don't even know myself. I am not sure about that. Maybe I do know myself, very very well, and maybe that's why I don't feel the need to spend time alone.

I wonder where C. hides the toilet paper.

Anyway, I'll think about it tomorrow.

--Scarlett O'Hara

Well. I am home from date with fiance. Changed my mind and went to party with him tonight. I went with no expectations. I had a bad mood going in, but I know from past experiences that if I start out with a bad mood, things will go from bad to worse, guaranteed. So I tried to lighten up before I arrived. Got the no-expectations thing going on. He surprised me right away...when I walked into his house, he looked me over and smiled and said "You look good " in that guttural way he has....very sexy.

I was not expecting any such reaction from him.

I guess I was not smiling....he tried every little thing he could think of to get a laugh out of me without being obvious about it....but I know him and I noticed what he was doing. All the way to the party he kept chatting with me and by the time we got there I was feeling pretty good and had laughed, so I guess you can say the ice was broken.

Everybody there came up to me and was so happy to see me....they had all noticed that I wasn't there last night, but he was there without me. All night long people came up to me. I liked that feeling...I know a lot of people well enough that they noticed that I was not there.

I didn't expect to play, but we did play...basically he gave me a spanking. That was supposed to be a scene, but I know what the subtext was. Punishment. Clearing the air. Venting the resentments...

After the party we went back to his house and from there I went on home to my house. On the way home I realized I had fallen in love with him all over again....turned me all the way around...So I called him up when I got home and told him so. He said, What, did you fall out of love with me? I said, I wouldn't say that. He said Well it's nice to know that somebody loves me. Then he added, I didn't fall out of love with you.

The man has a snappy comeback for absolutely everything. He is never at a loss.

I enjoyed being part of our "couple" tonight at the party. It was a good night. It felt right to me.

I have been attending AA meetings for a number of months now though I am not an alcoholic. I go because my fiance goes.

I think I am finally starting to get the AA idea.

I have a problem controlling what I eat, especially at night.

On Wednesday I got on the scale for the first time in a week. I looked. It said 169. I freaked out!!!

I decided I am NOTgaining another pound. No no no.

As of today I have three days. I have lost 7 pounds in that time. I have eaten three meals a day, and been absolutely fanatical....

I am putting my weight Recovery first.

I am not letting any stresses make me eat. And believe me I am encountering a whole lot of stresses!!!!!

I noticed at the AA meeting that people got applauded for having 90 days in the Program.

These are consecutive days.

I am working on my fourth day today. I hope to get a fourth day. I don't count on it. I have three days. I want another one.

If I screw up I have to go back to square one.

When I get hungry, I remind myself this means I am losing weight. Sometimes I feel my stomach growl. This means it is shrinking.

A cookie tempted me at the AA meeting. I told my fiance, I want a cookie. I can have one if I want one. I choose not to take it.

He encouraged me and let me know I was on the right track with that...He always says, if he wants alcohol, nothing can stop him from having it. He chooses not to take it.

I don't take for granted that I will get another day. I am definitely going about this one day at a time. I don't trust me around food. This, oddly, makes ordinary daily living much more interesting. Will I get another day? I have to get to the end of the day and into tomorrow morning to find out if I made it to another day.

Each time I successfully get another day, I make a hash mark on a piece of paper I taped to the wall.

I have not told anybody what I am doing. It is my very own Program.

I was home alone on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. My babies were at their father's house. I missed them and felt so all alone.

Thursday night my baby girl came home and wanted me to take her to the movies on Friday night. I said No, I have a date. She was all right with that and wanted to know would I take her to the movies on Saturday morning, squeeze her into my schedule? I said I'll see what I can do.

I woke up Friday morning at 3:30 AM with daughter nightmares. I felt very bad. I felt I could not go off to a party and leave my baby home alone when she wanted to go out with me. What would that tell her? Where are my priorities?

Friday morning I canceled my date.

Now my boyfriend.......my fiance.....is mad at me, and our relationship seems to be going south real quick.

But my daughter is happy. And I am happy about my relationship with her.

My fiance is supposed to come to a family pool party today, with me and my kids. Last night he said he doesn't feel like going.

He has never canceled out on a date with me before.

All because I wanted to be with my daughter.

My daughter comes first. My fiance comes second. That's the way it is.

If he can't handle that, he's got to go.

Last night I had my first grandmother nightmare.

In March my son, who was 18 at the time, had a baby. I mean his girlfriend did. A cute little boy.

As a mother, I think of that this way: My baby had a baby.

In my nightmare, there was an infant child, clearly helpless. He was being cared for by other children, maybe 7 or 10 years old. These other children (I am afraid they were my children, vintage a few years back) were basically clueless about proper baby care.

OK let's get real. My middle son had the care of the baby, and he lost the baby.

I ended up trying to search for the baby. Of course, being a dream, I had a lot of red tape to go through before I could start the search, and as time continued to waste on, I grew more and more frantic. I was sure that by the time I got the search in gear, it would be too late.

I was particularly worried that while the baby was in the care of the child, nobody was feeding the baby. Worried the baby would starve. Didn't know what kind of formula the baby typically eats, wanted to acquire some from somewhere and prepare it and give it to him. However, I have never dealt with baby formula (always breastfed my kids) and also worried that I would prepare it the wrong way (assuming I could find some formula and also find the baby).

Part of me hoped that the baby's mother had come back and that she was taking care of the baby. Magical thinking of course.

I never did find the baby. The dream changed and my middle son, aged around 7-10, who knows, wandered outside in the winter. Nobody knew he was out there. He froze to death. That part was a mama nightmare, and it woke me up at 2:55 AM. I went over to my son's bedroom (he's 16) and woke him up and had to hug him. Also told him my nightmare. He assured me he is alive, he is not going to freeze to death, he can take care of himself.

It's not that easy to figure out how to set up an XML server. I tried to do it at work, I spent about an hour fooling around on my WinNT 4.0 box. Didn't get very far; installed SoftQuad XMetaL and a shared DLL from Microsoft that apparently is an XML parser, and also supposedly installed the MSXML SDK. But I don't know where either of the last two items went/can't figure out how to start them up so I can use them.

Of course, I am not done yet.

I heard today from Ron who is on the department's XML strategy team, that the team does not know much about XML and has basically accomplished nothing.

I sense an opportunity here...As my fiance always says, if I know just a tiny bit more than you do about Subject X, I'm a genius.

Aaaaah!!!!!

Note: Do not switch views if you have just written a whole bunch of stuff. I wrote a long searching well-thought entry for today and before clicking "post" or "publish", I clicked "Template" because I wanted to put in my stylesheet.

All my thoughts were lost. I am not thrilled by this.

I guess the world will have to do without my thoughts on Expectations.

I went to XMLDevCon2000 today again, last day. Slept through most of it again, oh well.

Managed to identify and speak to Simon St. Laurent and asked did he make his presentation in XML? Yes he did. And yes he will give me the source code. This is directly applicable to the IA project.

Most of the rest of the day was mostly a waste. Mostly.

I went to XMLDevCon2000 today. When I went in I was wide awake. Sitting through the seminars put me to sleep. Maybe it was all the Coke I drank...the sugar might have knocked me out. Maybe it was sheer boredom. I don't do meetings very well. I have even fallen asleep in meetings with my supervisor sitting directly across the table. Can't help it. You bore me...lights out.

I got some good ideas while walking home from the train station and I sent email to the supervisor/project manager for the project I got the ideas about. I feel like such a geek.

That's why I like my fiance...I go to him feeling like a geek, and I leave feeling like a woman.