... Good morning, and I'm so glad that I can say that. I had the absolute worst headache this weekend, and from what it sounds like I must have had a migraine. I never *ever* want to experience that again. After all, you can get away from the pain in a leg or a tummy ache by thinking about other things or distracting yourself. It's much harder to get away from the pain in your head that starts affecting everything else.

Anyway, it's a brand new week and we'll start it off with the Monday memes.

First, so that you don't get bored, I'll begin with the A List meme for the week:

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With the new television season in almost full swing and viewers finding some of their favorite shows in direct competition with others, this question seems fittingly appropriate. A great many folks resolve that with opposite coast satellite network channels, and others just let their Tivo box do the hard work.

But before you had all that technology helping you, you had to make a decision - or flip a coin - to decide what to watch. But what if you were forced to be limited in what you get to watch...?

If you could watch only one thing on television and had to give up every other show, what would you watch (not counting the news, since you could get that from a newspaper)?

Oh boy... that would mean giving up things like SG1 and maybe Alias. Goodbye Grey's Anatomy and West Wing. Even ER and Desperate Housewives might have to go. The race would be between CSI and The Amazing Race. That's right, not even Lost is on the list, although I'm kinda getting into that show. I'm really enjoying TAR this time, not because of the kids involved, but because of the Italian woman who will not shut up and victimizes herself so that her kids can disrespect her. There's a reason they get away with it and its probably the result of years of her putting herself into the victim/martyr role.

How do I know this? Because that woman is my mother's perfect twin. And I'm really enjoying predicting what she’s going to do, what she's going to say, and how she's going to react. What's better is yelling at her and telling her she's stupid or telling her to shut up. I know, that sounds like I don't have a lot of respect for my mother, but it's therapy I tell ya, it's therapy.

But if the race wasn't interesting because of the therapy aspect of it for me this year, I think I would give up everything for CSI. It's got drama, it's got dark comedy, it's got interpersonal relationships, it's got backstory that still hasn’t been explored. It's got an interesting and diverse cast. Not a lot of action all the time, but that's ok. It's got enough to be manageable and interesting. That and it's got enough years of reruns that I could be happy watching those on off hours in syndication or on DVD if I feel the need to watch something on television.

So there you have it. I'd give up everything but CSI. Of course, that doesn't mean that I *will*, so don't go getting any bright idears there.

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...and since it's finally here, or rather, it was posted about a half hour after Friday's lackluster blog entry, here's the Friday Forum.

1) What is your family like? How would you describe them? Do you come from a large family or a small one?

Do you want to know about the family that raised me, or the one that I'm raising now? I guess the question pertains more to who raised me.

I came from a small dysfunctional family -– Half Sicilian, half Italian father, Southern Italian mom, 100% Irish autistic brother. And me. The German-Irish-Mexican oldest daughter. Dad was an only kid (from his mother... we think there are other siblings from his dad’s first family somewhere out there), Mom had an older brother who was killed a couple of years before I was born. With all that going on in the dynamic, I was destined to be over-protected by my mom via paranoia and neurosis. See above comments about the mom on Amazing Race. Therapy, I tell ya.

Mom didn't trust most of her relatives or dad's so I'm not in contact with any of that part of the family. And if I tried, they'd all run to mom and let her know what a wonderful person I am and I'll never hear the end of it about how evil they are, etc etc. Not even for holidays would the family get together - holidays were just another day where mom had to do something meal-wise for dad's mom. I think after she passed away, holidays pretty much didn't exist at home - it's not that she made the holiday any better, but she sort of expected to come over and have dinner and that's it. It's not like she socialized with us either. Show up for dinner, leave right after. Pretty sad, huh?

So, it's a big family, but I've been sheltered into one small microcosm of it.

2) What do you like most about your family? Is there anything that you dislike?

I like that I don't live with them anymore. I like the family that I'm raising much much more. They’re good people. Don't get me wrong - my parents are good people too, they're just... too much.

There's so much that I disliked (and I wonder what adult child couldn't come up with a laundry list of things) that I don't want to bore you with the details. I'm having a hard time coming up with something that I do like, other than the fact that they're really pushy about wanting to see the kids or I at all. I know this sounds like I'm a ogre who should really be more grateful that she was raised by people who loved her and wanted her, as opposed to who I *could* have been adopted by (I was adopted as a baby), but honestly, when you *hear* that from your own mother with alarming regularity while you're growing up, is that a good environment that a sane person who adores her parents comes from?

3) What does family mean to you? How often do you get to see your family?

I see my family as little as possible. By design. Otherwise I'd probably go mad. That and gas prices make it a little more expensive to drive up there and see them these days. The family I’m raising - I see them daily, and I like it that way.

What does family mean to me? Well, when I was growing up I really wanted a close and loving family. Someplace that I could always depend on the people there. And that just wasn't to be between my mom's distrust of my father, and my dad's relative emotional distance. He's grown more over the years about expressing things, but mom? No idea on the distrust thing. She'd probably deny anything she ever said at this point, but I know it wasn't in my imagination. And at my mom's encouragement I learned that the only person you should (and could) ever depend on was yourself because no one else will ever look out for you. They'd rather stab you in the back to get what they want and leave you for dead.

See? See where the cynicism that comes up in my blog comes from? See? This is why interpersonal relationships were hard for so long - I wondered what they wanted from me. What was going to be useful before they went away...

That has changed - it's something that I fought for a long time because I wanted to believe that there were people out there who are inherently good and kind and will like someone because they're good people. Once I got over that hurdle getting to know people and relating to them normally was cake. My family - the one I'm helping to raise with DH - means everything to me. It means that there are people I can go to where they love me and care about me. It means making a situation where my children can always depend on their parents and not drawn into any drama they may have going on.

It means safe haven, dependability and love. Not necessarily in that order.

4) If you have inlaws, do you get along well with them? Are they pretty different from your family or similar? How often do you see them?

I really do get along with my inlaws and since they live only a few minutes away I get to see them with some regularity. DH comes from a big family (he’s the oldest of 7 kids) and in comparison to my family it's like night and apples. That’s right, it's not even polar opposites, it's totally different worlds there.

5) Do you have anyone who is like a "second family" to you? If so, who and why?

Second family would include my close friends and my inlaws and that's really about it. It's because they are family - they're people I can depend on, people that I trust, people that I love. There aren't words for why - because it just is.

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So, there you have a little peek into the neurosis that I carry around about my family. I hope y'all have a great week!