A Psychologist on the Loose
Posts tagged joy
The Gardening Angel, No Stress for Me
Stress? Not me. I have a Gardening Angel
Peggy Don’t Care About No Stinkin’ Cartels!
Don’t I have a lovely garden of spring flowers?
What I have is the privilege of knowing a very special person. Peggy was visiting one day when I was whining about the fact that because of the drought, Central Texas had no bluebonnets this year. She called later to say I was wrong. As she’d left my house, she’d noticed a bluebonnet out by my mailbox. “Impossible,” I said, and went to look. There it was, a beautiful artificial bluebonnet at the base of the mailbox. The next More >
Are You Having Fun Yet? Why Not?
Superbowl Plans. It seems 2011 is going to be filled with victories in this struggle to be more of a self, meaning more in charge of what goes on inside my brain and my chest cavity. That said…while every smartass I’m-so-above-it-all-I-can’t-stand-Jerry-Jones…cell in my body wants to opt out on the Superbowl…
This morning I had this thought. “Oh, here you are, saying you’re going to be different and yet you can’t watch one more story on that guy’s ankle hurt in the playoff game and WILL HE PLAY SUNDAY?
So, I got a grip. I chanted the motto More >
Who’s Grinning Now? What about Now?
Dateline: Threadgill’s Branch Office, Austin, Texas. Jimmie Dale Gilmore sang here.
Tomorrow is a long day finishing up with a flight to Dallas. I’m going to be tired. Probably cranky. Oh, well. I suck in a heavy breath and tell myself, “After the trip to Dallas, I’ll relax.”
The problem is, cranky people are truly unattractive. Negativity turns people off. I know. It isn’t fair. But, it’s the way of the world, like gravity.
Just being pleasant for yourself doesn’t seem to work. So let’s try relationship pressure….
What “Event” Are You Waiting On? When are you going to start grinning? Butterflies flavor the fruit, you More >
If You Need to Be Right, Don’t Get Close to Strangers
Dateline: Houston Post Oak Branch International World Headquarters. Crowded restaurant.
Setup: Currently I’m the lone wolf in jean shorts amongst a slew of dressed-for-success folks in Houston as part of training for a pyramid scheme… company… which, when you put down your “buy in”, provides you with lists of people in your area who are most likely to buy the company’s product. The product? Well, it’s not an actual product like a book or an apple. It’s an imaginary product.
Riches are being promised to those who’ve come together in Houston….those who sign up for the “small initial investment”….are told that all they will have to do is More >
Flight of the Immature, Part 3
Conclusion of United Flight 6960 from Chicago to Columbia, South Carolina. Parts 1 and 2 immediately precede this tale of unusual punishment.
Whoa. Finishing up my tale of woe is going to be a bit more difficult than I’d planned. I’m now in my Hilton branch office the next day. I have the television on the History Channel…and, right there, splattered all over the big flat screen is a re-enactment of the Battle of Valley Forge. At the moment, three emaciated soldiers, their frozen bare feet wrapped in rags, their eyes blank from pain and starvation…are sitting against a tree. “Only the More >
Fear, Dust, and a Longing Under the Wire
Dateline: Nuevo Laredo, Mexico….Over the border and through the dust to many grandmothers’ cardboard and tin houses we went….
My first impression on the job with Bridging Hearts? A person should really get into this sort of project when she’s younger…a lot younger. My special person winced and agreed.
Our helping out the border economy started right off the bat. We had four huge and heavy black garbage bags full of 1000 toothbrushes and toothpastes… (Thank you Austin dentists!)…to cart over the Rio Grande Bridge into Nuevo Laredo. As soon as we cleared the gate, we hired a couple of fellows for outrageous amounts (what you send out comes back)…little did they know they More >
Think, then Speak, the ‘Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’
How much trouble can a person get into by speaking ‘off the top of his head’ to a televsion reporter?
Doesn’t talking ’off the top of your head’ boil down to simply blithering random words as they pop into consciousness? Yes, ‘off the top of your head’ can, and often does mean, talking without using your head at all. Using the Thinking Guidance System,you recall, means taking into acount the LONG TERM effects of your actions.
Which brings us to the ’Talkative Guy in Bicycle Shorts Incident’
A few weeks ago, a husband, obviously in the grip of his Emotional Guidance System…shot and killed his More >