Upgrade

Actually a couple of upgrades. I'll just mention the "Sandman progression" upgrade in passing for now because I'm typing on limited time.

The profoundly important upgrade, though, concerns the entity previously known as the monster-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach. Following some intense therapy-like talking time with a friend, it has requested a title upgrade from the derogatory "monster" to the more ambiguous "beast". This is a definite improvement in terms of starting a conversation with it and employing it usefully in my adult psyche.

For those of you who haven't heard about it, this is the beast that protects me from doing anything scary or embarrassing by keeping me from doing anything that requires effort. It's been hard at work since I was two years old, and is feeling underappreciated in recent years.

Having opened up some tentative lines of communication, it seems to have gotten a picture of the X-Men's Doctor McCoy (y'know, the big blue furry one?), and both the beast and my superego approve of his behavior, so I've given one of my insecurities a career goal, which I have to say is a first for me.

To take a page from Finding Nemo...
Marlin: I promised I'd never let anything happen to him.
Dory: Hmm. That's a funny thing to promise.
Marlin: What?
Dory: Well you can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.