Birthday Roundup

"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." ~Carl Jung

Okay. Birthday roundup. My mom and I had lunch yesterday and she gave me two sets of earrings...very pretty. After work, my husband was ready to take me some place special, but I just wasn't in the mood. I decided we could wait to celebrate this weekend. We went to Jason's Deli for dinner, I came home and did a Pilates workout and did some laundry. I guess that's how you know you're getting old...you don't even mind doing laundry on your birthday. Hubby gave me a lapis necklace. We had cake today at work and, since my boss wasn't in, we all had a pretty good time. My boss always either insults people or he starts talking about how none of us are going to have a job soon. He's also been known to launch into subjects he knows will gross everyone out. One of my coworkers once asked for a cheesecake with a praline topping. My boss pointed out ad nauseum that the pecans looked like dead flies. What a funny guy.

I met my husband thirty years ago on my birthday. I'd had friends in from out of town to celebrate and we had a little party. Later on, a male friend of mine from high school came by and we went to an Anne Sexton reading downtown. Sitting in front of me was this guy with a tee shirt on that said "Riot Squad Ballet" on the back. I think at some point he turned around and asked me for a cigarette (back in the days when one could smoke whether it bothered people or not). Of course I had one. I asked about the tee shirt and he told me it was the name of a play he'd written. We may have made some small talk between poems. I had to leave early because I had a 7:45 Hebrew class the next day. As we left, my friend commented, "He really likes you." I had no idea how he could possibly know that.

On a campus of 40,000 students, my hubby and I kept running into each other. I ran into him late one afternoon when I was delivering a paper for my Shakespeare class. I looked really ratty; I'd had an ear infection and was up late working on my paper. Suddenly, there he was. We stopped and chatted and he invited me to a reading on Sunday where he was going to be reading some of his poetry. I didn't really plan to attend, but when Sunday came, I decided to go. After he finished his reading, we went over to the apartment of a couple he knew and then he took me home. The really funny thing was that I wasn't even sure I was attracted to him. He's got very light brown hair and hazel eyes and I was more into men with dark hair and dark eyes. He sort of grew on me, I guess. Thirty years later, he still makes me laugh and he's still the most interesting guy I've ever met. He's had several nonfiction books published and I get to benefit from the research he did while writing them. I get the knowledge without having to do the work, really. Things haven't always been great; when I was younger I could be quite difficult to be in a relationship with. My history of abuse was the source of some problems when I was younger.

I still have a lot of problems with other men...power issues, competitiveness, anger. I've worked through most of that with my husband, though. He's a very special person. my therapist thinks I don't share enough of what's going on in my head, but there's always so much going on in my head that I'm not sure anyone could really tolerate knowing about it. Self-revelation is definitely something I haven't figured out how to do. I honestly don't even think about sharing with anyone. The only reason my therapist knows is because she's my therapist and I know she's supposed to know.

It's started to get a little cooler here and the trees are losing their leaves. as I look out my window at work, I can see my little squirrel friend that I keep track of all winter. He likes to lie on a branch and nap in the late afternoons. Right now he's busy burying nuts, which he won't be able to find when he looks for them. They don't have any way of knowing where they've buried things, I read not too long ago. It's all just dumb luck if they start digging and actually find something.

bushism of the day:"I understand small business growth. I was one."