I’m looking at me through the glass….

What an ab fab day! Ken is done with his duties in the refueling outage--a couple of days early!--and took today off. I made a quick trip to the store, then we walked around to see where we wanted to plant the trees we got from the state, and he planted them while I got the table and chairs set up and the cushions on. It felt so great to sit out in the sun and soak up some Vitamin D, although it didn't take me long to get hot and get a little pink. I am so pale, and although I don't have a problem with that, I do like to get a little glow on me in the summer. At the beginning, though, it doesn't take much to give me a little bit of sunburn.

I like to take something out with me to read, and I'm trying to catch up on Time. My favorite columnist in the magazine is Joel Stein, and he never fails to crack me up. In this issue, he wrote about narcissism, and mentioned the Narcissism Personality Inventory, a test used for many years by psychologists to assess whether or not someone is a narcissist.

Narcissistic personality disorder is named for a character in Greek and Roman mythology, Narcissus. He was a young man of exceptional beauty, but also quite arrogant and proud of his looks, spurning every suitor that came his way. The Greek and Roman gods didn't look kindly on such arrogance (hubris) and usually rewarded such behavior with a dose of payback (nemesis). Narcissus's payback was that while walking in the forest, he came across a still pool. As he looked into the pool, he saw his own reflection, and not realizing that it was actually himself, he became so enamored that he gazed at the handsome youth in the pool until he wasted away. The narcissus flower is said to be the embodiment of the mythological youth, and nods over ponds and pools as its image is reflected in the still water.

Stein's column was funny as always, but since I've been accused of having narcissistic personality disorder (but of course, I considered the source), I thought it would be interesting to take the test. It consists of 40 questions, and took only a few minutes. The national average is a score of 15.3, while celebrities average 17.84. I topped out at a whopping 8. And the questions are grouped into various categories, such as superiority, entitlement, etc. Some positive answers are considered to be more troublesome than others, and my positive answers were more in the non-troublesome categories. There's a difference between having a healthy ego and being narcissistic, and some armchair psychologists seem to project their own inadequacies onto others, or try to diagnose based on their limited perceptions of the individual. Whenever I've speculated that someone has a particular disorder, it's been based on observation of behaviors and symptoms, not personal opinions.

So it's good to know that I'm not a narcissist! Having said that, I received a blog award from Debra of Write on Target. Deb and I are new to each other, but I enjoy her writing very much, and she is one cool rock chick. And the award she gave me? The Sexy Blogger Award.

Just like the Spanish Inquisition, I wasn't expecting THAT!

Deb wrote, "Her politics are right on, she loves birds, and she loves the band, X. How sexy is that?"

Sexy is in the eye of the beholder, I guess!

I'm going to break with my recent award tradition of saying that if I read you, snag the award for yourself--I'm going to name a few dead sexy bloggers. But first, the hardest part: naming five things about myself that I think are sexy. Yikes! Again, this is in the eye of the beholder, and I could be way off on some of these, but I'll give it a try. In my younger days, I loved to go out clubbing, and had lots of cute little party dresses...I've definitely mellowed! But sometimes it’s all about the attitude, isn’t it?

1. I have long hair. Some people really seem to dig that.

2. I have big eyes, and they're probably my best feature.

3. I love to RAWWWWK!

4. I drive a Mustang GT, and when I'm in it, I love to RAWWWWK!

5. I'm smart. I'm certain that anyone who has ever found me sexy did so because of that and nothing else.

Now for naming some blogs, and this will be easier than the above! If you don't choose to pass it along, that's cool. Feel free to sit back and revel in your sexiness.

1. How could I not name my most awesome hubby, Ken? He's adorable, he's funny, and he's smart. It doesn't get much sexier than that. :)

2. Jamie of An Animal Rescuer's Life. Not only are we neighbors, she's got some major sass going on. And tattoos. I love her sometimes perverse sense of humor. And she is a foster mom to cats and dogs in peril. Now that is sexy.

3. Rebecca of Provocation of Mine(d). She's actually the one that got me and Deb reading each other, so that's one cool thing. She's also got about a foot on me...so she's tall, blonde, and gorgeous. If she weren't so funny, kind, and intelligent, I might really really dislike her.

4. Sheria of The Examined Life. Smart, strong, hilarious, a strong sense of justice for all, and an incredible heart.

5. Dan of The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind. I felt the need to have another guy in here besides my husband, and Dan's the man. I'm drawn to his warped sense of humor, his amazing writing, and his gorgeous photography. The cheese and bacon cologne doesn't hurt, either.

Sense a pattern here?

Smart is sexy. Spread the word.