Easily torn down. Shredded. Destroyed.
But like the spider, even when hope appears gone, we have the power to spin a new web.
I'm not who I once was. Please don't come here seeking hope or inspiration. I was never that person.
I'm less that person now than I ever once was.
I'm can't share what I don't have enough of for myself. . . . not like food or water or other less needful things.

Like the spider, I'm rebuilding.
Like the spider, my next web of hope will be even more magnificent.
But not yet.
Not yet.

I have a headache today that makes my poor noggin feel
like a melon that's on a crash course with Gallagher..

Of course, the initial whack might be as pleasant
to look forward to as..oh, being hit by a city bus..
but the actual release of pressure inside my
poor aching cranium might bring relief
like Niagara Falls poured into the mouth of a man
that just spent 10 days in the desert without a drink.

Beautiful, glorious and sacrificing self for renewal,
you build a pyre and set yourself ablaze.

For the sake of self.

Red bird of fire you come forth through
your ashes a new bird shedding the old self which no
longer is needful.

You embrace your new strength and
fly to the heights of the sky to the city of the sun and
give the ashes unto the alter of the sun god for your
immortality.

Embrace yourself for you are a child of
the sun and will live eternal through birth, death, and
renewal! The spirit never dies!

If you really wanted to get to know me, this is the list that should tell you almost as much as I know about myself - so far:

1. I am a self-admitted Type A personality. 

2. I used to think this was a bad thing. 

3. I don't anymore. I'm ok with me.. being me. If someone thinks I'm too intense, I probably think they're too laid back anyway.

4. I also recognize that I am "analytically compulsive" (in Freudian theory, the term"anal compulsive" is relating to adult personality traits, for example, obsessive neatness, stubbornness, and frugality, which are considered to have originated during a certain stage of childhood development)

5. I am changing this. Life is too short to be so uptight. I want to be driven and motivated.. and patient. Talk about having it all!!

6. I refuse to abbreviate 'analytically compulsive'.  (Someone may misunderstand the meaning, and I try to refrain from entertaining the immature. Yes, psychology buffs, I do know the full meaning and origin of the terminology.  I prefer to tell myself that 'anal' is short for analytical... Darn, I just abbreviated it!)  

7. Sometimes I procrastinate about doing things because I haven't quite figured out the 'right' way to do them.

8. Sometimes, I judge other people's intelligence on how they talk - the words they use and their pronunciation. I know this is shallow and probably wrong.

9. I can be very sarcastic; even scathing. This is as likely to be aimed at myself as it is at others.

10. I need more patience... especially with myself and everyone else in the world. LOL. 

11. I always strive to remain my composure and remain calm. There's a Keith Urban song that says: "I thought that bein' strong meant never losin' your self-control" .. I think he's right. I often fail. 

12. I can be very moody & I tend to fume when I am angry. 

14. But, I no longer explode like Mount Pelee..  well, hardly ever.   

15. I hate loud noises - except for music.  

16. I still blare the stereo in my Explorer when I am alone, just like I did when I was a teenager.  

17. I have two speeds - fast and stop.  When I am driving and when I am not.  

18. I haven't got a narcissistic bone in my body.  

19. Comfort means more to me than fashion - hands down.  

20. I stopped trying to conform to 'fit in' when I was 13.

21. That was 24 years ago.  

22. I began considering myself eccentric about the same time.    

23. Now, I know this is how God made me. Different. But, sometimes different means weird.. sometimes it just means unique. I choose unique.

24. I care more about a person's personality and intelligence than I care about how they look. 

25. I am a certifiable caffeine addict.  

26. I occasionally hear George of the Jungle in my head. "Coffee, Coffee, Coffee" 

27. I have trouble talking without using my hands.  Sometimes, I use my whole body. 

28. I cannot sit still.  I feel too much need to be "doing something". 

29. I think that a life without music would be an empty void.  

30.  I think you can find God in everything.. if you look and listen hard enough. I also think most people miss it.

31. I am a policeman's daughter.  I rarely get to talk to him. Often this is a choice.

32. I have two older brothers.  One lives on the road, traveling construction jobs across the country. The other.. is just the other.

33. I only have one living grandparent.  I miss the other 3 all very much. I wish my sons could have gotten to know them.  

34. Heritage shouldn't be based on culture or ethnicity. It should be built on the wisdom of the generations that came before.    

35. My mother is one of my best friends.  I still call her 'Mum'. 36. I have a lot of weird quirks when it comes to food. 

37. I refuse to eat fruit with seeds in it.  No, that does not include all fruits.  

38. I will eat fruit that is cut up, as long as the seeds are removed. 

39. I cannot eat anything that I have seen while it was living.  Or - usually - raw. 

40. If someone calls the meat on my plate by it's animal name... I gag.  Mmmm... good deer meat!  GaG!!!  It is safer with me to call deer meat 'venison'.. cow meat 'beef', etc.  Otherwise I envision it living and breathing, and I cannot continue eating it!

41. Most of my pet peeves involve food and/or eating.

42. It really bugs me when someone complains that a food doesn't taste good then continues to eat it anyway. ( "These chips are really stale - gobble, gobble").

43. I want to scream if someone talks with their mouth full.  Unless they are trying to tell me that they are choking... or that they've caught on fire... well, then, it's ok. 44. I think of my soul as 'old'. I had to grow up fast, and I figured if I got to chose I'd rather be tough than scarred.

45. I did not go to college when I graduated high school.  I enrolled in college 3 years ago. 46. I am an avid reader.  I absolutely love Ernest Hemingway & J.R.R. Tolkien. Especially The Old Man and The Sea   & The Lord of the Rings

47. I also love Dean Koontz, Stephen King, and John Saul. Better to be scared by fiction that reality.

48. I am not above a good romance novel once in a while. Why not? Who ever read a romance novel with a bad ending?

49. I believe that reading to children makes them smarter. I have read to my two sons since they were born.

50. Now they're maybe too smart for my own good. Geez, what was I thinking?  51. I have watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy at least 500 times. I know every word of the script by heart as well as every blooper, mistake, and goof. I never saw the movie in a theater. I own both the theatrical and the extended version of all three segments - both on VHS and DVD.  (Tolkien is another genius!)   If this makes me a little nerdy... well, I'm okay with that.

52. I love Border Collies. 

53. I believe they are superior to any other breed of dog. 

54. My best friend has four feet. His name is Boo. He is a Border Collie.  55. I hate shoes. and  socks.

56. One of my favorite quotes is: 

"A man can be destroyed but not defeated"

                               - Ernest Hemingway.

57. Another one:

 "I count him braver who overcomes his desires,

than him who conquers his enemies,

for the hardest victory is the victory over self."
                                                          - Aristotle

58. And one more:

"Talent is cheaper than table salt.

What separates the talented individual

from the successful one is a lot of hard work."
                                               - Stephen King 59. I hate dress clothes. (See #19 above.) 

60. I have been known to buy clothes a size too large to make sure they'll be comfortable. (Again, refer to #19 above.)  

61. My natural hair color is dark brown with red tones. Someone once told me it is chestnut.  

62. I see gray in my hair that no one else sees. Therefore, I lighten it. 

63. I don't like the way my hair looks without highlights.  

64. My eyes are so dark brown they are almost black.  

65. My skin is extremely pale.  

66. I had freckles when I was a little girl.  

67. I don't have freckles anymore.  

68. I don't know where they went.  

69. I believe that most people go through life without ever really knowing themselves.  

70. I think introspection is healthy for the soul.  

71. I believe possibility is endless.  

72. I believe that a person will only ever succeed as big as he/she is willing to dream. 

73. I believe that visualizing success is the first step in attaining it and that the only true way to visualize success is through prayer. 

74. I believe that there is great truth in the quotation  "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" by Lao-tzu.

75. I don't believe any step is worth taking if it is not following God's will for our lives. I often wonder what that is.

76. I believe change is inevitable therefore we might as well do what we can to control it. Make the changes in our lives what we want those changes to be. 

77. I dream big. 

78. I hate going to bed at night.

79. I am never ready for the day to end.  

80. I never feel like I've accomplished enough.  

81. I rarely sleep more than four hours a night. 

82. I tend to remember my dreams when I wake up.  83. I am scared of small dogs.  Yappy little mites. 

84. I was badly bitten by the neighbor's dog when I was a child. 

85. It was a small dog. 

86. I believe in fate, destiny, karma, & deja vu. 

87. I am not a Buddhist. I am a Christian. 

88. I define Karma as 'what goes around comes around'. A matter of fact phenomena.. nothing spiritual about it. 

89. I do not like vernacularisms... ie: saying 'warsh' instead of 'wash' or 'probly' instead of 'probably'.

90. I think I can sometimes be hard to be around. 

91. I have a quirky sense of humor. 

92. I love to laugh. That doesn't mean that I do it often. Not nearly often enough anyway.

93. I tend to get tunnel-vision when I am working on a project. (Definition from Wikipedia: Tunnel vision is also a (positive) metaphor for the largely intuitive ability to focus only on what is crucial and relevant to solving a problem. To put this another way, it's the ability to ignore a distracting lack of knowledge while learning just enough to solve a problem.)

94. Sometimes my tunnel-vision makes me so driven I feel the urge to run people over.. not in a car, but still literally.

95. I can't stand it when someone stops in front of me and stands still. It makes me wonder if they are lost.. or did they forget where they were going?

96. I hear George in my head now... gotta go... (see #26 above)...   Man do I love my coffee, coffee, coffee!! 

97. Coffee!!

98. Caffeine!!

99. uh-huh...