Warped Gratitude Blog

  Today I am thankful for fictional dreams.  At least I hope they're fictional.  I'm an INFJ.  As an INFJ, I have the weirdest habit of dreaming of lovers before I meet them.  It's always been this way.   I got my first marriage proposal at fourteen from a friend of mine who was five years older than I. My parents had just died and he knew I was going to move away.  He didn't want to lose me.  I turned him down.  He got so upset, he ran off to the military.  We were both hyper-religious.  There was no funky business.  I never touched him because I never dreamt of him.   I dreamt of someone else who I met a couple of years later.  Now, if I know who I'm going to....well...you know,  I don't really hold back.  Kinda makes me wonder if the few guys in my past thought I was a slut.  If I don't dream of you in advance, I won't touch you.  Weird, eh?  This is probably why I've been celibate for many years (more than seven now).  The guy I previously had di

  Today I am thankful that I've gotten some sleep.   I'm just not happy about the content of my dreams.   Perhaps my subconscious mind is insane.  Or it could be perverted.  It's probably just telling me to find a boyfriend.  So -  The witches of old believed that if you put five bay leaves under your pillow you'll dream of your next lover.  Well I heard this from an elderly relative, back then, it was more you'll dream of your future spouse.   Either way - you'd dream of a future intimate.  I'm asexual.  So, I put five bay leaves under my pillow and emerged the next morning smelling like stew and excited that I had absolutely NO DREAMS!  I was very happy!  That means I'll be FREE for the rest of my life!  I did this every night until I ran out of bay leaves.  I bought a bay laurel tree the other day (found one at a local nursery).  They smell very good.  The tree sits on my nightstand.  Well -  Either the bay leaves are defective or ..... (I can't e

  Today I am thankful for the kindness of average people.  Yeah -  On my way to work today, someone lost a wheel (not a tire) but the metal wheel.   It wound up in front of my car.  I had to choice but to hit it (or else I would have hit two elderly women in a small silver car).  My front driver side tire blew and I managed to move to a small median between two on-ramps of the highway.  It was approximately 1530.  It took a few minutes to call my boss.  She covered my shift. It was sad because I looked forward to teaching a class.  A colleague's birthday present was in my car and I so looked forward to seeing her glow when she got it.  Bummer -  Truth be told, I have been a nervous wreck since I stopped sleeping last summer.  Now, with all the death in my life and invented crises of a narcissistic ex, I feel like I am losing my mind.  Meditation helps somewhat.   I know I'm a wreck when I lose everything.  In the past couple of weeks, I've misplaced my keys, the office keys

Today I am thankful for more insight from a nurse.  She spoke about ministry and how she helped people find their faith in desperate times of distress.  I thought about her story as I fell asleep.  This morning there was another ice dream.  Sort of -  I was in the same place.  There was writing.  There was no ice,  only writing in the sky.  The writing was so quick and fast paced that the letters seemed to pile up on each other.  I could make out the words   "call ?"  "visit ?"  "noon"  "tomorrow"  I awaken wondering what I forgot to put on my calendar and where I'm supposed to be.  I'll figure it out tomorrow afternoon. This ought to be interesting.  The nurse helped me to feel better about my guilt of buying stuff for the homeless, donations for the facility in which I work and the sneaky gifts that show up for my coworkers on their birthdays from the staff (which I hope she doesn't know I have anything to do with that.)  This nurse

 Today I am thankful for my dearly departed colleague, Richard.  I think he cured me yet again but wish he didn't have to die to do it.  Richard probably saved my life twice in the two years we knew each other.  I'm highly allergic to a lot of things.   One time, I had to clean out a dirty vehicle with a filthy dog and a ton of used hypodermic needles.  Richard noticed that I started to swell so he gave me Benadryl.  Yeah, I'm allergic to dogs and dust.  There was this time I bought a smoothie that had banana in it.  Yep, I'm highly allergic to bananas.  Being the great nurse he was, he gave me two pink pills that kept me breathing.  For several months, I had dreams of a tall man burned to death in the mountains.  When I learned an old friend lived up there, who just happened to be tall and have the same color of eyes, I freaked out to the point of reaching out to see if he were okay.  He's okay.  About two months after the dreams became persistent, Richard self-imm

 Today I am thankful that I'm a bitch.  First, CO-PEP is up to their tricks again playing around with the law and ignoring my lawyer in an effort to try to get rid of my ex's child support arrearages.  That ship sailed when he refused to leave my home necessitating me to spend $30,000 in legal fees.  I gotta pay that money back with interest.  I had hoped they'd play nice and be honest.  It looks like we are back to game playing.   There are soon going to be very expensive health insurance premiums that will need to be accounted for.  If they're nice, I could let it slide. I'm busy with work and school.  I'm busy enough to let it slide.  I've let a lot of medical costs slide.  I've let the fact that he continues to violate the divorce agreement slide.  Why would they want to piss me off?  It's not going to help their deadbeat daddy client.  As an aside, he refused to tell me his address because he claimed I had time to stalk him.  It turns out that h

  I'm thankful that today was a day.  It wasn't bad.  It wasn't great.  It was sad.  I had to drive the Hypnomobile up to the mountains.  She made it.  My family wanted to remember my uncle near a place he liked to fish.   My sister was supposed to drive my aunt to the venue.  She didn't do it.  My aunt calls me when I'm two hours outside of Denver to ask if I could get her.  I could but we'd both be late.  Well, she decided to drive.  She left 2 hours after I did and got there on time.  She said that, at times, she had to drive at 100mph.  It's hard to imagine my elderly aunt driving that fast.  She taught me how to drive.  I drive like a little old lady!  That was surprising.  ******  Now, when my uncle's wife was alive, I was persona non-grata.  It's a role a play very well - I used to do it all the time in this gosh-forsaken city.  When they ignored me, it was just a sign and a signal to do more CORA requests. I avoided family events to keep the

Today I am thankful for realizing that I'm depressed.  For the first time in five years, I am wearing the clothes from high school.  Still kinda look like a stuffed sausage in them but they aren't ripping out and my flab isn't hanging over the waistband.  I'm going to eat salad until I lose another 20 pounds.  Because I've lost two dress sizes in the past few months, I'm taking all of my clothes out of storage.  I'm also starting to get clothes I ordered for myself after I lost the first five pounds.  I bought them from China (yeah...for shame...but they're cute so stuff it).  It took a long time to get here.  They're too big now.   Luckily, I know some people who will love brand new free clothes!  As I'm cleaning out my room, I'm realizing that I'm depressed.  I have hordes of shoes (many of them are identical and still have tags).  I have hordes of clothes (also....many are exactly the same just different sizes).  I have far too much je

  Today I'm thankful to report I failed a Covid test.  It's a good thing because I can't afford to be unable to work.  I've lost a lot of money in 2020 between having to shut down my business and take more classes due to licensure changes for counseling.  I have four days of work to catch up on!  On the bright side, with me afraid to go anywhere, my kids have decided to get over their fear of cars and learn to drive.  It's a win-win. Now, I've just got to talk to the adult daughter about the financial risk of taking a job at a Covid hot spot and living at home rent free.   I'm going to up the allowance of the kiddo who cleans the kitchen and bathrooms, too. The day would be just perfect if the bass strings and Recording King would get here.   I never thought I'd see that brand again.  Recording King was the first brand Gibson used to make guitars.  They were supplied by Montgomery Wards during the Great Depression.  It's cheap enough to waste at the

  A good friend will never be the downfall of a friend.....ever.   I'd rather pretend to be gay,  Or admit to being asexual (which you don't tell men because they're convinced that they can change that).  Or hide my head in the sand.  I will NEVER condemn a man to hell.   Today I am thankful that my phone is muted.  I'm home  in quarantine  and trying to complete counseling licensure paperwork for the State of Colorado.  The bureaucracy is insane.  It was easier to get my name on the ballot.  I've spent the past five hours hunting down an emailed certificate of completion for a course I completed three weeks ago.  My webmail host must've eaten it.  Sigh.....  ***** I'm still feeling rough.  Tomorrow I find out if this is Covid,  or a cold.  This is nuts.  My liberal friends think I'm dying.  My conservative friends think I'm a sissy.  I'm just trying not to freak out my boss and the pregnant patients.  Covid won't kill me.  It could harm them

  Today I am thankful that the MA who did my Covid test didn't shove the Q  -tip so far in my brain as to give me a double lobotomy.  I'm allergic to almost everything in my environment; my dog, my cat, the trees in the front yard, dust.... too much to list.  Chronic sinusitis is a thing for me.  This time, it got into my ears.  In addition to the earaches, I have a headache and a sore throat.  For a couple of days,  I couldn't move my hands, my knees, hips and back hurt (but that didn't stop me from using voice commands to buy musical supplies online).  I cough once in a while, not the steady non-stop cough of someone with Covid.  It'll cough a couple of times an hour to get the crap out that has moved into my lungs.  Attractive, eh?  My skin looks so white, I actually like how I look.  I'm pretty sure that tone is due to the illness.  I'll give it a couple of days and I'll have my ruddy complexion back.  Every once in a while, I'll drink coffee.  I

 Today I am thankful for my new acoustic electric.  He plays like a dream .  Since, I wouldn't feel right slapping something named after a person with whom I owe a sort-of Wookie Life Debt, I got this adorable number.  I'm thinking of painting birds or a Mandela on it.  I guess it'll depend on what I feel when he gets unboxed.  It's not an expensive guitar but it sounds better than most I can get for under $300.00.  I can take it to the rehab center and not cry if someone Hendrixes it or borrows it indefinitely.   I can finally take advantage of all those bass and guitar lessons I paid for.  Not bad..... Um..... how does one tune that 6th string?  Just teasing... I should tell my buddy Shawn that I've got my own acoustic guitar so I won't be messing around with his Rogue. He's a little upset with me. His guitar is in my walk-in closet and smells like incense.  He laughed that I took away the 'old man smell' and wonders what his wife will think when

 Today I am thankful for a good dream.  I pray it is the last dream of a certain soul. I'll blame the fever.  So -  I fell ill at work yesterday.  Probably an ear inflection,  which led to me taking the sulfa drugs I still have in my possession so I wouldn't have to go to the doctor,  those drugs made me sick to my stomach,  I turned white as a ghost.  My colleagues sent me home.  Now, I have vertigo so I called in.  Sigh -  I can't walk straight due to the vertigo  the last thing I want are my patients thinking I'm drunk or somethin'.  ***** Vertigo,  I always get that when I'm near an old friend I love but refuse to allow myself to feel it.  Salman Rushdie claimed vertigo to be due to the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to stay strong.  My first bout of vertigo occurred on 8-19-08 when someone whispered "[y]ou're still pretty.  Let me know what happens with that guy." into my ear.  I think I shook my head up and down as if I w