goodbye for good...

It has now been six months since I gave up watching television. DIRECTV called and told me that the six-month hold I placed on my account had come to an end. They informed me that they would be turning my service back on unless I called them and told them otherwise. For a moment, I hesitated. Luckily, the moment was brief. They are sending me large boxes so I can return my receivers and remotes. It's over. The trial separation has become a divorce, but an amiable one where neither party has to fight over whose copy of Catcher in the Rye has the dog-eared pages and smudged cover. Of course, I still watch DVDs occasionally, and I'm contractually obligated to watch The Office on Hulu.com, but whatever. I don't think TV is evil, it's just like...Valium. And I mean, sure, I like a good slanty-eyed buzz as much as the next person, but it's honestly just not worth it. Let's do some math. Yaaaaaaaaaay, math! Even though I can't imagine an accurate figure, let's say that I've watched an hour of television every day my entire life. Some days I probably watched three or four hours, but similarly I'm sure there were weeks I went without turning the blasted tube on -- so this is a total guesstimate. If you add up an hour a day for 29 years, you get 441 days. Full days. 24-hour days. That's not quite a year and a half. That's a lot of television. Frankly, it's enough television to make me ill. So yeah, I'm done. Divorced done. Whoopieeeee!

Relationshit Drama.

To use a term stolen from the wildly funny whilst irritating Dane Cook, I'm currently wrestling with various RELATIONSHITS. A relationshit is a relationship that has turned sour. In my case, I have a cluster of relationshits from which I am trying to extricate myself. I have realized that in holding onto friends from long ago who can't even be bothered to return my phone calls, I am sucking up energy that would be better spent on REAL friends, both close and distant who are worth hanging on to.

Paramount to overcoming these relatioshits is getting past my own ego, letting go of the rejection I feel because their incompetence. If they only bother with me when it's convenient for them, it doesn't mean that I'm disposable and it doesnt make them bad people, it just makes them shitty friends who don't deserve the amount of energy I'm throwing at them.

Then, it's time to grieve, as with any loss. If you don't grieve the loss, you can never let go.

At some point, I will need to set some healthy boundaries with people who drunk dial at 3am but never call sober, people who set and break phone dates repeatedly and people who only seem engaged when there is inappropriate flirting involved.

More soon!
Love,
Mandy

Prayer of St. Francis

This is my favorite prayer, just wanted to share it with everyone.

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Gobble, Gobble.

Here are some photos from our Jordan Family Thanksgiving at the restaurant. We served just about 130 free turkey dinners, very rewarding and exhausting. I was up at 6am to make a breakfast casserole. I had procured donuts and OJ the day before. I got ready, loaded up my breakfast goodies and carted the coffeemaker to the restaurant. I arrived around 8am and spent a couple hours prepping food and hanging out with my folks and bro. Officially, we were supposed to begin serving at noon, but we wanted to be ready to plate at 11. There were enough people arriving early that we went ahead and started serving just before 11. We spent the next four hours serving and visiting with strangers. After we finished up and cleaned the kitchen, I went home to shower and nearly fell asleep. I willed myself over to CJ and Michelle's house and BOY am I glad I did. I fell in love with Wii!!! We played bowling and tennis--so much fun. I was drinking. A lot. The more I drank, the more fun I had. I was mixing Ketel One and Sunny D. A horribly tacky yet tasty concoction that my niece affectiontely named SunTinis. Too loopy to drive, I crashed at my bro's house and woke up with a wicked hangover. All-in-all, it was a successful and silly holiday.