I didn't know you had to bake cookies before styling appointments! I've been doing it wrong my whole life!

So today I was in one of those lines where there's two registers facing each other and I thought we were doing the thing where we are all in one big line until a register clears and then the first person in line goes to whichever one. But no, the lady behind me walked up in front of me at the register that I was angled away from. And I silently resented her, but then the person in front of her had problems and the two people in front of me zipped past, so I went before her anyway, Nyah nyah. #petty

Hee. We have a potluck on Thursday that I signed up to bring cookies to - it's bake tonight or bake tomorrow night after my bedtime. My stylist probably wouldn't mind if I brought her some cookies, though.

The silent resentment pays off!

I have cookie volume estimation issues, so if it was me doing it, I'd probably bake about twelve cookies per person, and therefore would have plenty extra for the stylist.

It's bad because now I have anecdotal evidence in favor of silent, simmering resentment, which makes me even moar likely to unleash it on people I perceive to have committed infractions against the social contract. I mean, I'm not in my town. She was probably doing it the totally right way! I'm sure she's a perfectly nice lady.

My plan is to follow the recipe and find out how many cookies I end up with, but it's usually more than I expect.

She didn't know you resented her, and we won't hold it against you, so it's all good.

Home, have not started baking yet. Must clear off counter space first. But I want to just collapse on the couch for a little while. Not long.

Speaking of resentment, my therapist wants me to make a list of resentments I have toward Mac. I already feel bad about myself before starting.

Think of them as focal points that you can define responses to, not something to judge yourself for. I mean, you probably still will, but calling out the specific one at play in an upswelling of it, you can be like, ok, I am feeling this because I'm not having this need met, so what's in my arsenal to deal with it. Sometimes, just acknowledging it might be sufficient, sometime you might have to find certain things to do about it, whether internally or externally.

(This is what I have learned to do with my anxiety which either manifests in ratcheting irrational worries or I start beating the hell out of my self worth. Naming the monsters lurking in my head helps me to keep them in their rooms. YMMV.)

Naming the monsters lurking in my head helps me to keep them in their rooms.

One of my monsters was The Old Woman Who Hates Me, who would sit in a straight back chair in my head and glare at me. When I started to glare back, she began to shrivel away, unable to cope with me telling her that her opinion didn't matter.

Liese, how are things with your dad?

Naming the monsters lurking in my head helps me to keep them in their rooms. YMMV.)

Seriously, being able to pinpoint a reaction and knowing WHY you're having it is a massive help. Sometimes being able to name a thing means being able to shrug it off.

(My therapist, who I wish a bunch of you could also go to, told me to think of the different monsters in my head as my coven, and that *I* am the Head Witch, so of course I have the capacity to wrangle them. Have I mentioned that my therapist is awesome?)

And the snow storm rolls up and down the valley, playing with the commuters.