Now that things are entirely quiet at my job, way too quiet as far as I'm concerned, I tend to tune in satellite radio on the internet, put on the headphones and send the nosy or bored coworkers the message that I'm not tremendously interested in their blather. I head a song this morning that I really enjoyed called "Beautiful Wreck" by a guy named Shawn Mullins. He's a new one to me, but hell, I enjoyed that song.

I feel like a beautiful wreck a great deal of the time, although I hide my "wreckedness" behind a veneer of extreme cool competence. A few years ago I decided my cool, competent side was just fine for a professional exterior, but my beautiful wreck is really a component of my nicer side.

I don't know if many of you have read or thought much about your "shadow side" (very Jungian), but once I gave it some thought, I decided that I didn't always need to be the ultra-competent wonder diva that I normally try to be when I'm professionally "on." Fucking hell, I lightened up on myself.

We're all so complicated and utterly together and beautifully messed up, and I really adore it when someone else lets me see more than one facet of their person. That sort of honesty can scare a lot of people, but I think it's what it's all about. I have a lot of issues with people who get scared by honesty; it would seem that falsity is much, much scarier. But I guess it's not if you pretend that the illusions are reality.

While I know that we're all living in our own little dream worlds to some extent, I really wonder how many people live deep in the fantasy with occasional, and unwelcome, flashes of reality. And from what I've seen, reality can be far, far more amazing than the fantasies.