A bit of real life

Right around my 13th birthday, my parents decided to separate. My grandmother came for her summer visit, bringing with her my cousin Marilyn who was the wild child of her generation for my mother's large, extended family. This was the era of free love, drugs, and rock n roll for middle-class, intellectual Montanans, and that is who my parents were.

What a memorable, indelible summer for me, so many firsts: smoked pot, snuck out through my bedroom window, shaved my legs, wore a bra, and got felt up by my dad. That last item in the list is why I am writing this. At 45 I am unmarried, with no children, and no partner. What the hell is the matter with me? It freaks me out and it kind of saddens me. I wonder if my feelings of betrayal from my dad play a part in how I feel about men. If he had been a nice dad before he cupped my breasts, I might not have felt so afraid, but I had always been afraid of him. Now I was afraid he might hit me, but also afraid he might want to touch me again.

Don't We All Have to Pitch In and Do A Little Bit Extra?

I am sorry, Jill. I misunderstood. I thought I was just supposed to clean the kitchen; I did not understand that I was supposed to come in and clean up after you all. I guess we all end up doing more than we thought we were supposed to ;]

Do you suppose that Jimmy and Michael understand that? Maybe we should tell them?

Coming back from the abyss

I started to do something really stupid today, and a friend pulled me gently back from the edge. She cold have said have you lost your marbles? Isn't it enough that you are going to lose your job? Instead she was smooth and mild. I used honey and not vinegar.

Recomposition

Composing, entering data, making copies, printing out contracts, spreadsheets, maintaining database, answering phones, making plane reservations, making hotel reservations, transportation reservations, dinner reservations, bike and car reservations.

Someone else could print out contracts, make copies, answer the phone, enter data

I could do a lot of what I do from home.

depression

Lord, I have had some serious depression in the last week. Sometimes I can't stop crying at work. What a demoralizing job. It's so sad; I am just withdrawing more and more. I am losing the few friends I did have. I don't know how long I will last there, and then what will I do? Sigh.

I have to find something more enriching and challenging and lucrative  than this.

I wonder if Cinderella ever got depressed. God knows she had reason: mean stepsisters and mother, ineffectual father, rags to wear, hard work to do, inadequate nutrition, emotional and physical abuse. I would not have lasted long as the real Cinderella. I wonder why I am depressed. I have a lot to be happy about. I am out of car and insurance debt. I have a job, a dog, a bike, and an apt.

It is just that I expected so much more of myself. I have an education, experience, interest. Why am I stuck where I am? Have I lost too many brain cells, too many looks? It throws up to be depressed. The worst is that then I despise myself for being so weak as to be depressed. What is wrong with me? Why can't I be upbeat like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama?

Rachel Weisz, etc.,

I have decided, now that I know her, that Emma should be Rachel Weisz. They both have dark, shoulder length hair, are pretty, and smart. The relationship with Rachel feels like a missed opportunity. I really like her, but the relationship has a couple of impediments. Sweet, sweet, sweet, but powerless to help me in any way. Rachel Weisz is better a better fit in that she is a good age for Al. Casting is coming along.

Good retort to a monosyllabic, blasphemous outburst: "Oh, how I wish words could slip off my tongue so easily!"