I have caught some of the lyrics from Hybrid Theory.

Everything falls apart
even the people who never frown
eventually break down
Everything has to end
you’ll soon find we’re out of time
left to watch it all unwind


My initial instinctive reaction is, "Jeez, Mike: you want to break up with your girlfriend. It's not the end of the world, you know!" But then again thanks to my new bullethole of empathy in my belly, I now remember it really can feel like the end of the world.

Sheesh. I've been thinking of my two previous relationships and how my reactions to the last couple of weeks have been influenced by what happened with them. Both of them cheated on me; one of the reasons I married Jon was I thought I could trust him; he didn't make me feel insecure. I had a good reason for waiting 6 years before I got seriously involved with someone else.

I also remember before I met Jon I was interested in this one guy at work who had a live-in girlfriend. I finally got sick of mooning over him and told him in no uncertain terms how I felt. I'm glad I did because it became obvious that while his ego was flattered, he had no intention of leaving his girlfriend. I soon found someone far more interesting, and unattatched. I now wonder if I caused her to feel threatened. That's stupid; of course I did. I'm sorry.

Still, I wish that Linkin Park's songs would find something else to complain about than busted relationships. I once heard a song by a German band named Rammstein ("Du Hast"). This song sounds like all of the demons of Hell have been unleashed. I mean, murder, death, chaos. Then I made the mistake of finding out what they were singing about. Some dude telling his girl he didn't love her. Can't listen to that song any more without giggling.

Pink Floyd did a fantastic job of not writing about relationships. "Pigs on the Wing" doesn't count.

Elizabeth, Mark, and ol' squinty. 

Arenal Volcano. 

That is called a gar. That is not a howler monkey holding the gar, by the way, that is my sweet baboo. 

Hey, A picture of me I don't dislike! It's all about me, of course. 

This gentleman owns the soda where we ate at. For $2.50 a plate, I might add and it was muy sabroso. I know what you are wondering. If a small shop/restaraunt is a soda, what the heck is a coke? A "gaseosa".  

Iguana butt! 

Here is me and my squeeze at a soda, called "Mundo Feliz" in a small fishing village near where we stayed. I am smiling so you know I worked on much of that beer in the foreground. Don't know why jon is holding the broom. 

Monkey! He's not howling because he's a she and the women monkeys don't howl; they just chill. 

The Green Season makes for interesting travel. You can normally cross this river; you can't see it but across the bank is a big tractor to help those who can't make it across... for a fee. 

This here's Jabba the Frog. He was about the size of my hand. 

When I went to sleep last night, no howler monkeys showed up to keep me awake. That was nice; I feel like my sanity has been restored somewhat. I'm at least able to get some freakin' work done.

I bought Linkin Park's first album yesterday. It's funny how angry, energetic music can cheer me up. Not because I identify with the lyrics; I barely listen to the lyrics of anything, unless it's nonsensical or just plain silly. I find myself singing along to "Too High for the Supermarket" all the time. I also love the Presidents of the U.S. and am sorry they broke up. Goin to the country, gonna eat a lotta peaches...

Jon took that book with him to read. I asked him to read it; hope he finds it as insightful as I did.

I have been watching reruns of C.S.I. on SpikeTV. I'm not that involved, although I have been fascinated with stuff like that since I read Red Dragon. I do wonder about how accurate some of the procedures are. So far, the verisimilitude is impressive, but sometimes some of the ways they catch the bad guys seems pulled out of the scriptwriter's butt.

Meow, meow, meow, meow. Kitty at my foot and I wanna touch it...

Here's Mean Girls; not my best review. I'll be doing I Wanna Hold Your Hand next.

I have been emailing with the woman who inspired that rant I wrote last week. I got to hear her side of things - she was very honest and direct, saying that she and Jon are friends. She did not try to assure me that nothing was going on, or any "how could you think that of me?" attitude. That would have smelled like bullshit. I think any one would have reached the same conclusions that I have; now I think they were the wrong conclusions. What ever problems Jon and I are having I don't think they will get any better if I drag someone who most likely has nothing to do with it in the middle. The big difference between being 20 years old and 40 years old is having enough sense to try to work through crap like this.

Again; not going to delete the previous post despite the wince value. I told Jon last night: I feel like I just fell into a lake and I'm floundering around looking for solid footing again. Now I'm on a "I'm trying to give him what he wants, why won't he give me what I want?" kick. Half of me in a nutshell in the last few weeks: "Oh boo hoo hoo, I'm so confused". The other half: "Will you just shut up so I can get some work done?"

Why can't I get "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" out of my head?

Jon is flying to Thomaston, Georgia to teach a Coach's Course. A coach is the first rung in skydiving instruction. I'll have a few nights by myself, which is okay I could probably use them, as long as my inner monkey doesn't start chattering in my ear again. You are right, Lachelle; insomnia sucks.

Speaking of monkeys:

Day 5:
Wet and rainy today; Jon and I went Scuba diving in the Pacific. On our way out by boat we passed Playa Ostional. Many sea turtles were surfaced in the ocean around thereand were either sun-bathing or having turtle sex (sometimes both). The visibility was unfortunately low because it was the rainy season and the rivers tend to wash a lot of silt into the ocean during that time. Still, I got to swim in the Pacific, which I have never done before.

We saw plenty of critters, including lobsters and octopus which were caught for later consumption. We also saw some small sharks and plenty of fishies. I didn't know there were so many varieties of starfish.

After 2 dives we spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening fishing. Jon caught a large Gar and a Jack (whatever that is). I caught a grouper about the size of my hand and an eel that was maybe as long as my arm. I sent both of them back home to their mommies.

Day 6: Elizabeth, Mark, Brett, Shawn, Jon and I split a tour bus and traveled about 4 1/2 hours to the Arenal Volcano. It was active, and during the day we could see chains of white puffs of ash along the volcano's slope, indicating partially hardened magma rolling and bouncing along. At night it was spectacular because you could see the red. The lightning also added a nicely ominous touch. We also saw a waterfall with freezing cold waters and a hot springs spa that was pretty damn caliente.

I'll finish this up eventually. I'm not really doing it justice. I need to post some photos. One of my favorites is a picture that Jon took of a huge toad. That thing looked like Jabba the Hut, only cuter. Just as fat, though.

It's random Sandy day:

Got the Star Wars trilogy on DVD. Personally I don't care about any of the changes; the story hasn't changed. Well, I do hate the "Greedo shoots first" change in the cantina; George Lucas copped out.

While I was in Costa Rica looking at monkeys, a troupe of fans went to Toronto to meet my favorite redhead and watch the two movies of his that were shown there. They inundated him with oatmeal raisin cookies, and he was gracious, posed for photos, and was quite liberal with kisses. I am still surprised that no true psychotics have joined the message group or have tried to stalk him; it would be a shame if he started to fear his fan base.

My brother is visiting Russia with his way-cool girlfriend Jenn (she has relatives there). I can't wait to hear about that trip. He has his own blog, but he writes infrequently. Slacker.

I did 9 jumps this weekend, bringing my grand total to 1,100. I also did my first CReW jump (Canopy Relative Work). This type of jump calls for leaving the airplane and opening your parachute immediately; then your group flys together, actually attached to one another, and make different formations. I would have to post a photograph to adequately explain it. It was a lot of fun! Pilot, instructor, friend, and general wiseass Frank 'pinned' me first then Jon pinned the both of us. It is way cool being able to dock your canopy on someone else.

Good for Lachelle for getting a home gym, even if she ignored my advice. Doing SOMETHING, ANYTHING, is better than nothing at all.

I woke up this morning in a bad mood.
Me: Grumble grumble, bitch bitch, whine.
Jon: I love you, honey! (SMOOCH).
Me: (melt)

As the Prop Turns

Above is the old skydiving joke about the dramas that take place at a drop zone.

By the time I had gotten to the drop zone Friday night, I had decided to leave well enough alone, which ended up being the wrong decision. Both Friday and Saturday I tried to just behave the way I always do, and I talked with her about everything but.

Everytime she so much at looked at Jon my guts roiled; by Saturday afternoon she left in tears. Jon told me she left because I spent so much of the weekend glaring at her. Oopsie.

I'll never win the Oscar for Best Actress. I am, however, a major contender this year for Best Drama Queen.

Look, I can't say I'm not happy with the outcome or that her not leaving wasn't a great relief. It just wasn't my finest moment. Yet, I feel so,... un guilty. Not even vaguely.

I'm going to email her; tell her to email me back or call me or come out to the drop zone to hash it out, like I should have in the first place.

By the way, I just submitted my latest review: Mean Girls; and I'm saying so without batting so much as an ironic eyelash.

Day 3:

-I told you I'd get back to this eventually -

We took a guided beach tour around the resort. Saw lots of interesting birds, shells, crabs, etc and got burnt pretty bad by the sun. I can't remember us doing much else until it got dark.

I forgot to mentions Brett and Shawn, a married couple who were there from Atlanta. Nice folks and we teamed up with them several times while we were there. Shawn, by the way, is a woman. She has a twin sister named Heath. I asked her why they haven't axe-murdered their parents yet.

Anyway, Jon and I, Mark, Elizabeth, Brett, and Shawn went to Playa Ostional to go see sea turtles. It was night; we hired a guide who didn't speak very good english so I finally stepped forward and used some of my embarrasing Spanish skills and I actually understood more than I thought I could. We walked along the beach and there were dozens of sea turtles laboring up the beach, digging holes, laying eggs, then plodding back to the ocean. It looks like damn tough work. We also saw baby turtles laboring towards the ocean.

The residents of Playa Ostional work in conjunction with Costa Rica's national park service to protect the turtles. In exchange the residents are allowed to harvest some of the eggs. This makes sense as so many turtles come up to this beach they tend to dig up each other's eggs so by harvesting them at least they go to good use.

So now that I broke out of my shyness of speaking spanish, I spent most of the rest of the trip interpreting for everyone. All I can say (and maybe I have before) is that Costa Rican natives are very nice and patient people. They also all have really nice teeth, so that says something for their health care system.

Day 4:

Not much going on today; I tried to hunt iguanas for a photo but all I got was one iguana's ass. The resort finally got its pool filled so we went swimming. We drank, we ate, and Elizabeth and I went turtle hunting on the resort's beach at night while Jon, Mark, Brett and Shawn went back to Ostional to drink beer at a local bar.

I forgot to mention that the road from the resort to Ostional is a lot of fun. For most of the trip from Liberia to the resort any bridges we encountered were in bad repair. From the resort to Ostional (which lay further down the same road) it was 'bridges, what bridges?' and you have to drive through the streams.

It's no big deal, if you aren't certain just wade out there. If the water never gets above your kneecap, it's safe to cross.

Later on: finally, I get to swim in the Pacific!

I received a lot of feedback for yesterday's post; thank you all of you. Some people said pretty much the same thing: Jon is encouraging the relationship so talk to him.

He reads my blog so he wanted to talk with me when I got home. He was upset, but he didn't lay into me or anything. He basically insisted that nothing was happening like I was thinking. He does talk to her a lot - he pointed out he talks to many people a great deal, including other women who I don't feel threatened by. He did say that he did talk to her about our relationship and that if that bothered me he was sorry, but she only said encouraging things, like "talk to (me), she's a good person", He said things have gotten better between us recently (and hearing that was a great relief), but if I chewed her a new one I would be making a mistake. Not a threat, just that she didn't deserve it and he didn't want her to get hurt for no reason.

He deleted the emails I read, but he said he wished he had saved them so we could go over them to see what my problem with her is.

Right now I'm feeling confused, but a lot more confident in Jon. I really do believe that he won't let anything happen between them, especially now. He says he does see me trying and he thinks maybe he ought to read that book Nancy sent me.

That leaves me with dealing with her. I am going to talk with her, but I am going to sound her out. I still strongly suspect she has a crush on him, but I do believe now that a) Jon doesn't see it and b) he would not do anything with her to hurt me.

There's always the temptation when you write something strong to hit the delete button, but yesterday's post is a good reminder of where my head was at that point in time. I truly hate not knowing where my emotions end and reality begins and I need to figure it out before I hurt someone who might not deserve it.

I Call Shenanigans

A few remarks: We're going to fight the ticket. I didn't want to but I really do get the idea the cop gave me the $130 citation out of spite.

I haven't been in this kind of emotional turmoil in a long time. Above all I detest feeling like an idiot and in many things lately I've been a royal dumbass. I also feel insecure and also feel like a bit of a doormat. Yes, I'm talking about more than the damn ticket. These feelings of course make me angry but I have no outlet for this anger.

This blog has become an outlet for me. Most of the time I babble about inane things because I've been happy. I have been very fortunate.

First off, I want to thank Nancy again from the bottom of my heart for sending me The 5 Love Languages. In a nutshell, many marital problems are caused by people not understanding what their significant other regards as expressing or getting love, and vice versa. And to put my marriage in a nutshell, Jon regards attention and quality time as love. I regard acts of service as love.

Plenty of people have made fun of me for the things I have done for him because I want him to be happy. For instance, I let him quit his engineering job to run the drop zone full time. When people call me his 'sugar mama' I eat it. Next person who does, and that includes my DH, will have his or her nose bitten off.

But that's neither here nor there. I know Jon appreciates the things I do for him; he just doesn't interpret it as love. No matter what I did, he just kept insisting I was being cold, and distant, and unfeeling. Oh, hell no I felt a lot. Mostly frustration and resentment, but that counts, right? When I have a problem I can't solve I ignore it. I started ignoring him more and more because nothing I did for him made him happy. Nice, wonderful downward spiral, there; don't you think? Simple to get off, too. Shit. If what he needs to feel love is attention, he'll get it.

Which brings me to the one thing that feels like an infected splinter in my hand: a woman at the drop zone has a thing for him and is paying him a lot of attention. I won't go into too much detail. I don't think anything sexual has happened between them, but I'll be goddamned before I believe nothing emotional hasn't happened. I'm not buying a 'just friends' scenario once I figured out just how often they IM, text message, email, and phone each other. I call shenanigans; I call bullshit.

What's the balance between forgiveness and wanting to turn people into Eric Cartman-style chili? If you go too far in one direction, people walk all over you. In the other direction - long jail sentences or even the chair. Since I have never actually killed and eaten one of my enemies, I don't think she has too much to worry about. But I don't see how I will ever tolerate her presence again, however, even if I quit taking personally what her heart is telling her to do.

So stick around folks! This weekend should be very interesting!

Day 2:
We all went for a breezy, morning walk on the resort's volcanic sand beach. I have never seen a black beach before. The tide was out and the waves looked intimidating - most of the beaches on the Pacific side seem to have riptide warnings.

During the walk, besides encountering many tiny, little hermit crabs, we found a baby octopus that had washed up. Both Jon and Mark were trying not to touch it; I decided I wasn't going to be afraid of something that small, especially something I had eaten before. So I picked it up and put it in a tidal pool. It was pretty weak; I'm sure it became something's breakfast pronto. I also found a tiny fish gasping in the sand. He was much friskier; by the time I put him in a tidal pool he leaped out of my hand and skipped across several small pools until he was in deeper water.

Then the four of us packed up in our rental car and received another 2 hour kidney pounding to go to Tamarindo. Our primary goal was to find a grocery store so we wouldn't have to spend so much at the resort's restaurant. On the way there I was delighted by how many iguanas I saw; they crawl up on fence posts to sunbathe.

Tamarindo was built up and somewhat touristy - lots of little shops. Costa Rica, incidentally, is a surfer's haven and Tamarindo seemed to be to surfers what a light bulb is to bugs. We went on a tour of an estuary (for what river, I forget). Jon was anxious to see some monkeys. He heard about all the wild monkeys in Costa Rica and wanted to see some.

We saw crabs, birds of all sorts, and even a quick glimpse of a crocodile. On the way back, the guide stopped the boat and we walked a ways and Jon got his wish: Howler Monkeys! All of us tourists were snapping photos like crazy. The guide incited the male monkeys by imitating their call and clapping his hands and that got them howling.

Those little buggers are only about 2 feet tall at the most but talk about an unearthly racket! If you walked into a forest and heard that noise you would beat feet rapidamente. Anyways, Jon was content. He had seen his monkeys. He didn't spank any of them, despite his threats to do so.

On our drive back, a snake dropped on the hood of our car. We had to stop and take pictures, of course. We have no idea if it was poisonous or not. Crazy Gringos.

I was feeling much better about Costa Rica at that point; I think we all were. Despite the roads (which we started to think of as an adventure) and the problems at the resort, we found the people were friendly, the weather quite tolerable, and no bugs! I don't think any of us had to use the industrial strength Deet we had brought ever during our trip.

Next up: Sandy finally remembers how to speak Spanish.

Jon and Sandy's Most Excellent Costa Rican Adventure

Day 1
Was a travel day. We were up at 3:30 to catch a 5:30 plane to Atlanta from Huntsville International. Dumbass me never got my passport updated to my married name so the nice woman at the counter changed my tickets to my maiden name. We had a 3 hour layover so we twiddled our thumbs in Atlanta and met up with the couple we were going to stay with, Mark and Elizabeth.

Mark is a skydiver and I've always liked him. I had met his wife before but she's quiet too so we never really talked. She is a really nice person with a wicked sense of humor. I think we got along well with both of them during the trip.

Flight over - uneventful. The movie was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban so I watched it again.

We landed in Liberia, Costa Rica which is in the Guanacaste Province. It is essentially the Northwest corner of the country. This time of year is referred to as the Green Season (A.K.A. the rainy season) and there was a light rain when we landed. We cleared customs fast but it took a little longer getting our rental car.

We finally set out for the Sanctuary Resort, which is... somewhere...

Mark does the driving, and the roads are okay at first; we had heard that Costa Rican roads were fairly hairy. Once we got off the main Liberian highway onto a secondary road, we encountered the first of many potholes. Then we get onto the dirt roads. Whee! It was a kidney pounding experience. I ooh and aah over all the cows, chickens, cats, dogs, and pigs all over the place. No, really; I thought they were neat, but where are the monkeys, dammit!

We get to the Sanctuary, and get our room. Jon and I have 2 twin beds which we shoved together. We didn't do much that Saturday but look at the empty swimming pool and gape at the remarkable prices of things in the little market at the resort.

-A little editorial side note here: My only complaints during this entire vacation are aimed at the resort. I had no problems with the staff, either. The owners, well; I'll just shut up now. -

So we buy beer, go to dinner, where I finally got to try ceviche which is fish pickled in lime juice. I thought it was quite tasty. We drink some more and go investigate the beach. It's night time by now but we had a mag light. We really didn't get to see much except for many different varieties of crabs, especially hermit crabs. We found a whole gang of them going to town on half of an opened coconut.

That's it for day 1, except I woke up with a headache and I had to go throw up. I had only 4 or 5 beers and I'm a professional beer drinker, so I can only suspect my tummy had problems with the food. Or the water.

Not an auspicious start to a vacation. It gets better, I promise. Preview to day 2: Monkeys for real! And a crocodile.

Quick note: make sure you read Lilek's review of Equillibrium (he liked it).

I am back from vacation. I had a great time and I'll be giving you all a day-by-day account of it, I hope, during this week.

However, last night I had an upsetting experience with Hartselle's Finest and I wanted to recount it before I start on the good stuff because I really need to get it off my chest:

I was pulled over last night because I was weaving. The officer who pulled me over was polite, but he was so damn sure he had caught himself a drunk driver he searched my car, he searched me, he gave me a field sobriety test, and he asked me a million times "have you been drinking? Do you have any other illegal substances in your car?"

I DO NOT drink and drive, precisely because I'm terrified of getting caught in a scenario like the above. But here's the kicker: I did have beer in my car. And I was weaving. Why? I was following Jon home from the drop zone last night; we were going to stop at a Chinese restaurant to pick up dinner. I wove because I misjudged the entrance to the restaurant. The beer was for then, and it was unopened. It's illegal to have beer in your car in a dry county. It's a jailable offense and you can only carry it in your trunk.

Of course I didn't go to jail. I have absolutely zip on my record (except for driving with an expired tag and it was Jon's car) plus the police would have 3/4ths of the county in the slammer. So he let me go (with my beer!) and a citation for the weaving.

Poor Jon just about blew a gasket. He had pulled up to the restaurant, he saw what was happening, and walked up to talk to the officer. The officer told him to go away. He feels the officer was disrespectful to him and he had a right to know what was happening to his wife. He was just about insane when he discovered I got the citation. I was scared shitless the the cop, who had just let me go, was going to turn around and give Jon the once over and throw him in jail for threats and cursing.

They were polite, but I was humiliated. I was up late crying last night and Jon spent a lot of time hugging me and trying to make me feel better (he succeeded). He finally convinced me to take some sleeping pills (over the counter and quite legal, dammit!) and I managed to get some sleep.

I try to respect the police, but it's hard to appreciate people who have the authority to do things to you that you can't do back to them.

Sorry for the bummer update. Up next: Monkeys!

Here's my latest review. Bleah, I need to go pack.

I know what I wrote the day before yesterday was pretty heavy; I don't have much to add to that today except I'm damn glad my husband chose to talk to me about things instead of letting things rot out into a stinky mess, which is what I've seen some marriages come to. Sartre made that stupid comment that hell is other people, but Alex P. Keaton pointed out that heaven is other people, too. Sartre was a wuss; I always liked Alex.

We are going on vacation to Costa Rica - we're leaving this Saturday. I don't know if I'll be able to post updates there; but I will write a trip report. And take some pictures if I can find the frickin power adapter for the camera. This vacation couldn't have been better timed.

I have taken to watching Sealab 2021 during Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. I wish TiVo would just record Adult Swim in its entirety so I could check out other offerings. I have yet to see Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Anyways Sealab 2021 is the result of someone getting hold of the old Hanna Barbera animation cels from a forgettable 70's cartoon show and rearranging them, adding their own animation, and their own voices. It's pretty whacked.

Anyway, Jon and I have a lot of things to do before we leave. I'm trying to finish up 2 reviews and a bunch of work-related things before Saturday.

Oh yeah. Jon and I watched Club Dread, a silly horror movie spoof. I loved their Super Troopers meow, and this one almost played the horror angle straight so I think a lot of the humor went over everyone's head. Especially because of all those stupid Scary Movie films kind of set a very low standard. Yeah, I liked it. Besides, it had Bill Paxton in it playing a Jimmy Buffett wannabe/hasbeen.

Sample humor: "You had sex with a goat??" "Hey, we were kids!"

A quick caveat for you folks: what I've written below is pretty personal. I wouldn't have posted it if I didn't want you to read it; I just apologize in advance if I make you feel uncomfortable.

Not a fun night last night; my husband and I had a long talk; he's upset and has been upset for a long time about the state of our marriage. I can't get all defensive and protest his feelings, because it's true: I tend to ignore him. He was pretty devastated and I felt awful that he was in such distress and it was my fault.

Jon is someone who feels things. He is emotional and is very passionate and enthusiastic about many things. He is quite outgoing and friendly. He is also quick to anger and he'll take it out on anyone available, which means he has many acquaintances and few close friends. Very few people are willing to tolerate that kind of treatment for very long. Me, I just tune it out.

As for me, I feel things, but I love to think more. If I fall in love with a particular activity, or story, or person, I love to analyze why. I get more enjoyment out of that examination than the object itself. But once things are analyzed I tend to move on to something else. Which leaves me here wondering if I didn't do that to my marriage. Oops.

So why did I fall in love with my husband and eventually agree to marry him?

When I met him, I was attracted to the things that I think attract everyone to him: he knows no strangers; he is funny and he has an infectious smile and laugh. He is also quite good looking which has made me wonder why he didn't find someone better looking than me. As I got to know him I found an intelligent man who quickly takes to new skills - he picked up skydiving videography at an astonishing pace and was making money hand over fist. He picked up flying a few years back and now has his commercial pilot's license. He knows both of our airplanes front to back and I am sure will be a certified Airframe and Power Plant mechanic soon. How can I not love and envy that lightning grasp of skills? He oozes ability while I putter along doing things here and there but not really applying myself.

When he decided he wanted to open a drop zone, many people (including me) were like "yeah, sure, whatever." I didn't think it would get off the ground. Four years and a lot of solved problems later, here we are still growing. And another thing I love about Jon is he really does put our customers first. He will do things I find questionable financially to make someone happy. But I can't argue that it doesn't work; that young kid J.J. I wrote about yesterday told me as we were walking back from the landing area how much he liked our drop zone. He said he felt welcome and comfortable there. You have no idea how much that means to me to hear that.

It's more than just Jon that sets our DZ's tone; but he is the touchstone. If I had tried to open a drop zone without him (which would never have happened) it wouldn't have been a 10th as successful. Everything Jon sets out to accomplish he does - I tend to be lazy and don't apply myself. Would I be working at a software job right now if I had never met him? Would I be an AFF instructor? Hell, would I still be skydiving? I doubt it.

And to get personal (but I hope not too personal), Jon is such an extrovert he helped me overcome a good deal of inhibitions. I have never had a lover like him. And I'm grateful he was so patient with me.

But now we're in a rut. I don't think it's all my fault; I detest being yelled at and I have done to him exactly what I do to everyone/everything that pisses me off; I ignore it. But that's stupid; he's my husband. I need to stop ignoring him and work on keeping our marriage intact.

My desire to do so begs the question: why? Our marriage has made us 10 times what we would have been without each other, that's the practical/material reason why. Everything, and I mean everything, we have built together will collapse and I would rather not see that. I'm proud of what we've accomplished together. And even though I don't show it or express it well, yes, I do love you, and yes, I am in love with you. I feel it the most when we're with a group of friends and you're making them laugh with one of your sound effects-laden stories. I feel it when you come up and hug me for no particular reason except you want a hug. I feel it when you ask me to help you think through a problem. There's a lot of other little things that are just too mushy or indecent to mention.

If you left it would leave a hole in my life too appalling to think about. You told me last night you were surprised at the depth of my passion in my writing; I hope I've now used it now to explain myself better.

Here's my latest review: The Munsters. My head still hurts.

Next up is Resident Evil: Special Edition. Booyah, I'm a masochist!

Roger Ebert has some good things to say about Keane, which he saw at the Telluride Film Festival:

Lodge Kerrigan, who makes films about lonely and isolated people, is back at Telluride for the third time with Keane, starring Damien Lewis as a schizophrenic man who drifts between being calm and functional, and raving in the streets. He is obsessed with a daughter he thinks was abducted.

Roger, darling; his name is spelled DamiAn, with an "a". Not that I've ever made that mistake. I hope you'll be able to survive the flood of angry emails from outraged gutter bunnies despite the fact you briefly praised his performance as "inward and intense".

I'm proud of myself for making a good judgement call during an AFF dive this weekend. We had this young student named J.J. whose mother is Korean but when he talks he talks with the Elvis-esqe Misssissippi accent. I am totally charmed. But anyway, he was all excited and nervous, and he got overloaded on his first jump.

After talking with him, I pass him onto level two despite the fact he technically failed. I passed him because he seemed so down on himself and I wanted to encourage him; level two is pretty much the same as level one and I thought he'd do a better job now that he knew what freefall is like. He nailed it.

He was so happy with that jump he went on and did levels 3, 4, and 5 that weekend. He would have done 6 and 7 but the winds were too high on Monday. So I'm thinking I made a good decision because instead of him leaving with failure on his mind, he's probably going to become a regular skydiver.

If he comes out again (he better!) I'm going to have to post his picture.

I just found a new Word of the Day:

erotomania
SYLLABICATION: e·ro·to·ma·ni·a
NOUN: 1. Excessive sexual desire.
2. Psychiatry A delusional, romantic preoccupation with a stranger, often a public figure.
ETYMOLOGY: Greek ertomani : ers, ert-, sexual love + -mani, -mania.

Not that it means anything; I read it in a Roger Ebert review and I haven't had a word of the day in a long while so I just thought I'd share.

My sister informed me we *did* have cats when my parents were married. I stand corrected.

Final stretch:
91: If I could push a reset button on my life, I would still be working with computers. I just would have skipped the whole anthropology thing in college.
92: I used to be religious. I no longer have a religious affiliation because no religion has been able to prove to me why they are the correct one. It's tough having faith when you have such a hardcore logic streak.
93: It doesn't mean I don't believe in God. Truth be told I don't know what the hell is going on.
94: My religious beliefs could probably be summed up as "I have hope" as opposed to "I have faith".
95: I prefer the idea of reincarnation. There's something appealing to the idea of coming back and trying again.
96: From what I have read life probably does exist on other planets.
97: I am not worried for Earth. She seems to do what she wants whenever she wants and life aboard her is pretty tenacious.
98: I do wonder about us humans, about what is going to ultimately happen to us.
99: It makes me sad knowing I will never know. That's probably why I like the idea of reincarnation.
100: I am addicted to Sugar Free Red Bull.

There you have it. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Meant to mention that Tuesday night Jon and I had some guests over for dinner - Kip and Theresa, the owners of Skydive Smokey Mountains near Knoxville, Tennessee. Nice folks. Kip is a pilot, too and he taught Jon how to do barrel rolls in his Cessna (yeek!). Nice folks; and you can never have too many friends in this business. *Most* drop zone owners help each other out.

Getting to the bottom of the barrel:

81: Despite 3 brothers and 1 sister, I have no nephews or nieces.
82: My mother has no siblings; my father has one sister who remains single.
83: All my grandparents have passed away.
84: When my parents were married, all of our pets were dogs.
85: When my parents divorced, all of our pets were cats.
86: I would own a beagle or a wiener dog if I owned a dog.
87: I would never own a purebred animal; not with all those freebies at the pet shelters available.
88: I remember once I used to be totally fascinated by molds and fungi.
89: The first concert I went to was in 1978: ELO.
90: The last concert I went to was 3rd Eye Blind.

I'm going to have to do some real digging for the last 10.

Hm. More Keane information. So - "The camera creates, especially in the film’s first half, a hypnotic sense of claustrophobia as it seldom leaves William’s face" and you dye his hair BROWN?!!? Jerk.

And on the other end of the spectrum, I hope NotSoSecretAgent on Cinema Blend forgives me:

As requested by Helly:

A tandem skydive puts a passenger in a harness. He is hooked via the harness to a certified tandem instructor (actually the instructor's Tandem parachute rig) by four points. The Tandem parachute rig is huge; The main parachute is on average 400 square feet; compare that to my personal parachute which is 120 square feet.

A tandem rig weighs about 60 pounds. Compare that to mine, which weighs around 10. My stubby little arms can't reach the bottom

of the tandem rig where the drogue pilot chute is (in other words I'd have a hard time opening the darn thing).

Your average joe who comes to the drop zone to do a tandem is about 5 foot 8 and weighs about 200 pounds. I'm only 5'2". He would have to wear me like a backpack. I guess I could take a cattle prod with me and drive them around with a pair of spurs - "Yee-ha! Jump little dogie, jump!!"

I suppose I could get a smaller tandem rig, specifically built for me, and only take people my size. That would piss off our other tandem instructors though, who have to take those bigassed, sweaty, stinky men all day and consider the smaller people (who tend to be mainly women) a welcome break.

I did a tandem jump with my husband because after taking the tandem course. To complete their rating the instructor candidate must do 5 tandem jumps with a licensed skydiver who has at least 100 jumps. I presume this requirement is so the candidate can become more used to the system and is jumping with someone who actually knows what is going on.

I had about 500 jumps at the time and was spooked to get on the airplane without my own parachute. But the jump was fun, plus it was kinda romantic until we got near the ground. Then I was being a front seat driver: "Uh, Jon, shouldn't we start our downwind now? Jon, if you don't turn we might hit the building..."

More...
71: I did a tandem hang glide once. It was fun, but I wasn't hooked like I was when I skydived for the first time.
72: I have been white water rafting twice. I had problems with hypothermia both times.
73: I adore sailboats above all boats, all which are nifty.
74: I obviously have no problem with motion sickness.
75: I obviously have no fear of heights, either.
76: If I have any fear it's fear of social situations with strangers. I mean it's a hard core crippling kind of fear sometimes.
77: Our wedding anniversary is August 27th. I forgot about it until my mom sent us a card this year.
78: Jon and I got married in freefall by a Universalist/Unitarian preacher who also skydives.
79: I broken 2 bones in my body: my left tibia and my 5th thoracic vertabrae.
80: I have had a tonsilectomy, plus my wisdom teeth were removed. I was also put under anesthesia for an endoscopy.