From billo via Lily.

Today I've been decompressing from yesterday, mulling about where my life is leading, remembering Dad.

Visual image: a wandering albatross, soaring, turning, climbing. Albatrosses can spend up to 90-95% of their lives in the air. I feel like that now. Hovering. Turning. Waiting for an updraft.

I'm still mulling over yesterday. Decompressing.

Three heart tugs.

• The "missing man" flyby by the Rag Tag Air Force. I knew what to expect and yet, still, Taps and the "missing man" plane splitting away and flying west until it was out of sight triggered instant tears. How could it not?
• Jack talking about Dad's fierce ideas about family and loyalty and what it means to be a Towse: "As long as another Towse brother is alive, no Towse brother will wind up on the street."
• Dan talking about growing up as Dad's twin and about losing his [Dan's] glasses without which he couldn't see (a not, it seems, infrequent occurence what with wrassling and other such kid-type stuff) and crying and Dad comforting him with, "Don't worry, Danny. I'll find your glasses."

"Don't worry, Danny." sums up Dad.

More to follow on yesterday's memorial when I've settled back into my skin.

billo wrote about the MIND test, a simple test with simple questions that are supposed to provide insight into what makes you tick. Herewith, my results.

M- mediative - 2
I- intuitive - 9
N- negotiative - 1
D- directive - 0

My results:

Your basic approach to thinking involves diversity and uniqueness. When you are learning something new you prefer to work alone and explore the new material. When trying to solve problems you generally choose to work on many projects and generate possible solutions. When you communicate you generally use illustrations and are energetic.

You enjoy challenges, tackling new ways to do things or to create new possibilities. You strongly dislike working on only one project at a time unless you have several waiting in the wings. Playing with concepts and 'almost' solutions is interesting to you. Hunches, gut feelings, imaginary thoughts that 'feel' right are as good as facts and proofs to you. You are known as an intuitive, imaginative and innovative or creative person. Your insights are invaluable tools to you. If something feels right, doing it is no longer a risk. You prefer to actively learn through experimenting physically or in your imagination.

You tend to be a person who likes to try a variety of things or you like to do old things in new ways. Your friends or relatives would probably label you as creative. You are probably a strong risk taker and roll very well with the punches life gives you. You have a strong tendency to be a loner or selective about the people who you spend time with. You can work alone very easily. You prefer work that is that challenging and out of the ordinary. Having to do the same type of work day in, day out would be boring and/or stressful for you.

You are probably a private kind of person, who keeps their emotions to themselves. Chances are you don't prefer to be around 'overly' or 'instantly' friendly people, especially those who get very personable and like to clown around. Teamwork, except for when everyone is given a specific task to accomplish, is no doubt difficult or uncomfortable for you. The indication is that you prefer to work with things, ideas, or systems, rather than people.

Your unique score combination represents a possibility of 1 in 5000 people. Your particular pattern indicates that you are a highly factual, logical and practical person. Also you are a highly organized individual and base your decisions upon your own logical, factual analysis. You focus all your efforts clearly on specifically chosen goals, usually one at a time. The human relations parts of your work may be sources of difficulty for you. Dealing with people who like to brainstorm or work on several different projects simultaneously without a distinct plan is probably difficult for you. Working on group projects without clearly defined roles and responsibilities would be annoying to you. Taking a chance, risking, handling your people's personal problems are all potential sources of stress for you. Working with people who make decisions based upon hunches and gut reactions are difficult for you.

The following nouns and/or adjectives tend to describe PROBABLE STRENGTHS of yours:
intuitive
imaginative
synthesizer
guesser
emphathetic
simultaneous worker

The following nouns and/or adjectives tend to describe POSSIBLE WEAKNESSES of yours:
not back up ideas with facts
exaggerate
always dreaming
challenge others too much
always changing
get bored too easily


I [ahem] always (well, almost always) back up any ideas with facts. Growing up with five siblings teaches you that much.

The "bored too easily" probably fits better than any of the other descriptions of my weaknesses.

Luckily - well, not so luckily because I wouldn't have shared this if I really hated the weaknesses stated - the real weaknesses I have slipped under the radar of this test.

   posted by Sal Towse at  7:53 PM|| |