Shameless plug for my fabulous husband's blog: http://parttimesuperhero.blogspot.com/

He's deviated from the Mominator story, but truthfully -- who wants to talk about THAT?

My topic won't be quite so serious. In fact, I am now vowing to not read HIS stuff before posting my own because it just makes me feel even more shallow. Ha, as if it were possible for me to feel MORE shallow! ("As opposed to being from the planet 'look at me, look at me'")

Speaking of being shallow, it's amazing to me that as I add new and more costly things to my list of beauty indulgences, ultimately the only purpose they ever seem to serve is to add to my ever-present burden of guilt over... everything really. Not sure where all this guilt came from.

Here's an example. I got my first facial this weekend at this eclectic spa in Richmond. [Sidenote: doesn't it make me sound oh-so chi-chi to have gone all the way to Richmond just to go to a spa? If you'd been to the spa, you would see, however, why I chose to use the word eclectic. I mean, when you're scheduling a group of four people, does it NOT make sense to have 4 different people to provide their services? I'm just saying... Not that I'm bitter about this.] During the course of the facial, I basically felt as though I was confessing all of the ways in which I had sinned against my face, while in a chair that closely resembled the dentist. This just made me more confused and I started to confess about how infrequently I floss. That just led to further guilt about not writing my mother more often, the woman who should have taught me better flossing habits. Augh, now I'm thinking bad thoughts about my mother which is causing my brow to furrow which can only cause wrinkles which are further exacerbated by my tanning, smoking and lack of water drinking bad habits.

Sigh.

No wonder I can't relax. It's a never ending cycle, this guilt thing. How can a person who grew up a spoiled only child feel so guilty about getting things and having things and not doing enough things or doing too many things?? Is it because I feel I can never repay the debt? Don't I work hard to have the things that I do and to keep the people in my life if not completely happy at least not miserable? Why do I feel so guilty? Why is it never enough?

I have so much that goes on inside my head sometimes that I just want to release the pressure valve and let it all out and start over. Let's have some fresh thoughts in here, fresh ideas. No more guilt over things I can't control. No more guilt over things I WON'T control. No more self-abuse. No more passive aggressiveness. No more... NEUROSES!

Well, maybe I'll keep the neuroses for a little while longer. I believe I can be me without them, but they're fun to have around. It's nice to bring them out and show them to certain people sometimes and shock them with their rawness. It's always so funny to me, the people that I come across who really think that I am that Heather Show they always see. That really think I have no downs and no lulls and that really think I am truly as balls to the wall as I pretend I am. I think this is why I'm so prone to questioning that behavior in other people. But then again, that's probaby just projection.

We-ell, I'm dangerously close to wandering all over 7000 different philosophic rants about the nature of being human, but it's late but not too late to ease my withdrawal pangs a little by feeding my addiction a few pages of my book. (I'm reading The Crimson Petal and The White,if you're interested.)