Every now and then, the inner fire of Kelly is dampened a little, squelched, and starts to steam instead of burning. Being a fire sign, I don’t like it when this happens. At worst, it takes me a few days to build it back up until it starts kicking ass properly like it should. So, that leaves me today and tomorrow, and I’d better be doing fabulous by then.

So, I’m in the process of getting my pilot light going again.

The family has reached levels of dysfunction that are so excruciatingly high, I literally can’t stand it. Fight or flight responses have kicked in for sure. I realized yesterday, as I evolved into a total slug on the couch that humans have developed a more modern approach to mere fight or flight, which I believe my sister has termed “possuming out”. Possums play dead until its all over and the big scary thing has gone away. I rather think they are smarter than people normally give them credit for. You hear about elephants and dolphins, sure. But the humble possum has become my spirit animal for the time being.

I just had an awesome visit to Fort Collins with Sweet Donnie to go visit Kristi and Aric. We had mindnumbingly good food the entire time, the highlight for me being the lasagna from Bisetti’s, and Fatburger, which I’ve never stopped missing from Vegas. Deeeleecious!

We also did some amazing shopping, which I know bored the boys to no end, but which made Kristi and I very happy. Donnie did get a 3G, and it is amazing, even though the service here is less than stellar. We saw The Dark Knight in Imax, which made it even more wonderful, and honestly, I was surprised at how truly good it was. I wasn’t too blown away by Batman Begins, even though it was good. I think Heath Ledger completely deserves a posthumous Oscar, and I was REALLY skeptical about that until I saw it. I wonder if he spent some time observing mental patients, because he did some things I see kids do frequently when they are absolutely freaking out. We made it to the museum late and barely made it through the Egyptian exhibit and onto the wildlife dioramas before we were herded out by security guards, but it was still completely worth it.

There’s never enough time on the trips to visit the seestor.

Sweet Donnie and I were caught in a torrential rainstorm on the way home that actually caused me to grip my pillow, jump, and squeak. We pulled over, because visibility went down to practically zero. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to experiencing a hurricane, and I hope it’s the closest I ever get.

It was symbolic, anyway, of the storm I walked into getting back home. My family continues to struggle, and I’m just so frustrated with them, except for the seestor. Mom and dad have to move again, mom doesn’t even know about it, which is best, as she is still in TX, dad hasn’t found a place yet, and I have been packing the house. I helped dad move some things to storage yesterday, and I just cried. It was so damn depressing, and there’s still a whole house to pack up. It was my brother’s birthday yesterday as well. I offered to take him out, or to cook him something, and instead, he came strolling into the shop with a frozen chicken and a package of frozen RABBIT, and slammed them on the counter, and demanded that dad and I cook them on a barbecue the size of a large dinner plate. I told him very gently that they would need to be defrosted first, and that it would probably be best to go out, or cook something else, and dad told him the same. He called us both total incompetents and said he would cook them himself. It’s laughable, except it’s so scary that he’s most likely hallucinating, and has a broken foot on top of it that he REFUSES to go to the hospital for. I don’t think it’s been set, so he will most likely be crippled if ever it heals.

Sigh. I am now off to meet with a private investigator for a friend who has about as much family drama as I do. I have no sense of humor whatsoever right now, and I seriously need to recover that to make it through today and tomorrow.

Someday, life will be amusing and fun again. I would like to get in my car and flee.

I learned and re-learned some extremely valuable lessons this weekend. For example, when my family’s reality, (which is skewed, demented, harsh, and bizarre,) encroaches on mine, I have to get an emotional yardstick out and see if I am able to stretch across the line a bit, or see if it would be breaking my boundaries, aka, my sanity. I determined that I could help out with something this weekend and this week, but I am worried about everyone in the family except for myself and Kristi. Maybe these lessons will be helpful for other people too.

Lesson One: When your family is so crazy that the act of telling people the facts causes them to raise their eyebrows in disbelief, distance in miles from the aforementioned family is best.

Lesson Two: If you have any sane members of your family, they are the only ones that are going to completely understand the weirdness. Call them.

Lesson Three: If you have friends/significant others that don’t mind listening to your rants, your insecurities, and your difficulty with decision making due to lack of information from crazy people, then spend as much time with them as possible. If they are truly amazing people, they will even still love you when it’s all over.

Lesson Four: A glass of wine is a helpful cure for nighttime insomnia, anxiety, and general weirdness. Notice I said a glass. Perhaps two. Certainly not a bottle.

Lesson Five: You can never have too much sea salt about the house for bathing purposes of your person and/or any items that have picked up bad vibes.

Lesson Six: Always wear socks and shoes if packing/organizing, even when its just light things, such as clothes, to avoid stepping on any sharp things, such as a sewing needle sticking out of the floor, waiting to vampire your toes.

I can’t wait until this nonsense is all over, and I can get in the car to visit my seestor.

Sometimes, you’ve just got to escape. And here I go. This has been a most difficult week for me, in terms of managing just about everything. Bills piled up and were all due at once, because I have about the same capacity for finance and opening mail as a two-toed sloth. Work was full of obnoxiousness, replete with staffing problems, micro-management, befuddled therapists, angry kids, and scheduling conflicts. My office, conveniently located in the center of the building, seems to be the water-cooler office. People seem to like to come here. I’m not sure it’s for my wit and wisdom and charm. Ha. It might be because I try to keep my ears open. It might be because I have snacks in here. I might be because they just can’t get enough Kelly. I don’t know. I enjoy my co-workers, but sometimes it’s awfully hard to get things done. But mainly this week was difficult because my oral surgeon opted to put me on steroids in an effort to fix whatever the problem continues to be with the right side of my mouth. They alternately make me feel very awake, very tired, and very very irritable. Picture how you are when you’re in prime PMS mode and periodtastic. It’s been like that. I did not lose my temper with anyone or anything, for which I gave myself a cookie this morning, but it took effort. I felt off-kilter and out of synch.

Balance was maintained this week in a few different capacities. I gave some thought to how I will manage this blog. I think what will happen is there will be a section of online journaling, which is essentially what this post is, a section on therapy, workplaces, and how to manage that, and a section of fiction work. That way, people will be able to access whatever they like best, without having to read through everything to get there. Figuring that out inspired me to get moving on it, so hopefully those changes will get implemented this weekend. I was also really grateful that my clinical supervisor invited me to speak at my old university as part of a recruitment. That felt really good, because I have nothing but positive things to say about my old program. My professors were and are wonderful people, who have contributed so much to my life.

I was also very grateful for Sweet Donnie, who made amazing spaghetti last night, and went with me to the recruitment and learned a bit about my old school. He gives the best foot massages in the world, and his voice and his touch are like a tranquilizer to me.

I was also really grateful for an awesome day yesterday with the kids. We took them out to the land and did archery with them. It went much better this time than last time, and I hit the target twice when it was my turn. It’s a lot of fun, and good stress relief!

Kristi has been totally amazing this week, both in surviving a drive to TX with our mother, with two high-maintenance schnauzers, as well as dealing with the fact that mom has been sleeping pretty much since arrival in TX, and going out to Sex and the City, which is SO not her thing, with two aging cougars who then danced to the Pussycat Dolls. She may need extensive PTSD therapy on arriving back home. I got a laugh last night when she sent me a picture of a Versace belt asking, “Do I want this?” (Really, it was quite weird.) To which I replied, “Yes, because it’s Versace and you can always Ebay it.”

Which brings me to a point. There is a very very very fine line between haute couture and cheap-ass crap. I will never forget seeing a pair of gold Gucci sling-backs with a few sequins placed casually in the Gucci front store window when I lived in Vegas, and thinking, “Hmmmm…..those are really quite hideous. And they’re only $900 on sale.” Later the same day, I was in a Target way out in Green Valley, and saw pretty much exactly the same pair of shoes minus a few sequins. Homo Sapiens are amazing.