I have spent a lot of time in the past couple of days going back and forth from being myself and watching myself. I am assessing how I am reacting to this entire major family drama going on with my parents, my brother, and my ex-sister-in-law.
I am trying to walk the fine line between being loving and caring, yet not participating in extremely toxic relationships.
I’ll ruminate about it all for about 10 minutes, and then take a step outside of myself — I do it in such a way that it feels like I’m up above myself replaying my previous thoughts and examining them, and my reactions to them.
“That thought there, is that something you have control over? Can thinking about that over and over change anything — make any difference whatsoever? If you don’t think about that, what difference does it make except not to cause you anxiety.” That kind of examination, and those kind of thoughts.
Arduous work. But, in the end critical and helpful.
I mailed a sheet of stamps to my friend Michael Edwards in London. He wanted these:
I spent some time finalizing the STC newsletter, giving a copy before I left to Myra to edit. We agreed to meet back on Wednesday for final comments.
I met Kevin (av8rdude) at Helios, and we hung out for a while. He wasn’t able to eat or drink much, as he was preparing for his “procedure” tomorrow. I don’t envy him that.
Joe arrived after a while, and he and I ended up having dinner at The Raleigh Times. I’ve heard good things about their chef, Ashley Christensen.
We shared the Loaded Cheese Fries, I had a hamburger (which was good, but not $7.50 good), and Joe had a delicious Chicken Salad Sandwich.
It was freezing in there. After there for a few minutes, I went outside to get my sweatjacket.
We stopped by Flex and I had two bourbon and diets @ $1.25 a piece. Joe and I played three games of pool. I won 2 out of 3.
There were very few people in the bar, with a majority being this “party” of about 8-10 “kids” (and I mean kids; I was kind of surprised they were old enough to have beer) — all boys and one “real girl” – Used in the campy lingo of gay men (where everything masculine is turned feminine) to refer to an actual girl. Might be used to distinguish a real girl among drag queens, or a real “she” among she’s. As in, No you don’t understand girlfriend, this Mary, she’s an R.G.
We left there by about 9:30.