Sexy, beautiful, whatever.

Of all the things Darkside does right, there is one thing that he does very, very wrong.

When he mentions my weight, even when casually referring to it, he makes me feel anti-beautiful. He has made it, in the way of things that aren't said, exceptionally clear that it bothers him, and knowing that it bothers him, I feel unbeautiful whenever he mentions it.

He's never been given instruction in the art of constructive criticism; I can see that this will be a task for one of our talks together. First you point out good things. Then you indicate the things that need improvement and suggest some ways that improvement could be accomplished. Then point out some more good things.

If you don't suggest ways that the things that aren't quite right could be improved, the person who you're criticising may end up making whatever it is worse. If you don't point out the things that are good or done well, the person who you're criticising may change them, too, to something less good.

Every time Darkside makes me feel anti-beautiful, I reflect that there are people who do know how to make me feel beautiful, while encouraging me to make myself more beautiful by increasing my physical strength and health. At least one of them is generally disliked by Darkside for the amount of drama that is usually in the air around them, drama that has a negative impact on me. To tell Darkside that where he fails, another of my friends does beautifully and perfectly, and furthermore, it's a friend of mine he has a grudge against... I'm not sure how well that would go over. Best to use ralmathon as an example: while Neighbor isn't attracted to me, he does let me know that my hair's beautiful...

I wish Darkside thought that I was sexy, but evidently that's not a practical wish.

Main character survey, from 'song

THIS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER SURVEY:
If you have a cast of characters, fill this out about the one that is the star of your story. Not if there's one based off of you in there somewhere, but the main protaginist. Though if the protaginist is about a character based off of you, then that's all peachy keen.

1) Character's full name: rosalynde Diane Davidson
2) Nicknames: Rose. Call her Rosie-Rose at your peril; call her Rosalynde more than once at your peril too.
3) Occupation: Student.
( ... )

My father has a way with words.

I think that's where I get it from.

He wrote the following in an e-mail to me, concerning the Friends meeting he'd been to the evening before, and three questions posed to the group. This was the question, and his response, in his letter to me.

How do we broaden our perspectives and not see things as black and white, good and evil?
I had been looking at one the walls of the meetinghouse which was lighted by incandescent lamps in directive shades at two locations. The flourescent lamps were turned off, and they made shadows like your first Science Fair project with two switchable lightbulbs and a shadow stick. I said something allegorical that at the time seemed to give great insight into the third query as applied to The U.S.A. with its Christian Fundamentalist Cowboy president v.s. those Islamic fundamentalists who have been creatively attacking us. Talking about the lights and shadows evoked the idea of them following their lights and us following our lights in my mind, but I awoke this morning with the thought that all the people had no idea what I was talking about because I didn't draw a tidy picture for them that tied the abstract to the real. Alas.

I'll have to think about what he said very very hard for a while to come up with a more concrete idea about that abstraction. I think I know what he's getting at.

I love, though, his description of Dubya. You can tell exactly how much my father approves of him...

Awful Realizations, Part 3.

Like any of that is news?

From the Top 100 Banned Books...

I've read:

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain


2. the Harry Potter series, by JK Rowling


3. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson


4. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger


5. A Day No Pigs Would Die, Robert Newton Peck


6. the Earth's Children series, Jean M. Auel (I can see why many mommies wouldn't want their innocent 12 year old girls getting their hands on this series like the Ginger, Galadriel, Gaia, and I did)


7. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson


8. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle (the yo-yo kids freaked me out)


9. In The Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak


10. The Stupids series, Harry Allard


11. The Witches, Roald Dahl


12. Anastasia Krupnik series, Lois Lowry


13. Killing Mr. Griffin, Lois Duncan (damn, and I wouldn't have thought of that if I'd been asked to name every book I'd ever read -- but there you go!)


14. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood


15. Julie of the Wolves, Jean Craighead George


16. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (I laughed my head off at the moment with the dinner bell... no one else thought it was funny)


17. Beloved, Toni Morrison


18. Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes


19. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat, Alvin Schwartz (again, wouldn't have named this off the top of my head, but it was at the WVHS library, and looked interesting... winter, and Shawn was around somewhere...)


20. A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein (I swear, all the classrooms had this at Pearl Creek)


21. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (THAT's the title! Some guy and I were talking about that the other day.)


22. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl (Mrs. Hall read this aloud to us, or was that Mrs. Banks?)


23. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Judy Blume (I was reading this one in "the pit" when FatherSir got gasoline in his eyes)


24. I *may* have read The Face on the Milk Carton, Caroline Cooney


25. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, one of my all-time favorite authors


26. Lord of the Flies, William Golding


27. Carrie, Stephen King


28. On My Honor, Marion Dane Bauer (I'm sure I read it in 4th or 5th grade when I should have been doing something else, but can't remember jack)


29. Mommy Laid An Egg, Babette Cole (Guide-Dog Aunt has it, and it's hysterical!)


30. The Dead Zone, Stephen King


31. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain


32. Where's Waldo?, Martin Hanford (We had a kid at our school, James Waldo, who got called by his last name. He hated it.)


33. Summer of my German Soldier, Bette Green


34. How to Eat Fried Worms, Thomas Rockwell


35. View from the Cherry Tree, Willo Davis Roberts (one of my all-time favorite authors; I wished I had telekinesis like that one girl.)


36. The Headless Cupid, Zilpha Keatley Snyder (another favorite author.)

That's a lot of books. Most of them are excellent.

Listless

I'd intended to do things today. Somehow, I never worked up the energy to go out-of-doors except to take out the trash until after dark, at which point I went shopping, and came back with meat, meat, milk, three frozen pizzas at $3 each (and then take 25% off that), lettuce, tomatoes, bread, bread, and cornflakes.

Contriubuting to this might be that I've not been eating quite right all day, and was suffering from a blood sugar crash, which manifested itself quite literally when clearing the ice-cream out of the freezer to make room for potentially more pizzas or other frozen goods (the 25% off sale is on all frozen goods) -- serving it up into bowls, my shakiness crashed one of the bowls off the counter onto the floor.

Nephew is learning the art and science of the smartass remark. "That's Enough," was my comment, firm enough to achieve desired results, but not firm enough to elicit the dreaded cringe-with-hands-over-ears.

After two sandwiches (incorporating new bread, lettuce, and tomatoes as well as the Non-Kosher Precooked Goodies), I'm feeling much better, much less shaky, much more like dealing with the rest of the world.

I'm still boggled, though. Ah well. "Know Thyself."

...As if anyone's really going to be surprised, though, least of all her. Going to have to have a heart-to-heart with Darkside to help me hash this thing out for myself. Of all people to talk with, he'd be the most understanding, especially because out of all the people I know here in Arizona, he's perhaps the closest to knowing how my mind works.

Votania's out with the silver dragon druid guy and some of his buddies tonight. Coolness. Nephew's gotten into the cute-kid-showing-off-toys stage.

Tired.

Hey, Votania--

In case I'm not awake when you get in from your night out with the silver dragon druid guy and his pals, or don't remember in the morning, Echo called. Says he'll try back some other time.