So busy

Just a quickie to drop by and say, I've been SO busy. I'd been chanting for massage to pick up, and lo and behold I have 12 massages this week. 15 hours is considered full-time. When you take into account approximately 1/2 of paperwork for each massage, the hours start to pile up. But yay, more money - eventually.

Doing a reading tonight at the Schmee (a local fringe theater). It was a last minute gig, and any chance to get seen is good. Plus I get to do the reading with Fuquad Rob, and The Beige is directing. By the way guys, I had a kick ass time last night. Beige, how exactly do you spell "fur net"? For those of you who don't know, it's a foreign liquer of some sort that has many opiate qualities. I haven't been drinking that much since my surgery, and last night, this was not the case. Stine got silly. And then I came home and got more silly.

There is some major financial shit going down with the hospital that all my doctors are at, and where I had my surgery. It's too long a story to go into right now, but suffice it to say Ly and I are writing editorials to all the papers, I'm trying to seek whatever legal advice I can, and it may turn into something much bigger - it may not. All I can say is I'm so sick and fucking tired of big multi-million dollar corporations going after, and harassing self-employed, lower middle class folks who are only trying to pay their bills, and keep their heads above water.

Ok, must go now. I hope to catch up with everyone's blogs soon.

Because I am completely and utterly

Avoiding work right now...

And no one fookin' tagged me, but I'm gonna tell you anyway, so sit down.

Four jobs I've had:
1. Janitor in a junior high school (1st job ever)
2. Massage Therapist
3. Key Maker and Engraver
4. Actress

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. The Incredibles
2. Truly, Madly, Deeply
3. Secretary
4. Murderball

Four places I've lived:
1. Ogden, UT
2. Chicago, IL
3. Dale, IN
4. Seattle, WA

Four TV shows I love:
1. 24
2. LOST
3. Amazing Race (when it's in season)
4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (since it doesn't say "current" TV shows...)

Four places I've vacationed (this category I'm gonna suck in):
1. New York, NY
2. Boise friggin, ID
3. Lake Powell, UT
4. Mystic, CT

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. Lobster
2. Biscuits & Gravy
3. White Trash Taco Salad
4. Green Tea Ice Cream squooshed between Ginger Snaps

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Blogverse
2. Livejournal
3. Topica
4. Google News

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Getting a Massage
2. Talking to Mandy (she TOTALLY just called - weird)
3. Sleeping
4. Having Sex

Four bloggers I am tagging:
1.

My Bitch

2.

The Beige

3.

My Hound Dog

4. and YOU!

Happy "V" Day

Notice I didn't say Valentine's Day. I have now heretofore dubbed this Happy "Insert your own V Word" Day. So all of yous, feel free to add as many V words as you'd like (your favorite, your least favorite, the name of your old pet, the name of your current pet)...

Here is my list (No looking in the dictionary_:

vagina (Of course the most obvious, and Stine-ly choice)
verisimilitude
voice
vulture
vernacular
vegan
vegetable
Vic's Vapo Rub
varnish


K, more?

Picture this...

Last night, my friend S and I went to Banya A Russian Bath House near the massage school I used to work at.We enter the front door, and to the right is two feathery looking soft leather chairs - done in subtle earth tones to create a feeling of serenity and peace. To the right, a fridge full of yummy drinky healthy goodness such as, "Kombucha Joy", "Odwalla - Find Your Inner Yin", and my favorite, "Your Minty Muscles". Actually that last one was a goo, but I digress.

We walk up to the front desk, and a lovely delicate gay boy gives us paperwork to fill out. We sign our forms, yadda, yadda...go back up to the desk, get our locker keys, sandals, and robes. In the women's locker room there are stacks of neatly folded plush towels, fake pussy willows coming out of a vase sporting the aforementioned "soothing earth tones", bottles of womanly fresh goo, and a smattering of lockers. I must admit, it's smaller than I thought it would be. S and I lose our clothing, take the obligatory "clean your dirty selves before entering the oasis" shower, don our robes, and enter the main room.

The main room consists of a brilliantly blue-lit hot tub, a bathwater tepid pool, a steam room complete with fresh eucalyptus plants (yummy!), shit-ass hot sauna, and a cold plunge. S and I start out in the steam room...and from there do various combinations of the tepid pool, cold plunge and sauna. I wasn't a big fan of the sauna (which was at, I think, 220 degrees). It was too hot, I'm still fresh enough out of surgery that my body was just overwhelmed, plus the floor was scalding hot. S liked it though because she had to go into the sauna to get her body hot enough to do the cold plunge.

Pause for geeky massage moment: Revulsive hydrotherapy is the shit.

During the next hour, discussions of boys and the massage school take place, there is much giggling and laughing about the 50-something "ladies who lunch" sitting in the pool next to us, and many more water sports ensue.

We finally start to start to leave. We decide to do the cold plunge one more time. S has to go into the sauna to get hot enough to do it, and in her excitement to get there, notices a basin of "herb water" with a large frond of large leafy herbs bundled into a fan floating on the surface of the water. So S gets all excited, beckons me to bring the herb water dripping frond into the sauna. She then procedes to show me what is "suppose" to be done with frond. Apparently one is suppose to beat oneself about the body with the frond, thus baptizing oneself in the herby goodness. So as I prance wildly up and down due to the smoldering heat that has started to occur in my feet, S is giggling wildy and beating my naked body with this herb frond. She then jumps up and down like a little 12-year old about to have a tea party and with a big shit-eating grin on her face, hands me the frond and says, "Do me too please...". I beat her a few times, and then as I'm starting to smell smoke I say, "DOOD, burning!" and point to my feet. It would have made a really good comedy porn.

The cold plunge was a like a warm downy comforter compared to the hades I'd just come from. So then S gets hot enough, does the cold plunge, we take a shower, encounter a really obnoxious east-side "type" in the dressing room, pay our bill, and then leave.

We then went to have a drinky, some Thai food, and a really damn fine conversation for the rest of the evening.

I have welts this morning...

Just Kidding...

those were from Ly, not S.

It's gotten out of control

"Danish Cartoons cause Global Crisis"

This is just crazy. I mean if cartoons can cause a "global crisis", we really have hit an all time low in religious zealotry. Fundamentalist Christians/Radical Muslims = No difference.

Boo Ya!

I have no idea what that means.

Hello, hi, high, how are ya? Ok, feeling a little amped/wacked/energetic/silly today - just warning ya.

Man let's see, what do I want to talk about. Oh yeah, I'll start off with Sunday. Ly and I had a lovely day on Sunday. We got up at an much earlier hour than we normally do on Sunday (when Ly doesn't have to work), and went to KRG. It's Kosen Rufu Gongyo, a large monthly SGI/Buddhist gathering. It was held at the Culture Center in Tukwila. A really kick ass chick was getting her Gohonzon Sunday. A Go Ho What? We then helped her enshrine it in her apartment. It was a lovely sunny day, and the first one in a long while here in Seattle. We went to a little Greek place in Fremont for some lunch. We then jumped on a bus headed for the student clinic. We both had massages, which were lovely. Then it was on to downtown to pick up a script, and then home to finish watching the rest of the SuperBowl (yes folks, it DID happen, Ly and I watched sports, and drank beer). Bless our hearts, they did real gud, our boys. All I can say, it is very funny to watch and listen to two people watch football who normally, don't know shit about sports really. I tend to know more than the Hound does. Anyway, I got real pissed when the Steelers intercepted the ball and turned it around to shortly thereafter, make a touchdown. I assume these emotions I was feeling are normal, they are just new and frightening to me, if you know what I mean. After we watched the game, there was movie watching, barely able to catch your breath pre-Olympic sex, and some cards - not necessarily in that order. It was a good day.

In other news, I got a mesage from the director of the play I just auditioned for, and didn't get in. Turns out that the woman who she cast as the mother, got cast in another show at a larger theater here in town. Long story short, I'm playing the mother. Her name is Ruth. A synopsis can be read: Heyah... Funny that we've been watching Six Feet Under (thank you Netflix), and I've really been relating lately to Ruth, the mother character. Anyway, I'm excited about that. Hopefully the schedule won't be that hard to work out.

Oh yeah, I remember the football question I was going to ask the blogverse, so when it's 4 & 2, why do they always punt? I mean couldn't they feasibly get 2 yards easily in one down?

Referral vs. Diagnosis Codes (Two different things)

I am SO tired of people calling me asking for massage by way of their insurance, and giving me grief over telling them they need to get diagnosis codes from their doc or chiro. It doesn't help that there are a smattering of massage therapists in this city, who make up their own diagnosis codes and bill the insurance for them. It is NOT within the scope of our practice OR license to diagnose people. You can get SUED for fraud people. Not to mention the fact that if you tell a client they have some sort of "condition", they seek treatment for that condition, the treatment fucks them up - you are BOTH shit outta luck.

And insurance companies don't make it any easier. They tell the clients that they don't need referrals to see me, and this is true. However, a referral and a diagnosis code proving massage is medically necessary, are two completely different things. Do people honestly think that an insurance company is going to pay for any Tom, Dick or Harry to go get a massage a week, and NOT have it be medically necessary? They would go broke.

Ok, end rant. That said, I am VERY thankful for the lovely client who just called me to schedule. After much explanation, and clarification of the LAW, I will be massaging her tomorrow through her insurance.

What did you want to be?

When you grew up? I was thinking about this question the other day. My "ideal" occupation has shifted over the last 25 or so years I've been thinking about this question.

My first recollection of wanting to pursue a career was the obligatory "doctor", "fireman" and/or "ballerina" answer we all gave when we were six. On second thought, nix that last one, I've never wanted to be a ballerina proper because I'm one big-boned Bessy, and somehow, I just knew it would never work out. Thank God I had the ballet classes I did though, or my mother's nom du jour of "my little bull in a China shop", would have really stuck for good. I remember being 9 or 10, it was summer,and I was laying outside looking up at the stars with my best friend J. I remember thinking that the stars were so cool. I remember wanting to be able to explore the vastness of the space I saw in front of me. It was my first inkling of wanting to be an astronomer. Of course continued science classes only fed that desire, and by 8th grade, I really wanted to study astronomy. This would later morph into a desire to study astrophysics, but I get ahead of myself. I did my science project in the 8th grade on black holes. The project itself sucked, but I learned a lot. I partially blame the woefully inadequate math teachers I had growing up.

Then came high school. I remember being a sophomore - we didn't have freshman at my high school because 9th grade was part of junior high. It was the last day we could change our classes before they stuck. I had a PE class I was dreading attending. I just wasn't ready to launch into PE my first semester at high school. I needed to get acclimated to the surroundings first. So the night before class change day my mother took me to see Real Genius. Yes, this is the Real Genius with Val Kilmer, and the cute little boy who was androgynous, circa 1985. I sat and watched that movie in awe. Keep in mind, I was a very niave 15-year old Mormon. I was hooked, I came home telling my mother that I was going to pursue acting. I mean how unfair is that? You hear all these stories of actors seeing Citizen Kane, or some brilliant Jack Nicholson performance back in '84, and these movies, the moments are what spurned them on to study the great skill of acting. Me, I see some half-rate teeny bopper flick, and I think I'm Laurence fucking Olivier.

The rest, they say, is history. This acting bug carried me through the remainder of high school, two stints at two different colleges - Roosevelt University, in Chicago, where I studied musical theater, and Southern Utah University, where I got my BA in psychology and theater.

Cut to 1999 in Seattle. Ly and I had lived here for 4 years at that point. I had my second thyroidectomy, my vocal cord got paralyzed, and in the midst of healing, and seeing different alternative healthcare practitioners, one of them introduces me to the Brian Utting school. I had found the bases of my life passion - bodywork. This is truly the reason I think I am here. I want to always act, and will do so when possible. My bodywork might morph into something else, but for now, it's a very nice friend to have.

One-liners for today

"Her legs were locked so tight I couldn't even get a whiff of spring roll." Pierce Brosnan The Matador



"I look like a Bangkok hooker on a Sunday morning, after the navy's left town." Pierce Brosnan The Matador

Interesting tidbit (Mo polygamy)

On Mormon polygamy...

"It was never legal"

Bat-shit crazy

So those of you who know me, know that I like rain, I like rain a lot. That said, I am about to go 100% batshit crazy if this rain keeps up. We are setting records up here in Seattle. I have never been one to suffer from seasonal affective disorder (many other disorders, yes), but couple all this rain with being stuck in the apartment recouperating, and it's all taking it's toll.

A sidebar to all of this, is that I'm not sure where I learned this, but somewhere in my past I have had it drilled into my head that if I'm not doing something, being productive, being needed by someone or something, I have no use for all practical purposes. I just feel like a big tub o' lard that hasn't done shit for 2 weeks now. I mean thank God I'm taking this herbalife and it's cleaning me out like it is (oh nelly, and I do mean CLEAN), or I would really feel like a big lump of whale blubber. Come on ladies, you know those days. And I am reminded of P's blog post about hating knowing when one's reactions are due to hormones, and having someone point that out, and them being right. Only difference now, I'm pointing my own hormonal issues out.

Thus, the recipe I've come up with to explain my current dark malaise is:

8 parts surgery (number 11 and counting)
2 parts general anesthetic (past and present) running havoc in my system
5 parts record rainfall in Seattle
3 parts "time factor" in healing after surgery
2 parts hormones
60 parts boredom
5 parts inability to exercise like I had been (oh give me a home where the endorphins roam...)
2 parts inability to move energy through my body via the bodywork I give to other people
20 parts I'm just farking OVER. IT.

The recipe I've been trying to follow to counteract the dark malaise:

200 parts chanting
10 parts reading
5 parts telling myself and my overactive brain to shut the fuck up
3 parts scheduling at least one or two activities a day in which I get out of the apartment
3 parts insurance billing and paperwork to keep busy

Mostly, it's a good counter spell, I just happen to be in a downswing right now.

Wee.....wee..............ahhhhhh......


wee........

The Happiest of Birthdays

to my darling Mandy. You just get better with every year. I am truly grateful to have you in my life, and don't know where I'd be without you. Please make this whole day entirely about you. Do something special for yourself, and treat yourself well - on the inside and outside. Now off to make a birthday phone call.

Love Always,

Stine

A baked potato in my neck?

So I just got back from my post-op follow-up with my surgeon. For those of you that get queasy, I'm going to talk some medical stuff for a sec, so close your eyes. So the doc was reading me the pathology report, and said my goiter was as big as a baked friggin potato. WTF? I can't believe I've been carrying that around in my neck. No wonder swallowing was a bit difficult. He said the operation was really bloody and it took them a long time to cut through the scar tissue to even get to the muscles he cut underneath the scar tissue. He said they did something different than what they normally do, in that they cut into the goiter, and remove the goiter from the inside out. Apparently this is most effective in protecting the larygeal nerve. He did say they left a small portion that attaches to the nerve - which is fine by me. I'm damned if that is going to grow into another goiter in my lifetime. Anyway, the pathology of it all fascinates me. I almost asked them to save my goiter and give it to me, but then I wonder exactly how sick that would make me. I know some people at the massage school who would be very interested in seeing something like that.

My doc also wouldn't let me out of jury duty next week? How lame is that? He said sitting around in a jury room all day seems like the perfect rest and relaxation. He's a hard-ass, but I like him a lot and he makes me laugh.

Anyway, just found all the medical mumbo jumbo interesting - especially hearing him compare it to a baked potato. Who knows maybe at some point, they will find some grilled salmon in my liver, or a nice head of broccolli in my ass.

24 & Capote

Dudes, just saw Capote - Heath Ledger was good in Brokeback Mountain, but fucking Phillip Seymour Hoffman kicked my ass in Capote. I think he should win the Oscar.

Must post review about it soon (eat your heart out Ly), but for now, must go get ready for the season premier of 24.

Can we say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, HELL YEAH!

Rice pudding is the shit

I have become addicted to this shit in the last five days. I hadn't had any for 20 years, and then one of my nurses brought over a container, and I ate the whole damn thing that day. The next day, someone else brought some over - gone. Yesterday, a six-pack - demolished. Why is my body SO enamoured of this manna from heaven? I love it, I want to bathe in it, I want it to shoot gloriously out of Clive Owen's dick all over my body.

I gotta get out of the house today. I've been here for six days straight now and it's starting to wear on my psyche. I'm feeling like a lurp. I mean I know I just had surgery a week ago, but I need to move about. I should go mail my nieces and nephews Christmas presents (yes, I suck and am late with everything). Speaking of, Beck and Mandy, be on the lookout for a pressie coming your way. Beck, you must let Katy partake ok?

I've been trying to do at least one or two business things each day. I have this innate need to always be doing something "productive". Thank you very much mother. I mean, it's so hard for me to just chill. I'm trying though. I find when I try to push it, my throat hurts more, and it ends up pissing off the back of my head and my jaw for some reason. Must talk to the doc about that. I need to find a digital camara to take a picture of my scar. It's knarly. I look like the Corpse Bride. Which I guess has it's goth appeal. That's a good question, can one be a goth well into one's 30's? I'm not a real goth, but I do so love some of the esthetic.

Now I'm just rambling. I have decided I am not going to do up the living room pod today. I have this pod I have constructed, because we have no real couch and our love seat sucks for comfort. I take our pappa san chair, bolster the hell outta it, put a foot stool beneath it with some pillows on it, put a sheet over it all, some blankets over that, my piano bench with all my meds, phones, books, and medical knick knacks by my side. This has been my home for the past six days. I need to branch out I tell ya, need to branch out. It's always so hard for me to find the line between healing, and driving myself crazy.

Yeah, what the fuck else is new?

And in closing...from the gimp vocal cord girl

Quality could be better, but hey...I just wanted to remember after surgery, that even with the gimp cord, I could still sing. It ain't B's voice, but once upon a time.

too bad we can't do audio posts that are duets.

Random updates

The New Year was splendid in the hound's and my world. We went out to my friend M's house in Ravensdale. It's about an hour drive from Seattle. They live on a lake that reminds me of On Golden Pond. It's a nice little cabin'ish feel cozy place. We drank, smoked, played games, lit fireworks. The lights went out a couple times. I seriously had visions of Wolf Creek or some scary movie that takes place in the woods. Very fun. We toasted in the New Year and all eventually fell off to bed. In the morning, M's hubby J roasted us a nice wake and bake, then I made my famous (if I do say so myself) biscuits and gravy. Nothing like carbs and fat to stave of the hangover. We then had a leisurely ride back to Seattle, and then went to see Walk the Line.

Speaking of sexy motherfuckers, Joaquin Phoenix is quite that. Damn he looks good in black. I knew that he did his own singing for this movie, but I didn't realize Reese did as well. Very, very believable, and talented.

Updates from babyland, my friend M is doing nicely. She wants to leave the massage school before she has the baby. I hope she is able to. I can't wait until she has this baby. I also just found out that one of my good friends from massage school is pregnant with twins. She just turned 37. I'm very happy for her. My younger (as in 21 years old) sister just had her first child. They named her Kaisha. It's very exciting to see all these babies. Which brings me to one of the presents I got from my step-mother (the mother of my younger half sister who just had the baby). It was a framed picture. In this picture was professionally hand-drawn likenesses of all my neices and nephews. In the center of all the children was a likeness of Jesus Christ. He was holding Kaisha. Below all the children, there was printed a verse from the Book of Mormon: "And he spake unto the multitude, and said unto them: Behold your little ones." 3 Nephi 17:23.

Ok, so before this, my father had sent me a very nice picture he had taken of me when I was about 8 years old. He had it framed, and it was very touching and personal. I never get personal things from them, and usually the gifts they give don't really have anything to do with me, who I am or what I like at any given point. I'm not saying that they should, it's just nice to get a gift that shows someone knows who you are. So the picture my father sent was very nice, and I was very touched. This second picture they sent was...uhm...nice. I mean I love my family, I love my neices and nephews, but the presentation of it all just struck me as very disingenuous. And there was an underlying tone of, "you breed, you get attention and are rewarded." I know they don't consciously think this way, but it's kind of true. It's especially true in Mormon families. The people with the children get the most focus.

Needless to say I've been dealing a lot lately with feeling second best, second choice, and just forgotten. I know this isn't true, I know much of this is my own shit, and I fully claim it. I just have moments of feeling bad, and when I got this picture of the children, I just cried, and cried, and cried. Anyway, water under the bridge.

Mostly, lately, I've been chanting and focusing on clearing my body for my surgery. I've really been exploring what lies behind the karma associated with my neck. I mean you'd think I'd have figured it out by now after soon to be 3 thyroid surgeries, a vocal cord surgery, a broken neck, and 3 or 4 herniated disks. Something going on there Stine. I have been telling my body that my voice needs to remain in tact so that I can keep chanting and telling people about how practicing Buddhism has changed my life. It has given me that groundedness I have so longed for. Doesn't mean that things don't still suck, that I don't feel shitty, ugly, fat, useless, etc. etc., but at the end of the day, I still feel hope. That feeling of hope is getting stronger, it's getting more prevalent in my daily life. I will all of the sudden just think to myself, shit I feel positive. I mean hell, 3 years ago, that would NEVER have happened on any regular basis. So, I go into this surgery feeling hopefully, fully prepared to take on whatever life throws my way. I have a lot of supportive people in my life - despite sometimes feeling all the things I mentioned above.

It may be a bit before I'm back online again. I'm gonna check back once more before Friday morning. Until then, peace dudes.

Patty Coynes

After work today. Going to celebrate my BUSM freedom with a pint at ye old pub around 5:15ish.

Anyone in the vicinity, please come by.

Last Day at BUSM

It is my last day at Brian Utting today. I am sad, I am happy, I am a mixture of emotions and salad dressing. Just had my exit interview, who comes up with these questions I tell ya? I wish Brian could have been there. There were many thing I'd like to have said to him.

I have less and less computer time these days. My upkeep of both of my blogs has slacked greatly because of it. So much billing work to do, which only compounds my lack of real computer goof off time. I figure I'll get caught up on a lot of things after my surgery.

It's been a varied and interesting week. Ly and I went to see King Kong on Christmas eve. What a great movie. It's insane what they can do with animation these days. This monkey was one of the most emotive things I've seen on the screen. And, normally, I think of Andrian Brody as a thin waif of a dude, but damn if he wasn't one hot number in this movie. Peter Jackson did it up. He just knows how to make a good blockbuster.

Christmas was a hit. We had about 10 people over throughout the day. Ly made his breakfast pizza, which was a hit. We drank homemade Irish Creme, ate tons of food (I made my white trash taco salad later in the day), watched a gazillion movies. Santa brought us a good round of flicks this year. We got Murderball, Ong Bak The Thai Warrior, Angel, Season One, and the City of Lost Children on DVD. People relaxed, moved in and out of sleep, lounged, chatted, and basically slothed around all day. It was delightful. Ly had most of the day off yesterday. He didn't have to be to Gaelsong until 6pm last night. So we got to sleep in two days in a row. This next weekend, he has two whole days off in a row. I think we are planning on going out to my friend M's house for New Year's. They live about an hour and a half outside of town. They live on a lake. There will be fireworks at midnight, drinking and carousing, relaxing, and getting out of the city. This will be nice considering the next weekend is my surgery.

M was going to be able to come out for my surgery, and now it turns out she won't be able to. I am bummed, but what are you going to do? I think I have enough babysitters here to go around. Still though, one of these days, it will be nice to have a visit that is just she and I, and not filled with a gazillion other people. It makes me wish my mother could be here.

Speaking of my mother, she was feeling a bit blue on Christmas. I need to call her and see if she is feeling better. Her husband, my step-father, apparently never gets her a fucking Christmas present? How is that? I mean one year, she said he got her a salted nut roll? WTF? I'd be like, I got your salted nutroll right here, now get the hell outta my house. I mean shit, it doesn't take much to make a lady feel special. Do something for Christ's sake.

I have many thoughts swirling in my head about surgery, about leaving Brian Utting. I am here today, and it's my last day here. I've been here 3 1/2 years. It seems like so much longer. I'm very nervous about leaving, and very excited. So many changes coming around the bend. Just hope I'm nimble enough to traverse the corners.

I'm feeling very discombobulated, like I don't know my ass from my elbow.

They came...

So the visiting teachers came to my house to visit. She'd been trying to get ahold of me for like a month - needless to say I wasn't exactly "on the ball" in calling her back. So she finally got me at home. They wanted to come over, last night, which was a Sunday. Many of my exmo friends are like, wow, why? And you know, if I marginalize them, if I behave exclusionary towards them, then I am no different than the treatment I experienced in their church.

I told C, that I would be happy to have them over and chat, as long as they knew I had absolutely no desire to come back to church.

The came over, it was relatively banal, and chit chatty. They asked about what I did for a living, what my husband did. We talked about "The Sons of Provo" (which if you haven't seen it, run out and rent it NOW!!!!!!!! It's hilarious...you have to trust me). They gave us some "Sparkling Cider" for New Year's. I thanked them thinking of the vodka cran I would be downing that night, and they went on their merry way.

They want to come back, and I told them, with some hestitancy, but in all honesty, that they could come back. I told them that my schedule does not allow for regular visits, but I appreciated their hospitality, and we would talk soon.

Part of me did it, because you know, I've finally realized, what I am doing to dispel what I believe to be myths, if not telling them about the way I view the world? They came into my house, if they want to talk religion, I'm happy to. Perhaps they'd learn something, perhaps not - I've stopped having expectations of this. However, I'd like to think, that on some level, I have at least made a few TBMs think twice about a few things.