[insert intriguing, provocative post here]

I really ought to get better at jotting down ideas for entries. Seems like I've got a lot when I'm just strolling about or riding on the train, but they flee once I actually seat myself at the keyboard. There's also the problem of being really charged up about something at one point and then not being able to tap into that energy again later; there's not much remedy for that difficulty beyond self-discipline and if I had ample supplies of that I'd be getting paid for some writing instead of distributing it free on the Internet.

Family drama, coupled with inertia, consumed much of this weekend. It wasn't a big deal, really--everyone's safe and all--but it was a reminder to me to put more effort into keeping in touch. I've been straining for an appropriate metaphor; a web is close, but doesn't express quite what I mean. I see a close family like ours as being something like a bunch of apparently independent objects in a 3-D space. However, they're connected by a complicated web of invisible or barely visible vectors of force. When one of the objects is tugged or rotated or otherwise disturbed, it translates some pull to the others, either grossly or subtly, and they in turn transmit this further. The overall organisation may not appear to change much as a result, but old sources of tension can be aggravated or new ones created and slight ongoing shifts can be brought into sharp relief. In my head, this looks like a bunch of shiny metal balls with superfine wires connecting them, but I suppose a more real-life example might be a dense cluster of stars with the vectors represented by gravitational pull.

So I came out of it all with a new appreciation of the incredible stress my mother is under right now. She's getting to the end of her rope with work--they've got a major accreditation coming up and her boss seems to be undermining her efforts to prepare for it--at the same time that her mother, my last remaining grandparent, is entering the last lap. Mom, an RN, is taking a lot of responsibility for her care and I don't suppose that I need to go into all the issues that is stirring up. monshu is very sympathetic, since he's got similar and similarly difficult issues in his own family right now and we spent a good chunk of the afternoon on Saturday talking through things. I've been trying to figure out whether my presence in STL would benefit her enough to justify going, but haven't come to any firm conclusions.

The next big event is a family wedding in Chicago, which it turns out is only a month away. (It snuck up on me since my invitation hasn't arrived though I'm assured that it's been sent.) This is my stepsister, who in some ways can't be said to really belong to the family at all. (My father has been the most vocal and blunt on this point.) Her arm had to be twisted to include one of my siblings and discussions on how best to handle the whole affair have been intense and contentious (and given me a new respect for my sister).

Thus, long, worthwhile calls to my sister and mother took big bites out of my Sunday. The evening was taken up by a trip to Ethiopian Diamond with the friendly gay couple across the hall. Saturday evening was a delightful hokey 30's movie night at lhn's and prilicla's that I hope to write about later.

You're a hottie

So, has it ever happened to you that a gorgeous guy who you have a crush on expresses an interest and you and you find that flattering, but then when you finally meet the guy's boyfriend, you find him so unattractive/creepy/dull/etc. that you begin to wonder how flattering that expression was after all?

It's the kind of thing that makes you want to stop basing any of your sense of self-esteem on other's opinions at all.