I feel like I've been fighting this week, inside and out. Some of the people I've been in conflict with don't seem to notice, even though I'm absolutely certain there was a conflict happening that I failed to defuse. My relationships are complex.

Focus On the Family are such psychotic nutjobs. What is it with people who think they get to decide who their child is? Is it a challenge native to parenting in this culture, which I'll have to deal with, and which so many people fail?

Yay. I love stuff like this. I hope the village continues to flourish without being, you know. Massacred.

Praying mantis vs. hummingbird.

I watched Amelie tonight. It's sweet and brilliant, and I recommend it.

Someone at lunch today mentioned Saturn and astrology, and I started a small conversation about the Saturn return, which I was first warned/informed about a year or two ago. The basic idea is that when Saturn returns to where it was when you were born, you get a choppy period of change and growth in your life. I don't really care if Saturn has anything to do with it, but it's an interesting conversation about the kinds of challenges many of us seem to undergo around age 27-30 (I'm 28): divorces, marriages, kids, career shifts, whatever. I can't think of a good reason for it: we're settled now, thinking better about what we really want and how to make it happen. We're growing up, in the larger and more interesting sense that I like to deal with. (Sure, at 23 maybe we're on our own and paying bills, but we're not grown-up, we're nowhere near becoming ourselves--the interesting kind of growing up is ongoing and a lot more fun than paying bills).

I dunno. This week I'm just spacey and irritable, but overall I haven't had any really critical life changes, except for finally getting the kind of challenging job I've wanted. I suppose that's been a bit of a shift, sort of coming into my own professionally, and I've stepped up to it; but mostly the changes happening are in me, managing my moods and feelings, balancing boundaries and openness. Everything's a little hazy this week, but otherwise I've been having the feeling of threads converging in my life, of something growing and getting ready to happen. It feels positive, so we'll see.