Sack o' baggage
You run into this type once in a while - people who look perfectly normal on the outside but are bursting on the inside with a need to unload the story of their life. If you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time you'll suffer the consequences of an emotional water main break.
I was working on a lawyers PC yesterday. She was out sick but her secretary, Diane, decided I needed company. I'm not sure how I tripped the switch but for twenty minutes I oscillated between her speed-reading through the Cliffs' Notes of her life and my own internal movie.

I'll be starting at the new job in the courthouse if they ever getting done with the background check. I mean what's taking so long. I'll bet they have me confused with that other Diane M. White who did some jail time. White's my married name from my first husband who was killed... (by his own hand, no doubt). It better not be because of my job at Nixon Peabody. That woman was a bitch. No I mean it, she had big time psychological problems (birds of a feather...) People couldn't believe what I had to put up with. Well I finally had to tell them 'you either fire me or lay me off but I refuse to resign'. (I have to get some work done. Will she ever stop spilling her guts) Anyway I wish they'd hurry up because I'm going to Europe for five weeks. My daughter and her husband live in Switzerland. He works for Nestles. I know that last job contributed to all my stomach problems. They finally figured out it was diverticulitis and they removed a foot of my intestine (she really did spill her guts) My maiden name is Gemelli.....

Sunday Paper
I love the idea of the Sunday paper, so much so that I'm willing to risk my neighbors catching a glimpse of baggy PJs and scary pillow hair so I can retrieve it from the driveway while the coffee brews. There's comfort in sitting in bed with this fistful of stuff at the ready. But maybe it's time to see it for what it is: a mass marketing RPG fired at your house in an ecologically disasterous housing.
You developed invisible habits from reading the paper for so many years. The eyes slalom through advertisments, sidstepping mindless drivel, the fingers yank through pages of nothingness until you settling on the occasional piece of interest. But if you look at the paper with a beginner's mind it is mind-boggling how vacuous 90% of it is. There are, of course the bone-headed ads ( today Radio Shack implores you to Protect your Valentine from ugly overages). The propoganda leaflets that fly out of the comics section represent 45 places to buy a plasma TV. But even more insidious are the fluff news stories.
I'm starting to catalog the topics that make up today's mainstream news. Without trying too hard, here's a list of topics I don't need constant updates on:

• The Michael Jackson trial
• The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Charles and Cammilla
• The Pope's health
• Anything relates to the Catholic Church
• Romney, Kerry, Dean, or anything else about the 2008 election
• Stories about TV shows
• The business side of sports
  
• The Grammys

Actually's the Grammys, like the paper, would be a lot more interesting if the focus was taken off the mass media and shone on the little-known. I'll bet the first hour of the event is much more fun that the last.

If I could have a copy of the paper tailored for my needs, here's what would lie therein:

• Opus
• The Ideas section
• The magazine section (only for the crossword)
• Obituaries.
• All the stories after page 10

I am Dad Unit
...and so it has come to pass. By all observations I am starring in the role of Dad but for the life of me I don't how I got here. Much of what I know as real I wasn't prepared for.

• How much they love life. Was I ever that happy?
• How they have nailed English. I hope it is never perfected. I will miss Aly saying things like "I think so I'm gone be havin' a playdate."
• How freely they give their love. In the middle of a computer game Jack will grab my arm tight and say " I love my Daddy"
• How much energy is barely contained in a six year old boy. If you could only put that in a gas tank
• How hard it is to be with them....and without them

We have turned such a corner. I no longer makes jokes like the only thing better than a three day weekend is a two day weekend. It is so much easier now and, with language fully engaged, more rewarding. Lately Terry and I have both independently been thinking of their birth mother. I desperately want her to know that her children and happy, healthy, and growing. But there's no way to deliver that news and even if there was how could it not also be cruel. We will always feel her pain in someway. When I look at Jack and Aly sleeping I often think How bad things must have been for her to do what she did.
God bless, Natalia