I had a fabulous, fabulous New Years. I went up to the comedy club in Manhattan that used to be called The Improv. Long ago, when we were kids, my brother and I used to watch stand-up on TV from this place on Saturday nights.

I don�t know if the difference is that it was live or that the comedians were just that good, but there were points in which I might have feared for my life for lack of oxygen had I not been too happy to care. I was laughing that hard.

Maybe part of it does have to do with having watched the same kind of show on TV while growing up. I love the New York style humor.

The table was littered with those popper things, where you pull the string and it makes a little crack and confetti comes out. During the last minute before midnight, I started popping every one I could get my hands on. I was sure to save one for midnight, but that last one was defective. So, I pulled it and nothing happened. I was a bit surprised, but I thought it was hilarious.

My friend and favorite entertainment lawyer, got tickets from a friend who was also in the show. I met the woman right before she went on, and she was amazing. Not because she was particularly hilarious. She was funny, but I wasn�t rolling in the aisle during her set, like some of the others. It was more that she is a very, very overweight, 39 year old divorcee and she got up on stage in front of a big room full of strangers and made jokes about it. I found that totally inspiring.

Before the show, we had some excellent Thai food, again. It was a different place this time, but the Thai restaurant owners in NYC are really starting to impress me. Although, I must admit, you have to be damn unlucky if you ever end up eating bad food in Manhattan.

Also, my favorite defense contractor for the country I inhabit (God, lets hope this sentence doesn�t earn me a government sponsored stalker) was also in town and that was nice, too.

Anyway, as usual, I�m a bit goofy today because I didn�t get enough sleep last night. I was up late annoyed at something my ex-husband had said. Part of it was being mad at myself for caring. We had been talking more than usual, lately, and I even thought we were forming a nice little friendship.

The past several days, I have been doing a lot of work in Flash. You know, the macromedia product. Since I don�t really know Flash, it was slow going and a lot of work. Although, it�s probably safe to say I know Flash now. I�m a bit unsure about my design.

Usually when I build any kind of application or website or anything, functionality is not an issue. Scripting comes very, very easily to me. I can also draw, like in real life, with pencil and paper, make things look like things. I wouldn�t say this is as easy as programming, but it�s not too bad.

Given these skills, it seems like I should be able to figure out graphic design pretty easily. Well... I am capable of designing things. Designing things that are worth looking at is a completely different story.

While desperate to get input on my design, I made the mistake of asking my ex-husband, completely forgetting that his tendency is to be a discouraging soul-squasher when it comes to anything remotely creative.

I was hurt and angry to be told that the dozens of hours spent poring over tweens and action script was �pointless.�

Over the years, I�ve been really hard on myself for not accomplishing more in my life. For so long, I had blamed myself for not having gotten much done during the five years I was married. I didn�t get anything done was because I was spending all my time trying to move the mountain of my husband�s disapproval. I also blamed myself for this, believing it to by my fault that I let his disapproval drag me down.

Last night, I got a taste of what it felt like again. I forgot how crippling it can be.

It�s like trying to run a marathon and the person who is supposed to be handing you water comes and bashes your leg with a baseball bat instead, and then criticizes you for limping. True, we have a little more control over how we feel about things; physics doesn't require us to be crippled when someone is mean to us, but it�s really, really hard not to be.

In the past, I would�ve completely flipped out. When I�m hurt, I attack like a wounded tiger, but last night, I just told him that his criticism is unhelpful and left it at that.

Then I spent the next several hours shadowboxing with him in my head, but while doing that, I started training myself to be a little more objective while I'm feeling very upset. I concluded that his opinion is completely worthless, and for me to worry about it was a waste of time.

Just the irrationality of his thinking is grounds to dismiss everything he says.

Personally, I think there�s a good reason that the majority of my friends are engineers (Real engineers with engineering degrees, licenses and actually engineer things. This is important because he seems to not know the difference between a real engineer and a merely an ego-maniac who works in the technology industry.), and as far as I can tell, he hangs out with a group of people who believe they�re psychic with absolutely no reason to believe this, whatsoever.

Ok, maybe I�m still shadowboxing a bit, but I really had to get that off my chest.

When something goes wrong between me and another person, I can never really tell if it�s my fault or the fault of the other person. To be on the safe side, I�ll usually accept the fault or at least do what I can to remedy whatever mistake that I might have made.

However, to remedy having �wasted� dozens of hours on something for the sake of art is really a lot to ask.

That is something that really is a matter of opinion, and frankly, all I can do is to show that my opinion is more valuable because I am generally a more rational person; even if that means merely showing that to myself.

I have plenty of other examples, not just that my friends are engineers, that�d be pretty lame if that were my only argument.

I brought up that example because he�s the worst kind of irrational person. He�s an irrational person that believes himself to be rational. That lame example of who I hang out with vs. who he hangs out with, although, it doesn�t actually prove anything, is the type of argument that would normally appeal to him.

I am so grateful for online diaries, and supportive friends. Now that�s something worth thinking about.

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