Wow, we must grow some potent stuff here in Iowa!

I'm glad you liked it! I tried really hard to only shop at craft sales and local stores, though some of the stuff is obviously not from here.

It was fun to shop for you, askye. My only problem was having to stop! there were a lot more things I could have picked up...if I had unlimited funds!

I guess I should open my gift now, too.

My Secret Santa has been waiting patiently, especially since he/she started by sending a wonderfully mysterious card in November.

I'm glad I was fun to shop for! I've been having fun for my secret santa.

Dean and Penny are totally sacked out right now.

I'm totally loving the Heirloom Recipes, there are some really tasty sounding ones and some oddball stuff like Sauerkraut Cream Pie. Which I think I'm going to be crazy enough to try.

Actually, sauerkraut cream pie sounds pretty damn awesome. Post it once you try it!

I got the cookbooks in a store called Mystery Cat. Mostly used mystery books but some other gems. Terrace Hill is the governor's mansion in Des Moines, so it has some "local flavor".

Ok, I opened mine! My Secret Santa lives in Highlands Ranch, CO. Is that you SuziQ?

Homemade Chocolate Chip cookies, 2 boxes of them! And Hot Cocoa mix...how did you know I was craving some? Mulling spices-in an orange rind and with a reindeer in spices embedded in brown sugar!

Speaking of brown sugar, there is a jar of Sugar Butter for the Body in brown sugar & vanilla! It smells wonderful and I can't wait to try it!

there is a bar of Sea Salt Dark Chocolate! I can't wait! I'd eat it now but the dark chocolate would keep me up!

then there is a holiday dish in red with a xmas tree and a lovely ornament of red beads!

Oh, and a lollipop!

Thank you, Suzi!

OMG, the cookies have chocolate and butterscotch chips! Yum!!

Long, Derpessing post about 2011:

The Ugly:

I’ve been in kind of a holding pattern in analysis for a while. I’m never really going to make progress until I talk about the abuse I went through. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to talk about because it’s all so fuzzy to me. The constant emotional abuse over most of my childhood makes it hard for me to pin down specific details, and makes it very easy for me to pretend that it wasn’t as bad as it really was, and also makes it easy for me to blame myself for what happened. My analyst frames it in terms of me still trying to protect my parents, which is guess is true.

Analysis has been extremely successful in making me realize how much I can’t stand being alone. It’s been less successful at motivating me to put myself out there and take risks. I’d still just rather hide, in spite of all the consequences.

The Bad:

I’ve always hated my job; this year has been mostly intolerable for me. The boss that I like has been fired. His replacement, and most of the people surrounding him, have been doofuses. I got a bad job evaluation for the first time; my bonus this year ( a large portion of my salary for a Wall Street bank) was less than half of what I received for any of the previous eleven years working for this firm. Meanwhile I’m working for a company that is overlooking Zuccotti Park and OWS. While the cops were outside arresting people my coworkers were cheering the police on.

The fact of the matter is that I’m completely burned out working in IT. I loathe getting support calls overnight, and I often have dreams where I imagine my work phone going off, and then I wake up with my heart palpitating. I just see the business getting more and more complicated. The people around me just want to by more expensive software products to help do their jobs; the software doesn’t actually make anything simpler, it just hides the complexity behind a façade. If I try to talk to my colleagues about actually reducing complexity I’m just met with blank stares; they have less of a grasp of how unmanageable things have gotten than I have.

I really need to quit my job; I just can’t imagine interviewing somewhere else for the same kind of job that I have and sounding enthusiastic about it.

The fact of the matter is that I want to quit my job and do something else. I just have no idea what that “something else” would be (see: The Ugly. I’m more concerned about avoiding stress than actually being happy). I’ve paid off the mortgage on my co-op and I have money saved up. It’s just so very tempting to me to just quit my job and take six months or so off. My analyst is worried that if I don’t have a job to go to I will just withdraw even more than I already have. He’s probably right about that.

The Good:

People actually came to visit me in New York! More of you should do that! Thanks to ita !, Scrappy and javachik!! I also had a wonderful time in NC visiting Calli, amyth, smonster and amych in the Spring, and then visiting Drew, Kristin, ita !, kat perez, javachik, Perkins, Consuela, megan walker, Beth, Matt, meara and Barb and the Zmahyem in Los Angeles, Seattle, and SF in the Fall. If the Buffistas weren’t around, I don’t know how I’d be able to cope. I just love you all so much.

I also took some a few good pictures this year.

2012 looks to be a milestone year for me; if for no other reason except there’s no way I will be able to stomach what I’m doing for a living for much longer. There’s also the fact that I need to confront my parents about what they did to me and bring my anger out into the open, which could happen as early as tomorrow. (Don’t count on that, though).

Tom, what about quitting but with a plan in place to volunteer somewhere a few afternoon a week? So you know you have to be somewhere at a specific time or whatever?

Thank you Aurelia for my box of TJs goodies!!! They arrived today and were promptly opened. At least, we started on these amazing peppermint chocolate wafer cookies that were delicious. I am saving the pfefferneusse (phone doesnt know how to spell that and I'm too tired to look it up), salted chocolates, and a bunch of other yummy stuff.

Thank you so much

I’m more concerned about avoiding stress than actually being happy.

Oh my God, I completely understand this.

Even still; eventually my money will run out, my COBRA will run out. I need some sort of plan to find a new job.

Yeah, you should work toward finding a new job. But I have to say, Tom, from the outside looking in, you're doing amazing. You've struggled so hard in therapy this year, and you've been so much more open about the stuff with us, and you're still connecting and talking and living and being and reacting and generally being the awesome self we value. I really love hearing about your progress, even when it's back and forth and hard. I just think you're so great.