Geek out!

Google Scholar is a new service that searches journal articles from a variety of services. It's library friendly, too, and explains to people why they can't expect to find everything online full-text for free. :) I must say, the FAQ is a particularly fun read, with questions like 'The description of my article is wrong and I am appropriately outraged. How do I have it corrected?' or 'But I need the article now and the library is closed for Founder's Day.' Check it out.

A great overview of DBT

I spent a year undergoing Dialectical Behavioural Therapy within a group of people with similar issues. Even though my problems weren't as severe as some, they affected most of my life and I wanted to make a change. It was very helpful. At some point I might incorporate the responses I wrote out as 'homework' into this blog (it's set up very much like a weekly seminar, with worksheets and exercises to complete). But it never hurts to review skills, and lately I've found I've been making some bad choices, not handling stress as well, and I blew up emotionally all over a friend who really deserved better, so I thought it was time to look at the exercises again. I came across DBT Self Help, which includes the worksheets and handouts Marsha Linehan (who founded DBT) came up with, with her permission to post them. If you want to learn more about this type of therapy--which essentially teaches the skills we should have learnt all along but some of were never taught, check it out. I highly recommend them.

Know someone who practises self-injury?

I was looking up some stuff on DBT and found this useful link. The DBT Self-Help Guide has some good alternatives.

It's sad

when someone who dedicated three decades of her life to improving that of the Iraqi people is repaid for her work by being murdered by insurgents who care nothing for human life. My thoughts are with Margaret Hassan's family and friends--whether Irish, British, or Iraqi--and with those who tried to stop her murder. I think the vast majority of people, including those in the Middle East, would see this as a terrible act, and I can only hope that this sort of killing will no longer be tolerated. We need more Margaret Hassans in the world.

On another vaguely related note, I was driving away from work today when I came to an intersection where a policeman was taking the light offline and bringing traffic along our road to a halt. It was not at first apparent as to why for we sat for a minute or so with nothing happening. Then, slowly, they came.

Most funerals processions in the city are aided by the police to help keep the procession together through the various intersections. The first police cruiser was expected. But this was no ordinary funeral line, for several police motorcycles provided an honour guard accompanying a hearse followed by a painfully long line of mourners, including a fire van and a man on a motorcycle bearing a POW/MIA flag. I knew from the moment I saw the honour guard that this was the funeral cortege of Lance Cpl. Sean Langley, a Marine killed last week in Iraq. His mother is a member of the Lexington police force; his father is the assistant chief of police with the Veterans Administration. The 20-year-old--killed during his second tour of duty in Iraq--had planned to follow them into law enforcement.

Most people sat in their cars with a sort of respectful hush falling over the area. One tow truck drive about a block behind me loudly swerved into one of the side streets and sped away, unwilling to stop for a few moments. I'm not sure he could tell what was going on from his vantage point. But for the rest of us, it was a reminder that sometimes the things we rush towards are not so important, and that sometimes you really just need to come to a halt and consider what is important.

I have to admit, when I saw the hearse, I cried, which doesn't make sense, I suppose, given the fact that I didn't know Sean Langley. But I raised in a military family, and there is such a deep, ingrained fear of what may happen that these families live with every day, and it touches me even though no one in my family is currently serving. I've always abhorred war, but I've also respected the willingness to serve and sacrifice displayed by soldiers. Right then I had a terrible moment where I looked at the procession and thought to myself...'this young man died for me'. One can argue about the reasons or the folly of this war, but the fact is, those men and women serving do so because they believe in making a difference, in learning new skills, but also in protecting our way of life. Protecting their hometowns. Protecting complete strangers. It's true, we at home are not coping with the sort of chaos of a Fallujah. We can only imagine the horror that our soldiers and the civilians caught in the middle are facing. And each of us is responsible, in some way, for their deaths, because we fund the war machine, we elect the politicians who make the decisions, we send them off, and we are the reason they fight. So it's only fitting, I think, to take a moment to remember them, and to bury them with all due honour. I wish we were in a position where no more young men and women had to die. We're not, and we're not going to be for some time, so I just hope that they are given every support needed to come home safely. And even though I hate this war and in the broader view I'm not sure if this is all worth these lives, I also know that things happen, every moment, every choice, that make differences in the world, so that these deaths are not in vain. But I hope we get to a point where Iraq is stable and safe again and there will be fewer corteges bringing everything to a halt. I appreciate that we can at least safely bury our dead, whereas there are many places where families lose loved ones and cannot even be sure of paying final respects without more loss of life. So sad.

This is a wonderful way to promote books

Online Book Club at the Lexington Public Library

It delivers 2-3 chapters to you in the genre you prefer and then entices you to go ahead and come in to the library for the rest of it. Sneaky and smart, and it allows readers who otherwise might not otherwise come across a book to learn more about it. The service is courtesy of DearReader.com. You can then share your thoughts about the book with other readers in the Chapter A Day Book Club Forum.

A bit of e-mail humour to start out the week

: 'All God's Angels' by Kate Rusby
: Meditative

Thanks, N. :)

ROMANCE MATHEMATICS
Smart man + smart woman = romance
Smart man + dumb woman = affair
Dumb man + smart woman = marriage
Dumb man + dumb woman = pregnancy

OFFICE ARITHMETIC
Smart boss + smart employee = profit
Smart boss + dumb employee = production
Dumb boss + smart employee = promotion
Dumb boss + dumb employee = overtime

SHOPPING MATH
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't need.

GENERAL EQUATIONS & STATISTICS
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

HAPPINESS
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.

LONGEVITY
Married men live longer than single men do, but married men are a lot more willing to die.

PROPENSITY TO CHANGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.

DISCUSSION TECHNIQUE
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED
Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

SEND THIS TO A SMART WOMAN WHO NEEDS A LAUGH AND TO THE SMART GUYS YOU KNOW CAN HANDLE IT.

Things that bug you when you have obsessive-compulsive disorder

1. In U2's song 'Vertigo', Bono counts (in Spanish) one, two, three, fourteen!
   
2. In the women's restroom down the hall is a small bottle of lotion that's 'Passion Fruit' scented but has a picture of a Hibiscus (totally different plant) on it.
   
3. In like vein as an OCD gardener, the mural in one of the hallways has Sunflowers on Iris-like leaves.
   
4. This isn't mine, it's someone else's, but the WB keeps saying they're 'fresh' episodes to mean new, leading to this constant debate with the television.
   
5. Jewell, honey, it should be 'what if God WERE one of us'. Why is it that most British rockers, even using idioms, maintain decent grammar but Americans just can't seem to do the same? Do they not teach subjunctive case anymore????
   
6. When your boss suggests changing seats to keep everyone working happily, you panic because you finally got everything 'just so'. (Of course, there was the one day I had to switch because of a massive allergy attack to something at the desk, anyway, and I survived.)
   
7. Why do engineers in Kentucky build all these stupid double left turn lanes that immediately go down to one lane???????
   
8. And why do so many people in Lexington fail to visualise using turn-signals???
   
9. I hate it when people think I'm germ phobic when really I just hate it when my hands feel like they have stuff on them, whether dog drool or even those antibacterial hand gels, which never quite feel clean until you run your hands under water. I don't sit there and think about the germs if someone shakes my hand or even (and yes, this has happened) spits on me. I just think, ooh, that feels icky. I'm very touch oriented and texture oriented and sometimes the textures just are WRONG, and sometimes when I shake hands someone's palm will feel sweaty and then I have an urge to wash, or I think about how many people snot on their hands and then touch magazines, money, etc. It's not the germs. It's the ick, and it takes a lot to school your reaction when you're trying to be polite. ('Oh no! You touched me...I'll have to burn off those digits! AaaaaahhhH!') See, there's a difference. They also feel icky if they get too dry, but putting lotion on them is fine, because that rubs in instead of 'sitting' on the surface. It's mostly hand oriented. I can plop down on a public toilet, stand in mud, even garden in it, but whereas I could easily let mud dry on my feet, I can't on my hands; I'd have to go wash. But I could pick my own nose and not have to, because there's no sense of contamination. Crazy, eh? Fortunately, Paxil is our friend. And what they often don't talk about is that people with OCD often shift whatever bugs them--I go through spells where I clean, or check the stove or door lock, etc., but I even with mini rituals, I don't always stick to the same thing, so they're both locked in constistency and inconsistent at the same time, as anxiety levels ebb and flow. Probably makes psychiatrists crazy, I'd think. :)
   

Come on, most people at least have tendencies towards OCD (or are just anal retentive Virgonian weirdos)--or both. Feel free to share yours.

A coworker and I decided

that at some point we need to host a 'neuroses party' where everyone can put their neuroses into a piñata and whack the crap out of it. She's agreed to host it. I guess if the piñata breaks we can always exchange neuroses, but there'd better be chocolate, too. :)

Something I meant to blog

Before we decided on doing a 'Gilligan's Island' theme for Halloween, we had discussed doing 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' (hey, that's how Disney spells it). I had suggested updating for the new millennium, although it didn't fly, but I wanted to put it here for future reference. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in the 21st Century

Grumpy is undergoing court-ordered anger management classes.
Bashful is on Paxil for his social anxiety. This has allowed him to become quite a party boy down at the gay bar.
Sneezy is on Allegra and doing quite well.
Happy is considering bariatric surgery, but at least no one had to put him on Prozac.
Sleepy now sleeps with a CPAP machine for his sleep apnea and installed lights in the mine and is quite the energetic dynamo.
Doc is getting rich on all the ailments of his brethren.
Dopey, despite his name, has avoided drugs and is working in a school for deaf children where his muteness is not a problem and he can really make a difference. He does, sometimes, however, dream of running away and joining a rock band as a guitarist and is considering getting a tatoo.
Snow White is a goth chick who runs away from home to get away from an abusive stepmother.
Prince Charming is a motorcycle dude with a leather jacket who arrives to take her away off into the sunset.

NPR : Families Share Soldiers' 'Last Letters Home'

NPR : Families Share Soldiers' 'Last Letters Home'

I wish I could watch this HBO special. It's a very poignant remembrance. As a military dependent, that 'knock on the door' was a powerful sword which hung over military families.