I found out the other day via my sister, that my parents are officially building a house. It’s not very big, about 1,000 sq. ft. with another 1,000 for the basement, but I cannot explain how HUGE this.

For 35 years, about 30 of them that I remember, there has been an endless debate between my mother and father. My father wanted his family’s farm and my mother wanted a house. This played out in various different ways for the past 30 years but it basically went like this: we lived on my grandparent’s farm in a double wide modular home.

About three years ago, my grandmother died and my parents “bought the farm.” This in turn, fanned the flames of the old debate. If they bought the farm, they must build a house.

The first steps were baby steps. My sister lived for a year in the century-plus-old farm home, equipped with shotty electricity and bat poop with her boyfriend and boyfriend’s brother. Then it sat empty for a season and my parent’s were nailed with taxes on a vacant home. Then the old farm house was torn down.

The house was mourned about a year. Then it was time to get cracking. The 1979 double wide was not getting in younger and neither were my parents.

This month, they have decided on the ranch style plan and will go forward this summer. Which leads me to wonder, why do I care?

I mean, I’m 34 years-old. I live 800 miles away. I visit twice a year. My husband loves my family and anyone else who loves me has never batted an eye about the stigma of a “double wide” home. I am paying on a very nice, new home of my own. Shouldn’t these things fill this mysterious void?

Honestly, I’ve been having various weird dreams about it. These dreams are flashbacks to childhood and we are all going to be living in a new huge house.

It must have been part of something I mentally ingested as a child: if we has a house, life would be x, y, and z. Now, as an adult, I see that material things never solve anything in-and-of themselves. Maybe I was blessed with finding those who liked me for who I was, not how fancy of a home we had.

Another part of me sees it as a hatchet that will be buried. It’s a long standing feud that will be settled. But this resolution has been built up for so long, how could it possibly meet that level of expectation? No matter how, cute, solid, and wonderful the house is, it will never be anymore than it is, a different house. At most, I hope it will be a symbolic sign of relief.

I do wonder what my parents will argue about for the next 35 years….

I like this picture as I celebrate my 1/4 mark.

I bought an old Xbox game system from a co-worker before Christmas. Now I’m addicted to playing. I should really get a game like “Dance, Dance USA” or something to justify the time I put into it.

According to the guru at Gamestop, I bought the “best game ever” and have been playing “Knights of the Old Republic” by Lucas Arts. It is quite addicting, but I find that I’m torn between going toward the light side or turning to the dark side. Maybe I shouldn’t over think it, do what a want to do and see where I end up.

Maybe I think I’m a good person, but really I’m a selfish mercenary.

My son had drainage tubes put in his ears yesterday to hopefully ease the amount of infections he’s been getting.

While waiting for the surgery I was playing with Zach and this other eight year old boy in the kids’ room. I was chewing a piece of gum.

The boy said, “What is that delicious smell?”

“Oh, its my gum, do you want a piece?”

He said, “No I can’t I have surgery today.”

“Oh, what kind?” I asked. “Zach is having tubes put in his ears.”

“Butt surgery,” he said matter-of-fact.

Hmmm. No further explaination, please.

Until then I thought this was the Ear, Nose and Throat section of the hospital.

So, the other day I noticed that a good friend of my husbands (and mine) tends to exaggerate greatly and sometimes lie. The people who know and love him have put this aside and realized that this embellishment is part of his personality and to take most of what he says with a grain of salt. Even his son is quick to doubt a story too good to be true. Although everyone is kind of “understood” about this, no one really brings it up.

The thing is, he never does this to hurt anyone. It’s just become a way of how he sees the world and talks. I found this excerpt today that describes him perfectly.

From the diary of a narcissist:In “Streetcar Named Desire”, Blanche, the sister in law of Marlon Brando, is accused by him of inventing a false biography, replete with exciting events and desperate wealthy suitors. She responds that it is preferable to lead an imaginary but enchanted life - then a real but dreary one.

This, approximately, is my attitude, as well. My biography needs no embellishments. It is chock full of adventures, surprising turns of events, governments and billionaires, prisons and luxury hotels, criminals and ministers, fame and infamy, wealth and bankruptcy. I have lived a hundred lives. All I need to do is tell it straight. And yet I can’t.

Moreover, I exaggerate everything. If a newspaper publishes my articles, I describe it as “the most widely circulated”, or “the most influential”. If I meet someone, I make him out to be “the most powerful”, “most enigmatic”, “most something”. If I make a promise, I always promise the impossible or undoable.

To put it less gently, I lie. Compulsively and needlessly.

All the time.

About everything. And I often contradict myself.

Why do I need to do this?

To make myself interesting or attractive. In other words, to secure narcissistic supply (attention, admiration, adulation, gossip). I refuse to believe that I can be of interest to anyone as I am. My mother was interested in me only when I achieved something. Since then I flaunt my achievements - or invent ones. I feel certain that people are more interested in my fantasies than in me.

This way I also avoid the routine, the mundane, the predictable, the boring.

In my mind, I can be anywhere, do anything and I am good at convincing people to participate in my scripts. It is movie-making. I should have been a director.

Pseudologica Fantastica is the compulsive need to lie consistently and about everything, however inconsequential - even if it yields no benefits to the liar. I am not that bad. But when I want to impress - I lie.

I love to see people excited, filled with wonder, bedazzled, dreamy, starry eyed, or hopeful. I guess I am a little like the myth spinners, legend tellers and troubadours of yore. I know that at the end of my rainbow there is nothing but a broken pot. But I so want to make people happy! I so want to feel the power of a giver, a God, a benefactor, a privileged witness.

So, I lie. Do you believe me?

I mean, this blog is my version of my reality. Some people would probably disagree how I see and describe the world. Doesn’t everyone put their own slant on life? Most people like to tell a funny story or be seen as an interesting person.

After knowing him for five years or more, I think I see him as a person who needs a lot of praise. He’s insecure, doesn’t have a lot of close people who care for him and has a good heart. He’s really a sweet guy. But when the stories get too over the top, I try to find subtle ways to remind him that we like him for who he is now, at this moment, best of all.

Again, I have to ask are we labeling people to quickly? In the past he might have been someone who had “a lot of yarn” or “who liked to tell tall tales.” These people, as author Douglas Adams might say, are “mostly harmless.”

This morning on my commute to work I was driving in an outside lane, on the way to my son’s daycare. I usually am not in that lane so I was about one second behind on seeing the “merge” left sign. Then the person in front of me made right turn, causing me to brake.

When I started up again, I saw the woman in the lane I needed to merge to yelling and making hand gestures. I hadn’t even tried to merge yet, “What the hell was her problem?” I thought.

Then I continued to point to the sign and mouth “I NEED TO M-E-R-G-E. BITCH,” using over exagerated gestures. Finally she sped up and I was able to merge behind her.

Then, because I was angry, I laid on the horn.

I was almost to the daycare and then, SHE PULLS INTO THE SAME DAYCARE.

Akward.

Suddenly, my rush to drop my son off became less important as I slowly cruised into the second driveway.

Luckily, I didn’t see her in the daycare. But if I did, and she said something, damn it, I have held my ground. I HAD THE RIGHT TO ATTEMPT A MERGE!!!! (With finger wagging.)

(As you can tell, my horn is much worse than my bite.)

When I was pregnant with my son, I had decided to decorate the room in the Winne-the-Pooh theme. A co-worker at the time (a father of three) said he didn’t like Winne-The-Pooh because every character had some personality flaw that needed medication or therapy or a combination of the two.

 Winne the Pooh: over-eater. We all know how once Pooh ate so much he got stuck in Rabbit’s doorway only to starve himself until he was small enough to get out. Need I say more?

 Eeyore: Depressed, pessimistic, dreary. This guy seems like he wants to shoot himself.

 Rabbit: at best, he’s a major fuss-budget. At worse, he has obessive compuslive disorder.

  Tigger: classic ADD or AHD. When Tigger can’t bounce on everyone, he’s a very depressed animal.

 Piglet: Anxiety disorder. This is one easily shook up pig who worries constantly.

Of course these labels are all in good humor. I let my son watch Winne-the-Pooh and notice on the new show they have toned down the personality extremes. For example, I saw a recent episode where Eeyore sang the blues about his constantly missing tail. At least, he’s turning his depression into art.

On the flip side, I wonder if this is proof of how quickly we label what was once just “personality types” such as, “I’m a worrier”, “I’m energetic”, “I love food”, etc. But then maybe we have realized, as my father-in-law coins it “Better living through pharmaceuticals.”

You must view these videos based on true stories acted out by some very funny women. I think it’s a commerical type thing, but it’s too funny to miss. This needs to be a regular show.

http://inthemotherhood.msn.com/Default.aspx?source=email&videoId=5

This morning we had video-conference meeting about the new email archiving system and our limited use of email. Our main office must have had some liquid wacky weed in their coffee and kept giggling about computer terminology.

“We are going to insert a repository into the system,” our head IT stated.

Massive giggles followed from home office.

“That was repository….not suppository,” he stated.

“This will allow the emails to be held for 15 years,” he continued.

More snorting and suppressed laughter.

“…until they can be flushed from the system.”

More giggling with two people leaving the room to bust a gut.

I didn’t have enough coffee in me this morning to get a true laugh out of the situation.On the other hand the IT guy’s new mustache made me think about that Jimmy Buffett song, “Pencil thin mustache.” Although, I don’t think the “pencil thin” part was the intentional look, if you know what I mean.

For Valentine’s Day lunch my husband and I met at a natural food mega store for a salad. I piled mine with as many fresh veggies as possible covered with balsamic vinegar. He opted for the pre-made Ceaser mix with extra chicken on top.

Half way through munching our veggies, my husband discovers a big, black, whole fly in his salad. Naturally, he’s grossed out and goes to get a refund.

I, on the other hand, did not even eat the same salad and have no reason to stop eating my salad. Still, I keep thinking about that gross fly and have to forcefully put it out of my mind with every bite.

I paid good money to stuff my self with fresh veggies and continued to distract myself while I plowed through the veggies. Luckily, I managed to eat most of my salad before my husband came back to lament about the ick factor of the fly.

“What’s worse than finding a fly in your salad,” I joked with my husband. “finding half a fly in your salad…haaw, hawww.”

Yes, as a matter of fact, that is the world’s lamest joke.