Posts by GinnyTosken

21

Jan (Zazu) will be home soon

by larc in

jw
friends

my wife will be home tomorrow or the next day.

she went through all the tests and there is no blockage in her heart, neck, or her brain.

she is recovering her strength and dexterity at a rate where they believe that she will be all right at home.

GinnyTosken

How wonderful to start the day with some good news!

Please give Jan big hugs from both me and Jack.

Missing you both and wishing we could linger on the porch swing and savor the golden autumn leaves of New Harmony.

Ginny

50

Anybody from Portland, Oregon...?

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

.

if so please mail me off-line.

best regards - hsedited by - hillary_step on 11 september 2002 23:31:19.

GinnyTosken

To those of you who donated to Sail for the Cure--

Thanks from the KraZy Bull crew!

The day was glorious:

The event raised over $8,000 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation and breast cancer research.

Next on the agenda is to get you Portland folk up to Columbia City for dinner. My parents will be coming out to Oregon for a visit in October, so I'm thinking maybe sometime in November? We may even be able to lure Wasasister down from Seattle. If you're interested, please keep in touch by e-mail: [email protected].

Ginny

28

Update on Jan (Zazu)

by larc in

jw
friends

things went pretty well today.

my daughter was doing some laundry, underwear and such, for her mom, and she was a bit late to get me and her to the hospital.

hours start at eleven and we go there about noon.

GinnyTosken

Larc,

Please give Jan my warmest regards. I hope to telephone soon and convey them myself.

I'm relieved to read that she is doing relatively well.

Ginny

50

Anybody from Portland, Oregon...?

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

.

if so please mail me off-line.

best regards - hsedited by - hillary_step on 11 september 2002 23:31:19.

GinnyTosken

There must be something in the air--I'm afraid I will not be able to make it to McMenamin's on Friday after all. On Saturday I'll be part of the crew on a boat in Sail for the Cure. Today our boat nearly sank. It had been hauled out of the water for minor repairs after an offshore race between Astoria and Newport. When it was put back in the water today, it took on nearly three feet of water. The
fellows at the boatyard had neglected to replace the transducer.

We've been working on the boat most of this evening, but need to continue working on her tomorrow evening, too, to get her ready for the
sail on Saturday.

I would still very much like to meet some of the ex-JWs around Portland. September and October will be fairly busy for me, but
maybe in November I can arrange to have folks out for dinner. I live about 30 miles north of Portland along the Columbia River. The scenery is very peaceful and relaxing, and we'd all have lots of time, space and privacy to chat.

If it turns out to be difficult for folks to come out here, perhaps we can arrange a meeting in Portland somewhere.

Please forgive me for this unexpected last-minute change of plans.

Ginny

P.S. Alan: I'm as snug as a pug in a rug. Beau-Beau sends his regards and wants to know when he may warm your lap again.

50

Anybody from Portland, Oregon...?

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

.

if so please mail me off-line.

best regards - hsedited by - hillary_step on 11 september 2002 23:31:19.

GinnyTosken

Dave,

which pub are you going to be at this Friday and who is playing? I'm not much of a drinker anymore but if there is going to be some heavy drugs I might try and adjust my schedule.

I will be at McMenamin's just across the St. John's bridge. Danny O'Keefe will be playing. If you adjust your schedule to attend, I might need some heavy drugs myself.

ConnieLynn and LostDiamond,

I hope you can make it Friday! Consider it a humanitarian service, and don't leave me to face Mr. Huffy alone!

Ginny

Edited by - GinnyTosken on 19 September 2002 2:14:38

50

Anybody from Portland, Oregon...?

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

.

if so please mail me off-line.

best regards - hsedited by - hillary_step on 11 september 2002 23:31:19.

GinnyTosken

Venice,

Ginny ohhhh sure you'll meet with just anyone now hmmmmm...

Ven, it must be the evil influence of a demonized tube top I bought at a garage sale!

Ginny

50

Anybody from Portland, Oregon...?

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

.

if so please mail me off-line.

best regards - hsedited by - hillary_step on 11 september 2002 23:31:19.

GinnyTosken

At the end of February, I moved to a little town about 30 minutes north of Portland. The circumstances leading up to the move were not the best, and I wanted only to sit quietly and lick my wounds after I arrived. I made no effort to meet other ex-JWs in the area.

The move to Oregon has turned out to be one of the best moves I've made in my life. Both my son and I are flourishing here.

This Friday evening I'm venturing into the big city of Portland because a musician I admire will be playing in a pub there. If any Portland folk are interested in meeting up there, please e-mail me at [email protected]. I don't at all pretend that this will be an Apost-O-Fest of the epic proportions of those in Dallas and elsewhere. I imagine a quiet evening with good music and a bit of conversation. I must dash back home fairly early afterwards to be rested and ready for a day on the water.

Shameless plug for Sail for the Cure:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=35534&site=3

The concert begins at 8 pm on Friday, September 20. I finish up with work at 6 pm and hope to arrive about 7:30 pm or so.

Please let me know if you're interested. I also humbly beg forgiveness from Hillary_step for riding the coattails of his thread. It could be worse, I suppose--I could be riding a scarlet colored wild beast.

Ginny

25

Show your support for breasts! PICTURES

by GinnyTosken in

jw
friends

i feel a bit shy about posting after being away for so long, but when i think of people who appreciate breasts, i think of jw.com.

so, i interrupt my jw.com sabbatical to offer breast connoisseurs and aficionados an opportunity to preserve healthy, perky breasts to time indefinite.

this spring i began working at a marina, and this summer my son and i have been learning to sail.

GinnyTosken

Please forgive me for being so slow to check back in on this thread. We worked long hours at the marina around Labor Day weekend to make sure plenty of beer was in stock, my car has been in the shop, my son started middle school last Tuesday, and a catfight has been brewing between me and a female coworker.

The potential catfight centers around, of all things, Sail for the Cure. My coworker, whom I will call "Ms. M," will be crew on a different boat and is not pleased that I will also be participating in the event. I try to be compassionate. She's had a difficult life, and I am guessing that her self-esteem is very low. To feel better about herself, she mainly resorts to putting other people down.

I thought of her when I recently read this tidbit about the power of compliments:

Most of our men come from environments with varying degrees of positive reinforcement. A man who grew up with very few compliments will need double the dose, and anyone who brags, boasts, or stretches the truth needs three times the praise that an ordinary person does. Remember this rule:

The more I like myself, the less I have to impress or convince you how great I am. The less I like myself, the more I have to convince people how wonderful I am. The degree to which I either like or dislike myself has a great deal to do with how much or how little praise I received as a child.

Despite a clear explanation in the Sail for the Cure brochure that this event is about teamwork and cooperation, Ms. M is quick to tell anyone within earshot that she will be in a race on September 21, as though she is a seasoned yacht racer only waiting for the next America's cup. She also wants very much to win a prize for collecting the most donations.

After asking permission of the marina owner, on Tuesday I put a can for donations on the counter of the marina store. Since my car was in the shop, I rode into work with my sister's boyfriend and arrived much earlier than usual. When Ms. M arrived, she gave me a very hateful look and asked, "What are you doing here?"

I thought to myself, "Good bloody morning to you, too." Then she removed my donation can from the counter. I was quietly firm: "[The owner] said I could put the can on the counter."

Hand on hip, she countered, "I don't agree. And I don't think it's fair. We've asked people all over this marina for donations. I guess I'll have to make my own can."

I was completely puzzled. If Ms. M has already scoured the marina for donations, why should she care if I collect small change? And since all of the money goes to charity, what does it matter?

My compassion for Ms. M is running thin these days, so even if you don't send a donation, how about just sending an envelope with a blank sheet of paper to the Krazy Bull Krew at Rocky Pointe marina? Ms. M fetches the mail, you see.

Teejay,

Hi, Ginny. I've missed you.

Yes, you have, Teejay, but I'm sure your aim will improve with practice.

Farkel,

JWs must be RIGHT. Any any cost. . . . the arguer must be RIGHT.

You're right, of course.

Venice,

GINNY is it really you???? *pinches, get's bitchslapped* yup it's you!!!

Why don't you come back to Portland, Venice? We can work on teamwork and cooperation and gang up on this nasty Ms. M. She'll certainly be no match for our (ahem) collective assets.

Wasasister,

Welcome back. When are you going to show us your boobies?

If I manage to collect more donations than Ms. M, a picture of Lefty and Tiny au naturel might be arranged.

Plumcrazy,

Thanks for the welcome!

Think41self,

Are the sailing lessons as fun as you thought they'd be?

I very much enjoyed watching my son's lesson. As for my own, as fate would have it, the instructor teamed me up with Ms. M, and our sailing relationship closely resembled our working one.

Englishman,

So how about you being a guest of honour at next years barbie,

It would be my pleasure. Do you suppose we could have a "No Nookies in Nero's" theme for the barbie and all dress in our disco outfits from 1975? I'm dying to see you in an aubergine suede jacket.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.aspx?id=7936&site=3

Ozzie,

Thanks to you, too, for a warm welcome.

25

Show your support for breasts! PICTURES

by GinnyTosken in

jw
friends

i feel a bit shy about posting after being away for so long, but when i think of people who appreciate breasts, i think of jw.com.

so, i interrupt my jw.com sabbatical to offer breast connoisseurs and aficionados an opportunity to preserve healthy, perky breasts to time indefinite.

this spring i began working at a marina, and this summer my son and i have been learning to sail.

GinnyTosken

Hi, Waiting!

Thanks very much for the kind thoughts and wishes.

I've missed many of the folks here on the board, but I'm also grateful that circumstances were such that I distanced myself from the board and online life for awhile. I've always admired the balance Englishman seems to maintain between his life online and his life in person. I shamefacedly admit that I did a very poor job of maintaining balance. For me JW.com ceased to be an "accessory to real life" (to use Englishman's phrase). Instead I allowed it to consume much of my time and emotional and intellectual energy. I felt like an alcoholic--I found it very difficult not to respond to certain posts, and once I responded to a thread, I felt duty-bound to see it through to a conclusion.

While I've been away, I've tried to do some soul-searching about why I have been drawn to ex-JW forums for the last seven years or so. What did I want? Socializing? To feel part of a group? Intellectual sparring? To help? I'm still sifting my motivations, so I can't give an answer yet.

I also wonder why passions often run so high on ex-JW boards. What is it about ex-JWs that makes us so verbally combative?

I buy and sell used books for fun and profit, and I read something recently that made me think of we ex-JWs who after we leave a high-conformity group seem hell-bent on arguing our new group into thought conformity.

The paragraphs below are from a book called Hot Monogamy by Dr. Patricia Love and Jo Robinson. They follow an exercise in "mirroring." Here's how the book describes mirroring:

One person, the sender, begins by stating a brief sentence or two. The other person, the receiver, restates the message in his or her own words. In essence the receiver becomes a mirror, reflecting back the content and the tone of the message. The receiver's role is not to interpret, diminish, or magnify the message but simply to reflect what was said.

I smile when I imagine this exercise being used on JW.com. Polite, gentle responses . . . "Let's see, did I understand you correctly? You said . . ."

The book also explains why this exercise is powerful:

One of the reasons the exercise is so helpful is that it prevents many of the common intimacy-blocking behaviors I mentioned earlier, including dominating the conversation, interrupting, being overly critical, being too closemouthed, and failing to pay close attention. It also puts an end to the "shoot and reload" school of communication, in which one partner "fires" the first shot of words and "reloads" the mental gun while the other person is talking. . . .The fact that you can't fire verbal bullets at each other during the exerices creates an all-important demilitarized zone. As long as you stick to the rules, you won't be able to wound each other psychologically by ignoring, discounting, shaming, interrupting, or contradicting each other.

Here's what I found most interesting of all--perhaps a factor in the why ex-JWs discuss and argue so vehemently:

This mental coercion is not unique to love relationships. Many families are built on the premise that "we are all the same," the parents dictating to the children how to think, feel, and behave. Friendships, too, are often formed around shared opinions and values. Many of your closest friends are likely to have similar politics, values, and lifestyle.
One of the primary reasons we surround ourselves with likeminded people is that we don't want to experience our separateness. If someone else agrees with everything we say, we can fool ourselves into thinking we are not separate from them. And the reason we want to feel psychically joined with others is that when we're aware of our separateness, we are confronted with the fear of death. [bolding mine]This may not make sense on a conscious level, but the unconscious mind has its own logic. On an unconscious level we are under the mistaken impression that we cannot survive on our own.

I believe that our past history as Jehovah's Witnesses makes us especially vulnerable to this fear. We were part of a "family" that valued "unity" at any cost, a family that told us how to think, feel, and behave. This "family" also told us we would likely never have to confront death.

Discussion boards have many helpful and positive aspects--support, sharing information, socializing--and I don't mean to discount those aspects by sharing these quotes. I offer them to those who, like myself, have experienced the addictive, unhealthy side of life online.

For now, I'm trying to restore balance to my life by spending as little time as possible online. Even though I don't check the board as often as I once did, please know that I think of you all often and wish you the best on your journeys.

Ginny

25

Show your support for breasts! PICTURES

by GinnyTosken in

jw
friends

i feel a bit shy about posting after being away for so long, but when i think of people who appreciate breasts, i think of jw.com.

so, i interrupt my jw.com sabbatical to offer breast connoisseurs and aficionados an opportunity to preserve healthy, perky breasts to time indefinite.

this spring i began working at a marina, and this summer my son and i have been learning to sail.

GinnyTosken

Simon,

Thanks for the kind welcome back. I'm glad JW.com covers a multitude of sins--even the lack of firm breastual content.

Farkel,

Thanks for caring enough to check up on me. This February was one of the roughest times in my life, but this summer has been one of the best.

Perhaps it's true--smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

Ginny