Here I Am!!!

I have so much stuff roiling around in me, I just might explode. I can't stand not having enough time to make journal entries. Hell I don't have enough time right now, but I'll pop if I don't.

Tomorrow is a very big day for me. I am meeting someone and want to be my best. I want to look like an adult, but not too grown-up. I want to seem vibrant, alive, and down-to-earth. I want my face not to be rashy and my hair to behave.

See, this is why I love to live online. I don't have to worry about this stuff day in and day out like so many other folks do. But then the special occasion comes along....

<sigh> Never never never take two- and three-year-olds shopping if you don't have someone along to help you. I had to look at clothes in 30-second bursts in between retrieving children from the middle of display racks, taking them potty, refereeing fights, and putting back all the merchandise they have caused to fall on the floor. Just to name a few. Hell, jus the potty one took up half the night last night. Every time I found an item that was a possible maybe, "Mommy! Potty!!!" and the race is on once more to get children back up one flight, around the bathrobes, through the lingerie and into the restroom yet again.

I left the mall empty-handed. Again. I won't impulse-buy; can't bear to waste the funds. It's gotta be right or not at all, and how can I tell if it's right when I can barely get a look at it?

I hate shopping, in case ya hadn't noticed. I hated it before I had kids. I hate it doubly now. But the hubby swears to look after the kids tonight, and I got some good advice late last night that should help, so, God willing, I should come back with something to wear tomorrow.

Uh oh, it's quiet downstairs, too quiet....

Ayup, little kid was feeding the reaminder of our bread to the dogs.

Had a fight with the hubby Sunday morning. He still doesn't get it. It's not about swear words, it's about attitude. It's not about profanity, it's about the condescending tone of voice that tells a young one, "You are so utterly worthless and vile, why did I participate in your creation?" For someone so hypersensitive to tone of voice as applied to him, how can he be so deaf as to how he uses it??? He has cleaned up the bad language a lot, but it doesn't negate the hatred and disgust that drips off every word. And he loves these children! I know it, I can feel it, so why in the hell does his voice carry these flags? I cannot help but think it has something to do with the way he was raised.

Today is gorgeous; I have got to get out and enjoy some of that. The wind is doing the leaf-cleaning thing, and the trees are such gorgeous hues of red, yellow, and orange, and the sky is glowing, with a few of those high thin clouds that I know are made of ice.

When the wind smells, tatses, like it does today, it speaks to me of Halloween and going to the fair, of high school football events like dances and bonfires. I never cared for the actual football, but I loved the pep rallies and bonfires and dances that were all wapped up with it. And Homecoming! That was tons of fun, making floats and stuff. Heh, amazing that I liked these so much, introvert that I was. I seldom danced at a dance, just went to be there. Didn't talk to people at the bonfires, just enjoyed the primitive joy of watching swirling flames, absorbing the intense heat. Course, at the pep rallies, I was cool, cuz it wasn't one-on-one, it was a screaming mass of humanity, and I could scream right along with the rest of em.

I have been playing about with personality tests a little with some friends of mine, when I can steal a few minutes here or there to take a test. Seems I am supposedly an ESFP, called by some a "Performer." I scored E+4 S+0 F+4 P+2 on the Keirsey test, an adapted version of Myers-Briggs. Here is what the site had to say about it:

Besides being concrete in speech and utilitarian in reaching their goals, the Demonstrator Artisans are informative and expressive in their social interactions. Thus, while Demonstrators are usually extreme in their expressiveness and sociability, observably the most expressive of all the types, they are not comfortable telling others what to do, preferring to offer information rather than to issue orders.

Demonstrating or performing is putting on a show to entertain others, and eSfPs, whether on the job, with friends, or in their families, are the natural performers among the types, people for whom it can truly be said "all the world's a stage." Playful and fun-loving, the eSfPs' primary social interest lies in stimulating those around them, arousing their senses and their pleasureful emotions-charming them, in a sense, to cast off their concerns and "lighten up." Representing about ten per cent of the general population, eSPfs radiate warmth and optimism, and are able to lift others' spirits with their contagious laughter and their irrepressible joy of living.

It is well that ESFPs are plentiful, something over ten per cent of the population, because they bring joy to so many of us. They love the excitement of playing to an audience, and they try to generate a sense of "showtime" wherever they are. ESFPs are not comfortable being alone, and seek the company of others whenever possible -- which they usually find, for they make wonderful playmates. Lively, witty conversationalists, ESFPs always seem to know the latest jokes and stories, and are quick with wisecracks and wordplay -- nothing is so serious or sacred that it can't be made fun of. Performers also like to live in the fast lane of society, and seem up on latest fads of dress, food, drink, and entertainment, the chic new fashion, the "in" nightclub, the "hot" new musical group. Energetic and uninhibited, ESFPs create a mood of "eat, drink, and be merry" wherever they go, and life around them can have a continual party-like atmosphere.

Now there are two flaws in this one. I do not keep up with the latest fads, etc. and I enjoy being alone. Otherwise, it seems to be dead-on. I asked Jane, who is a family therapist and social worker, if people's personalities change over time, and she said yes certain facets of our personalities develop over the years, it's part of the maturation process. Even so, there has been such a huge swing in my preferences and tendencies over the course of my lifetime so far, I cannot help but think that some negative stuff in my childhood had soemthing to do with it, and it wasn't until the forge of Army Basic Training that some of this harm got undone. What makes me think this is that the above portrait fits me very well now, and it fits the way I was as a 5-year-old. But a huge gap is there that coincides with some of the hardest years of my life, during which I was withdrawn, reclusive.

Ack, I can't write any more right now, I hear trouble downstairs.