And we’re back.

(If you have no idea what I’m talking about and think I’ve lost my mind, you might be right. But first read yesterday’s blog entry, as it might clear up at least the first part.)

The enneagram types are placed around a circle in a particular order, with lines and arrows going every which way. If you want to know the details, read the book or look online or something (if you do look online, you’ll notice that some of the type names are different — Mediator is called Peacemaker, for example).

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On a whim, I got a book from the library (shocking, I know) called The Essential Enneagram. It’s basically a skinny little book that tells you about your personality. There were two things that struck me about this enneagram thing, as opposed to the jillion other personality tests I’ve taken.

First is the way it explains how the different personality types are related to each other, which I’ll get to later.

The other thing is the basic proposition of the whole thing. Each of the types is defined by the fundamental principle this person has lost sight of, what she came to believe instead, and the strategy she developed to cope with this belief. Again, I’ll explain more later.

First, a little overview.

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Here’s the deal. I’ve been on anti-depressants for a couple years now. I was pretty sure it was a chemical thing, because every time I tried to skip a few days, I turned into a basket case. But, due to some recent screwups on the part of Walgreens, I was forced to go a couple weeks without the happy pills. And an amazing thing happened this time: I stayed happy. Read the rest of this entry »

As I sit here at the College Fair, manning my lonely little desk, it occurs to me that I like kids. Not necessarily the little ones, although I do love it when they’re just starting to talk. But little kids get enough attention (except from the seemingly deaf-blind-mute parents who let their kids run amok in grocery stores and shopping malls, shrieking like banshees, knocking over senior citizens, and demanding candy bars — but that’s another post).

I like high school kids. Adolescents. Smallish humans in the throes of one of life’s most agonizing stages.

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It’s terribly disenchanting to have to admit this, but I can’t write. It’s not a physical incapability. I mean, I have fingers to hold a pencil or peck away at a keyboard. I have a brain that thinks up lots of things I’d like to write about. In fact, that’s how I spend most of my daydreaming time — imagining all the topics I’d like to write about, all the subjects on which I’d be terribly qualified to educate the masses, all the twisted plots I’d like to see played out by Johnny Depp on the big screen. But for some reason, when I sit down to write, facing the blank screen or the empty page, unless I have a deadline and someone depending on me to write, all those wonderful thoughts and ideas start running in circles and leaping out of my ears onto the cold, hard pavement below. And I’m left with a mind that’s as blank as the screen.

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