Gratuitously Cute Primate Pic
Here it is, your adorable baboon picture. I think he/she looks a bit like Schmiegel from LOTR, only far less oogey..
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Meet Another Heroine of Dr. Ding’s
Dearest Turkey-Stufft Burritos y Burritas:
Dr. Ding proudly, excitedly, nay giddily announces that she has been in contact with one of her longtime Web heroines, JeAnne.
You should check out her blog while you’re at it, Slaying The Scale Monster. And be sure to check out her amazing story of personal transformation here. She’s been on TV! She sings opera! She has a sweet tattoo, a killer bee wardrobe, and loves and accepts herself! JeAnne writes inspiringly, honestly, and from the heart, which I absolutely adore about her.
Teee Veee, people!
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
All Hail To Jen!
Loyal reader Jen just posted comments in this post and Dr. Ding is most pleased with her efforts, which resulted in a most nifty link to Jellinek’s awesomely retro “V-chart” of the progression of the disorder of alcoholism, which has since been bogarted by pretty much every serious addictions researcher since the 1940s onward.
For years, as a peon graduate student, I thought that my advisor had been erroneously saying “Jelly Neck” when referring to Dr. Jellinek, but apparently this is how one is supposed to roll.
Thanks again Jen, Most Diligent Web Researcher of Antique and Scholarly V-Charts that you are.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr Ding,
Is it okay to live with my husband after our separation because neither of us can afford to move. I don’t have a car or a job and he babysits the kids sometimes when he remembers to come home from the bar. Any advice you have would be helpful.
Thanks, All Brokeup in Baltimore
Dear Brokeup.
Holy crap is your life ever fucked up. I mean….wow. Let’s review:
- 1. You’re separated, with two young children.
- 2. You can’t afford a measly $39/day U-haul.
- 3. No car, no job.
- 4. Hubby is a boozehound with incipient pseudo-Alzheimers. Or, alternatively, an asshole of truly epic proportions.
I’m also presuming you have no one to help you with babysitting or respite care (such as, oh I don’t know… the local YMCA, a friend, a relative, any number of social service agencies), have two broken legs, and lack the ability to take public transportation or ride a bicycle in order to go looking for a job. No? Massive brain damage, then, or some kind of debilitating palsy. No? Hold the weddin’! I think I’ve got it.
See, Brokeup, you’re not really writing me in order to ask permission to live with your husband until you get your life sorted out.
You’re asking Dr. Ding for forgiveness.
You’ve already made your decision. Otherwise you wouldn’t be writing me asking if it’s ok. You’re like the co-worker who once put Dr. Ding on the Holiday Party Happy Fun Times Committee sign-up sheet and asked me if it was ok only after the boss had approved it. In other words: it’s a done deal.
So. Your immediate problem isn’t what you believe it to be, for you can easily go donate some plasma a few times and scrape together that $39 for the U-haul. Moving out isn’t the issue.
Your problem is that you THINK you have no other options, that you’ve essentially got to sit there on your ass and wait until Fortuna turns the wheel of the seasons and you’re suddenly, magically, living in a tidy condo, the kids are on the honor roll, and you’re at a job with health insurance and a 401K. But life ain’t like that, darlin’. You, Brokeup, despite how helpless and confused you might be feeling, need to think of your children first. What’s best for them? They are the voiceless and the powerless in this situation, not you. You’re the adult. You may not feel like one, but you need to get those ovaries in gear and take action.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Laissez Les Bontemps Roulez
The Irreverent Heartfelt Thanksgiving Credo Of Dr. Ding
Fret not. It will all work out. Shit invariably does.
Be present enough to listen with your whole heart. Embrace the stranger at the table.
And remember that in order to benefit, there must be room to receive.
The meal will eventually be ready, bellies will be filled, and thankfulness abounded.
There will of course be airport delays, ill-mannered guests, and bad weather.
Fret not. It will all work out. Shit invariably does.
Live while you’re still alive enough to do it.
And remember that if life were perfect, it would be awfully damn boring.
There will be joy. And laughter. And hope.
There will be regret. And irritation. And sorrow.
Fret not. It will all work out. Shit invariably does.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
The Dearest Freshness Of Deep Down Things
God’s Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Peeps:
Gerard Manley Hopkins was a very painfully closeted Jesuit priest who lived during the Victorian era and wasn’t famous in his lifetime. Although Dr. Ding is a decidedly retired Catholic, this poem elucidates the ineluctably beautiful relationship between nature and the Divine presence like few others I’ve read. Drink it in; it’s best read aloud and takes 4 or 5 read-throughs before the multiple layers of meaning emerge clearly, which is half the fun.
Toodles!
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |