Pseudotherapy

I don’t know who this little girl is. I bought this photo simply because I can’t stop looking at it. I don’t know why.

What’s your reaction to it?

I’ve put off participating in this music meme because, judging by the other versions I’ve seen around the blogiverse, I’m dancing to a somewhat different tune than most of you. But what the hell, you may recognize more of these than I think! For any cave-dwellers among us, here’s how it’s done:

• Set your music player on random/shuffle (or in the case of Media Monkey, Auto DJ).
• Post the first four lines from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song may be (skip instrumentals, repeat artists or songs; I also skipped any song in which the title was part of the first four lines).
• Let your readers guess what song and artist the lines come from. Try really, really hard to NOT use search engines, please.

Everyone (even you, Juli) who posts at least two correct guesses by midnight Tuesday PDT gets their name in a random drawing for a $20 Amazon gift e-card! Ready? Here we go …

1. Just a castaway, an island lost at sea
   Another lonely day, with no one here but me
   More loneliness than any man could bear
   Rescue me before I fall into despair
2. Be what you wanna be
   See what you came to see
   Been what you wanna be
   I don’t like what I see
3. The light from the window is fading
   You turn on the night
   The sound from the avenue’s calling you
   Open your eyes
4. I’m tired of being what you want me to be
   Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
   Don’t know what you’re expecting of me
   Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
5. I wanna know you better
   Let’s spend some time together
   I wanna be what’s on your mind
   Look in my eyes, they’re calling
6. Come ride with me
   Through the veins of history
   I’ll show you how God
   Falls asleep on the job
7. There’s a shadow just behind me
   Shrouding every step I take
   Making every promise empty
   Pointing every finger at me
8. You must be broken
   By a thousand ways of wasting time
   Get to the point
   And off a hundred lines a week
9. Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
   And I am taken to a place
   Where your crystal mind and magenta feelings
   Take up shelter in the base of my spine
10. I close my eyes
    Only for a moment, then the moment’s gone
    All my dreams
    Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
11. Eve said, I’m tempted by what I see
    There ain’t no witchcraft voodoo, no mystery
    Eden is a jungle and it’s getting wild
    So why don’t we just go out in style
12. I just need this to be all right
    I can’t feel this another night
    I can’t take this, I come unglued
    I might break down in front of you
13. You and me
    We used to be together
    Everyday together always
    I really feel
14. A swollen sun melting at the horizon
    Between the sheets where I wait for her to come
    A living flame, impossible to resist
    Burning me deep with every bite, kiss and lick
15. What is it you want from me?
    There isn’t much I will not do
    If it’s only company
    You know I might need that too
16. I need a sign to let me know you’re here
    All of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere
    I need to know that things are gonna look up
    ‘Cause I feel us drowning in a sea spilled from a cup
17. She’s really upset with me again
    I didn’t give her what she likes
    I don’t know what to tell her
    Don’t know what to say
18. Well ya play that Tarantella
    All the hounds they start to roar
    And the boys all go to hell
    Then the Cubans hit the floor
19. I can’t believe it, the way you look sometimes
    Like a trampled flag on a city street, oh yeah
    And I don’t want it, the things you’re offering me
    Symbolized bar code, quick ID, oh yeah
20. Hangin’ round downtown by myself
    And I had so much time
    To sit and think about myself
    And then there she was

You may pick up your pencils and begin.

Clicked on my Flickr Contacts, and was greeted by a bunch of Toons! (click to enlarge)

How come these are all so good? Mine doesn’t even look like me.

UPDATE: I tried again, and this one’s better:

I’ve always wanted to be a bobble-head!

I have decided that I have the ugliest blog in America.

This is not a mood. I went to bed at 7:15 last night and got eight full hours of sleep, so today I’m feeling like I could take the gold in perkiness. No, this dissatisfaction has been percolating since my first glimpse of Sizzle’s new look. Fresh, clean, uniquely HER. That’s what I want. I don’t want to copy her look. I want my own fresh, clean look that is uniquely ME. And my frustration has grown with every other blog I’ve visited that has a “look” I like. Mine is so boring and blah. I dislike clutter, but I think in my efforts to avoid it, I went too far in the other direction. There’s a huge area between “uncluttered” and “barren,” and I am way too close to the wrong end. It’s like the difference between this:

And this:

Or even better, this:

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to be hit by inspiration, at least for anything that would work with the name Pseudotherapy. Funny, I have no trouble at all coming up with concepts for other people’s websites. My own? Stumps me.

In other news, BRET HAS QUIT SMOKING!!! He’s on Chantix, and doing amazingly well. He’s even in a great mood most of the time. Of course it’s still early, but we are both encouraged by how much easier he’s finding the ordeal than we expected. Right now, it’s having something to do with his hands that’s bugging him the most. The nicotine addiction seems to be subdued by the Chantix. So far, it’s not too bad — especially for a guy who’s been smoking 40 years. Yay!

Just in case you really *are* checking up on me …

Today is Day 7 since my last visit with you. If you read my previous post, you know I really took our discussion to heart. I’m not afraid of dying, but I HATE knowing I couldn’t run like hell in the event of attack by zombies. I would be the first to get eaten, and that upsets me. Plus, I have a deep phobia about being left in a vegetative state by a stroke. So I am serious as a heart attack about reclaiming my fitness before it’s too late.

As you commented, I am very much a person of absolutes. Yes or no, not maybe. Black or white, not gray. Things have to be this way or that way, nothing in between. Hence my decision to quit blogging completely. Once I saw that pie chart thing showing how much of my time was actually spent online I knew I had to make changes, and being me, I went straight to the extreme. NO blogging. NO reading blogs. This past weekend, I actually used a timer to limit my computer use. I’ve also made a real effort to re-open communications with my family members and pre-bloglife friends. And we did get out of the house some this weekend, shopping at actual stores instead of online. See? I’m working on it!

However, since it doesn’t matter what I’m doing on the computer as long as I stay within my daily time limit, I’ve decided not to shut down Pseudotherapy completely. One of my friends recommended occasional posting as an alternative to disappearing altogether, and another suggested challenging myself to write posts within a specific timeframe. That one might actually help me to become less obsessive about “perfecting” what I write, don’t you think? I’ll have to see how those work for me, and how successful I am at policing myself.

The bad news is I couldn’t bring myself to do the gym membership, but I did get an exercise DVD to try (I KNOW, no social interaction, but also no public humiliation). And! I have actually remembered to take the lovastatin for four straight days, woo hoo!!! I set the bottle in front of my monitor.

See you in October, Dr. B!