Probably Going to Lose the Hand

Yesterday, I was baking me up some sourdough bread (because I'm a domestic diva), and my pot holder slipped. (Not so diva.)

My hand came into contact with my dutch oven. Which was about 450 degrees hot at the time. (That was the oven temperature, and we all know how awesome dutch ovens are at conducting heat. If you don't, ask me -- I have first hand experience.*)

Needless to say, I swore. A lot.

Thankfully, it happened when I was pulling the loaf out of the oven; unfortunately, I had one more loaf to bake. During which my thumb decided it would be a good idea to find a hole in the knitted potholder so that my thumb could find its way to the metal rack in the oven.

I swore a lot, again. (Did I mention the oven was blazing hot?!)

Spent the rest of the day with a cool compress on my right hand. I'm probably going to lose it.







*Pun intended, you're welcome.

I Have Issues

If there is one thing I wish certain people would understand, it's this:

I don't have problems, I have issues. Problems can be fixed, issues you just deal with.

I'm not capable of being fixed. I will always

• be Obsessive Compulsive
• be a Perfectionist
• have Control Issues
• have Social Anxiety

There is no pill, no solution to these issues. They are permanent. However, they are manageable. With time, I will learn to live with them. They will not control me, nor will they define me. Some day, I may find I need to have medication to control them; again, this is not a solution. It is simply a way to help me learn to handle them.

Telling me that if I just do x, that I will feel all better does not help me. I have many friends who simply can't grasp that their suggestions on how I can fix my problem, hurt. Because they want to fix me, and I've tried to explain that it doesn't work that way.

One friend has told me that if I just go to more social activities, I'll be able to get over my social anxiety. Or that if I just tried harder to make more friends, Church wouldn't be so hard for me.

I'm sorry. I've tried. I've gone to the social activities. I've tried to talk to more people at Church. I've tried. I still cry most Sundays because I feel so out of place and on display. I had to give up a calling (playing the organ) because the Sundays I was up to play, I would shake and want to run and hide. Sitting on the stand, I *knew* that everyone was watching me. Not the speakers, me. I felt like their eyes were on me, seeing all my flaws, seeing everything that was wrong with me. Each mistake I made on the organ convinced me that they would see me for what I was, a failure. An impostor. Someone that shouldn't be there.

I couldn't handle it anymore, so I gave up the calling.

Some days, I can fake it. I can pretend that I'm not shaking on the inside. I can pretend that I'm normal. But pretending that I'm okay takes so much effort, that I'm left exhausted. One day, I hope to have all my issues managed. Until that day, take what you get. I'm trying. I don't want to feel so broken.

Sad-Sounding Love Songs

In my grand collection of love songs that sound sad, I have finally found the one song to trump all others. Behold! I give you Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love, as performed by The Civil Wars:

Now, I know what you're thinking. Why not just use good o'l Leonard's version...well, that was a little too 80s, if you know what I mean.

What makes this such a tragic love song is that it is based on the string quartets who were forced to play at the death camps while their fellow prisoners were marched into the crematoria. According to Cohen the line

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

where 'beauty' means "the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation." Further, "it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved."

He believed that it is unnecessary for anyone to know the origin story of the song, because "if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity."





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source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Me_to_the_End_of_Love