Steven Hayes, psychologist

I was going to just copy an entire Salon article I read this morning about Steven Hayes and his recent work "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life", but I have to be the copyright police at work so I am loathe to be so bold here. Paraphrasing from the Salon article, Hayes deals in a type of psychology known as acceptance and commitment therapy. It is an evolution from what is presently in vogue, namely, cognitive therapy.

The gist of it is something like this: Suffering is normal. Pain is to be expected. Where other types of therapy fail is in trying to negate such feelings in an attempt to pull the person away from them, essentially a state of denial. But we cannot deny that in the course of living our lives we will have experiences that cause pain. By accepting that inevitability and dealing with it in a more constructive manner, we are better able to live well rather than just endlessly acting in a manner that is supposed to create happiness while never reconciling the momentary euphoria with the dark cloud underneath.

I am not explaining it well. But it is a notion worth exploring. Check out these other articles for a better summation/explanation: Time, Psychology Today, New Harbinger.

Posters

Here is the latest batch of posters I have acquired from Jay Ryan/The Bird Machine. I have three already, so this will double my collection (I plan on giving a couple of them away as presents). Jay Ryan rocks. (Hey Michele, the Sleater Kinney poster is going to you; what kind of frame do you want?)

The Curling Wars

Went to Brant's on Sunday to help with his move. A distance of about 50 feet, total, including the flight of stairs. Yes, he is moving within his present building. But anyway, a bunch of us were sitting around watching curling. You know, the sport with the 100+ foot ice channel, big smooth rocks, and brooms. They want to open a bar with curling lanes. I think this might be a bad idea. A bunch of drunks with heavy objects and sticks? Perhaps you could do it up north, even better in Canada, but not here. All you would need is a couple of dartboards and you'd have the weapons for a medieval battlefield. They don't call that last stone the "hammer" for nothing.

Biggest Loser update (re-post)

The original summation of our Biggest Loser tournament at work got washed away in a mini-blogger meltdown. So, just the stats: My team came in 2nd place out of 9. I lost 11 pounds over the six weeks. And the treadmill sat dormant over the weekend, but not to worry, I haven't fallen off the wagon entirely; Lean Cuisines and those yummy 100 calorie fish patties I like were on sale last night so...back to the diet. I mean, back to the healthier lifestyle that I should subscribe to for life. Yeah, that's it.

kma CBS

Fucking CBS dumped "Love Monkey" after 3 episodes. Hey idiots, way to piss on the 25-35 year old male with disposable income demographic. Why is it that more than half of the new shows that I actually want to watch get canned after three episodes? Firefly? Wonderfalls? Oh, well, at least it's not the Fox network again.

Random 2.11.06

Lying on the bed. Drifting. Snow swirling down, tree in the background. With the light sort of grey and hazy, the snowflakes against the trunk and branches look like blood cells moving through arteries.
And then I fall into a nap.
The new Belle and Sebastien is playing from the other room when I wake up. The snow is gone, temporarily.
I drag myself out of bed, still tired, willing myself to snap to attention. Maybe I should eat something. I pour myself the last cup of Lilo and Stitch cereal. I measure my cereal now; I measure all of my food lately to calculate over the course of the day; how much fat, protein, carbs...alcohol. Yes. I follow up the cereal with a white russian chaser. When they target-marketed that blend of cocoa-puffs and marshmallows I bet they never anticipated that.

What Tarot Card Are You?

You Are The Sun

You represent the best of life - vitality, success, and and truth. You tend to have a strong, centered, balanced personality. Inspiration and discovery are your fortes. You are very mentally strong. A talented mind, you tend to excel at math, philosophy, and music. Your fortune: As well as you have done in the past, the future is going to be filled with more success. A new creative project is coming your way. Feed it, and it will grow into something huge. Great riches, recognition, prosperity, or happiness is coming your way. And it's possible that a fantastic vacation, or a new baby, is coming sooner than you think.

What Tarot Card Are You?

Craft Fair

[Click image to enlarge it to the point where you can actually read it.]

A couple people I know are selling stuff at this; if you are into excellent crafty stuff go check it out.

super bowl

Okay, I know that Pittsburgh was supposed to win anyway, but was it really necessary for the refs to give it to them? So many ticky-tack calls. What a steaming pile, waste of my night that was.