Snookie writes the best emails:

"And, BTW, you are not worthless. You are worthwhile in dozens of hundreds of ways, and altogether too great for your current job. Maybe you should just bite the bullet and accept your family's offer of support and go back to England and live at the manse and tend to the doves and get into sexually charged arguments with the groundskeeper who is altogether too strapping for his or your own good and who absolutely cannot seem to take no for an answer but does it really matter since your treacherous body is obviously telling him yes?"

Oh come now, let's not be offended. Can we really expect someone with a month's worth of recurring suicidal thoughts to respond rationally to helpful suggestions and expressions of concern? I mean really. Sheesh.

Think I'll order some Indian food. Because why the fuck not.

I don't have the time or energy to respond to all the well-intentioned emails flying my way, so here are some general statements:

1. I know it's not meant that way, but please be conscious of sounding pitying. I am indeed pitiful and pitiable, but pitifying statements just make it worse. So kindly think before you type.

2. There are distinct causes of this - three direct and one indirect collective cause, in fact. It's not some sudden downturn out of the blue or an accumulation of many unpleasant and ongoing situations. That is to say: it's atypical and, one hopes, temporary. It's just a lot of shit and difficult to cope.

3. Yes, I am aware there are medications and therapists. No, it's not some pride thing that keeps me from these solutions. Yes, I have thought of these conventional and widely accepted methods of help. No, I am not interested in partaking. Yes, I am very glad either or both have worked very well for you and yours in similar situations.

I am functional. I make it to (and through) work and actually get work done. I am capable of civil communication with others. I eat, I sleep, I haven't stopped working out. I am holding it together. It's extremely difficult and comes with a lot of weeping, but I am functioning.

I have no plans to blow my brains out in the immediate future. Thanks for your concern.

I started to type out all this stuff. But I just don't care anymore. I don't. The thing is - I'm not well. I realize this. I know I should do something about it. But I don't know what else to do. I let myself cry; I make myself stop crying; I make myself smile a lot; I type things like "meditation" and "positive thinking" and "please make me better" into Google, as though some answer will pop up in the first 20 hits; I wait in vain for time to heal something; I act normal which gives me the illusion of normalcy and figure it's all just a matter of the right mindset, it'll be fine - then I spend all day trying to come up with reasons why being alive is worth all the trouble. (Well, I tell myself, if I checked out I think it'd be very damaging to Snookie. And she doesn't deserve that. My niece would be indirectly damaged in a rather permanent way, too, and she deserves it even less. Maybe others would get over it, but they wouldn't, and that's not fair. Besides, the neffs really love me. More importantly, they like me. And it's nice to be liked. And anyway, even theoretical suicide is not permitted here, so just stop thinking and get back to that scintillating spreadsheet. Right. Okay.) Maybe I should do some drugs - legal or not. Maybe I should get drunk and sleep with strangers 3 nights a week. Maybe I should chuck it all and run way. Fake my own death and hide in like Costa Rica or something. Maybe all it takes is time I should just sit around and wait to feel like a worthwhile being again some day. Maybe I should just start with cleaning my apartment.

I don't know. But I'm not even close to okay. Every time I think I get close, I turn out to be deluding myself. And this is really hard for me. I usually have an idea of how to fix me. But this time I am so goddamn lost. Really lost to myself, and I miss me. I don't type it all out because I want sympathy or reassurance or attention. It's because I’m scared of not admitting it (writing it always makes it more real, and writing it here makes it undeniable to myself) and maybe in stark black and white it’ll seem ridiculous, or an obvious but overlooked answer will come.

That's what I thought, anyway. But it's not really helping at all.

Here's a tree that I pass on my way to work. It was the first one I saw turn to autumn, about a week ago, and still the only thing that makes me remotely inclined to get out of bed every day, so I can see it. All the rest will turn soon, and it'll stop being as special and beautiful. But right now, it's a lovely thing.

Holy shit, I'm out of bread. How could this possibly happen? I mean I know how it happened, of course, I told myself to buy bread yesterday and then completely forgot. I noticed I was low on the weekend, ate the last of it as toast yesterday, and then failed to buy a loaf before today. It's not exactly a mystery, and yet I am completely boggled by it. I NEVER run out of bread. It's not like milk, which I constantly forget to buy and never have on hand. Or coffee - sometimes I run out of coffee. But I just always have bread.

Except right now, when I do not have bread. It's freaking me out.

(It doesn't take much to freak me out these days. I'm like a planet practically begging to careen out of orbit.)

In other News Of Frustration, I got a letter from the doctor's office telling me that my primary care physician is no longer with the practice. I absolutely HATE when people in the medical field do this because they never tell you where they went. Yeah yeah, practice wants to retain its patients, blah blah, I WANT MY DOCTOR. I spent a lot of time picking her out and while she's hardly perfect, I like her better than the others and I was just settling in. GAH. And I NEED a doctor right now, thanks, I was GONNA call and make an appointment this week but OH WELL.

Another annoying thing - I got this exciting new shower-head, the kind that's like a tropical downpour. Then I tried to install it, only to find that my pipe is a different size from the head. So I went to Home Depot and got a little pipe adaptor piece thingy and hooked everything up, yay hurrah. Then I stepped under it, and found that it's too low. I mean really low. Prohibitively low. The shower head is level with my eyebrows.

I do not have the heart to go to Home Depot again. Maybe I'll just have to give up the dream. You know, the dream of showering in a tropical downpour. Oh well, at least the shower head was on sale. (Clearance at Target, half price, wooo.) I also got a rug on clearance. It's all very exciting.

I've made it to the third and final section of Eat Pray Love - not without my fair share of exasperation and glazed eyes - and now can think of little except how I want to go to Bali. Or more precisely, how I want to have the kind of life that allows me to pack up and head to Bali for a few months in the pursuit of happiness. Ya know - without going broke and/or being hounded by creditors, I mean.

Hmmmmmm I seem incapable of doing anything but whining lately. I blame the lack of toast this morning.

Bet I forget to buy bread again today. I just bet I do.

Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with Kate, who is a good egg and our only participant this week. As for myself, I was so unbearably exhausted last night that I barely made it to 9pm before dragging my carcass to bed. Which both explains why I'm wide awake at this hour and why I didn't manage a SBD post at all.

But by next week I should be done with Eat, Pray, Love and can tell you all about it. Well, if I make it to the end - I'm halfway through and getting borrrred.

Anyway, I need coffee and toast now.

I had this totally insane dream about a wedding. I was a bridesmaid. The dress was hideous, and so were the $205 pair of shoes I was made to wear with it and the dressmakers just did NOT seem to care that their work was criminally awful.

Actually, that's not insane. That's downright realistic.

Anyway, whatever, it's

Smart Bitches Day!

Got anything to bitch about? Do feel free. I dunno that I have anything, but I'll at least try to change the blog color scheme to something autumnalish. That's bloggish of me, anyway, so I'l be here.

Snookie's Savory Muffins Of Awesomeness
(in which the term "muffin" is not a euphimism, but rather entirely literal)

I got this recipe from the brilliant Snookster, who told me of it months ago, saying "I made myself sick by eating almost the entire pan while it was still hot." And if that's not a recommendation, my friends...

And it's also a warning: DO NOT MAKE THESE IN ISOLATION. Seriously. Have a pot of tea and a friend, and a pair of empty bellies waiting for these to come out of the oven. You will need:

2c. plain flour
1Tbsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 oz. cream cheese
1/4 c. finely chopped onion
1/4 c. snipped fresh parsley
1 egg, beaten
3/4 c. milk
1/4 c. melted butter

Note that I used a dollop more cream cheese than called for, and it was fine - but just a small dollop. And I used Philly, the 1/3rd less fat version. Because I like how it's less dense than the regular cream cheese, that's why, so it's what I buy. I'm not really caring about the fat content here. But anyway, it proves the recipe works with regular AND the less-fatted cream cheese, so use whichever you like. (But for the love of all the saints and sinners, I beg of you not to even think of using non-fat "cream cheese", which is neither cream nor cheese and is only an abomination and an affront to humanity. Thank you.)

Also, I don't know what "snipped" parsely is. I assume it means freshly snipped from the stems, but I mean no duh - I wouldn't think that needed to be spelled out like that. Anyway just in case it was crucial, I was careful about making sure there were only leaves and no stems. But I really don't think it was crucial. And next time, I intend to toss some other snipped herbs in there and have some fun.

Oh - and the onion. I used a green onion. Because I love green onions with an unholy passion. But I think a stronger onion is called for. So I recommend at least a yellow onion. Maybe a spanish white, if you're feeling especially sassy.

So get a mid-sized mixing bowl and mix all the dry ingredients together, then stir in the onion and parsley. Then chop up the cream cheese into reasonable chunks and cut it into the flour mixture until it's like soft bread crumbs. I know I know I know - cutting anything into flour seems like way too much work, but for whatever reason cream cheese cuts in 10 times faster than butter does. (And it's always faster if you just use your fingers instead of a pastry cutter, as I believe I mentioned in my recipe for pie crust. Don't mess around with utensils.)

Then in a smaller bowl, stir together the egg, melted butter, and milk. Don't worry if it looks lumpy and curdled and gross - milk+butter tends to do that, and it can be alarming.

Dump the butter mixture all at once into the flour mixture. None of that "gradually add" b.s. - just dump it in and then stir it up, and you get a lumpy, sticky batter which you will then put into 12 muffin cups. You can grease and flour the muffin pan, but as my aversion to dish-washing is the stuff of legends, it should be no surprise that I prefer to line the pan with the paper muffin cups. The recipe says to fill them 2/3rds full of batter, but I think it's closer to 3/4ths. Whatever, just don't fill them to brimming, I guess.

Also, I'm pretty sure you could do these as drop biscuits. Or scones. Or whatever.

Then bake in a 400-degree oven for 20-25 minutes. The last 5-10 minutes of the cooking time may very well be the most maddening of your life, it smells that gorgeous. Well, if you feel that way about cooking-onion smell, that is. I do. Most emphatically. Basically, cooking-onion smell plus baking-bread smell? I mean holy gawd almighty, I'm only human. Even if I more closely resembled Pavlov's dog in those last 5 minutes.

Eat them warm out of the oven, golden brown on top and smelling of heaven on earth. They're very good at room temp, sure, but warm out of the oven? Please. It's a miracle Snooks only almost ate the whole pan.

Fortunately, I immediately shoved the whole pan into my car and took them to celebrate the opening of the eye-talian's Unbearably Exciting New Beauty Salon. They were a hee-YUGE hit. The Italian was late getting started on my hair because she was too busy eating a savory muffin of awesomeness. My brother ate one and loved it, then became promptly ill because he can't have dairy and my mention that there was cream cheese involved could not be heard above the allure of baked goods, it would seem.

And I have pics of said shop, but I'll save it for a post later this week. You should go make these muffins now. Or you know what'd be good? Make the batter now and put it in the fridge til the morning, then make them hot and piping for breakfast. Holy shit, these'd go awesome with eggs and coffee and ... something with maple syrup. Sausage, too, though that's not my thing.

Magia, baby - MANGIA.

I was gonna blog but I just got home and I muuuuuuust sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. But I have pictures. And a recipe which is just So Really Totally Yum. I will post them. I am posting now about how I will post these things later in an attempt to incur a sense of obligation within myself. And because I had the window open and everythin.But right now, gnite. I mean good morning but nighty-night, yo.

Blah blah blah

One time I had this friend I loved like crazy. Not in-love love, just really intense friend-love. (I don't do a lot of in-love, but my life has been largely defined by friend-loves. It's just the way my heart/brain/life works.) Then suddenly, it wasn't. Actually, it's funny I say "one time", because it's actually happened several times throughout my life. And - not as funny - they generally go from Very Important Relationship to Apparently Not Quite That Important due solely to my own overestimation of how important I am in the other person's life. And they're always accompanied by a Nelson Muntz HA-HA bellowing through my brain. Quite apropos.

But anyway, the one I'm thinking about - it was a rather floundering friendship for a some time until I officially declared it dead. For ages I'd suffered little hurts and humiliations, and I'd felt the distance between my perception and the reality gradually growing. So I'd been adjusting to the idea that, okay, fine, so we're not as close as we used to be. It's a thing you can get used to, because life gets like that as you get older. Then comes the realization, in a sometimes dramatic fashion, that you just really don't matter all that much to the other person. The level of shock and hurt varies, but this particular one hurt like a motherfucker. Surprising that it did, because it'd been creeping up on me over the course of years. But sometimes the evidence of your own insignificance is just a kick to the teeth, even if you kind of already suspected it anyway.

So. Anyhow. I dunno. It hurts, that's all. Losing that sense of yourself, of the self you got to be with that person. In addition to losing a friend, I mean. That's hard enough, but you lose yourself too, and a whole pocketful of things you thought were true. It's a lot to lose, even when you saw it coming. When you didn't see it coming, it's a whole different variety of bewildering pain.

I keep thinking of it, the one friendship I officially declared dead. (I mean I declared it to the friend in question. A friendship break-up, but I did sincerely want to try to keep some sort of connection. Sadly, the ex-friend did not.) I kept thinking of all the apologies I never got, of all the explanations I kept waiting for which never came, of this utter failure to bridge the gulf between us. How long it took me to get over all that unresolved stuff. Sometimes I still wonder if I'm over it. Right now I wonder at how relatively quickly I did get over the worst of it. About six months, I guess, for a tight friendship that had lasted maybe 7 years. But you do get over it. At least the worst of it. Or so I keep reminding myself.

The thing is, my friends are kind of all I have. So it's important in a way that's tricky to explain. If I told you it was a boyfriend from 6 years ago that I broke up with and it still hurt, that'd be easier to understand, probably. But if I try to verbalize how it felt when, for example, a close female friendship from 10 years ago just... stopped. It just stopped and left me wondering what the fuck, even years later, what the fuck, why didn't I deserve at least a "get lost" alla sudden, what did I do, why am I suddenly nothing to you, and you act like it's no big deal at all? It's not so easy to put words to that kind of feeling. Sorting through a flavor of heartbreak that doesn't involve kissing and nookie and googly-eyed goodness - it requires a language that only half-exists.

Not that it's always dramatic and rending, incidentally. My favorite one of these losses is the one where I just woke up one day, saw with blinding clarity exactly how little (and how much) we meant to each other, furrowed my brow in consternation for about an hour, and finally accepted it with little more than a sad sigh. Because it's okay, really. That distance suits us both now, and there's still enough nearness to call it a friendship. It feels just right, even though it's so different from what it used to be. That one was relatively easy to endure. Other ones aren't.

I don't know why I'm rambling so much about this. I remember when I was 5 years old, the summer before I met Dawn and became inseparable from her. My only friends were two neighborhood girls, both of whom were a couple of years older than me. They were friends with each other, too, and would get in fights - but I stayed friends with both. All that summer they hated each other, and each hung out with me individually. I felt so special. One or the other - sometimes both at once - were always wanting me to come over, come out to play. Then one day they made up. They didn't tell me they'd made up. I just went to Girl 1's house and she told me that Girl 2 was over, they were playing like Parcheesi or something. I was shocked, since only the day before they'd been talking such shit about each other. And somewhere in the middle of the shock, Girl 1 told me she'd see me later. A crystal clear dimissal. She may even have told me not to bother coming around anymore, not as long as her and Girl 2 were friends.

I just remember standing outside her screen door on a late summer day, staring at my shoes and trying to make myself understand that even though I considered us bestest friends, she didn't. Trying to comprehend that she wasn't going to open the door and invite me in like always. That she didn't really want me. That she'd only ever let me in because she was bored and had nothing else to do and no one else to play with. That she liked me well enough, but I wasn't nearly as special as I'd been thinking.

Then I got over the shock, got really pissed off, screamed something at the house about what cunts they both were (really), and then decided a girl named Kelly from one block over was my best friend from now on so SCREW BOTH OF YOU.

Of course, I do know why I'm rambling about this. Because lately, I feel like I'm staring at my shoes again in the late summer sun, trying not to cry because it turns out I don't really matter so much. And there's no girl named Kelly one block over who can fill the empty spot, and no way to erase my own unimportance with an angry shout. There should be a name for this feeling. Not just friends, but other things - like when a girl I knew got SO EXCITED that her poem was being published, only to find out that it was a scam to get you to buy the book. So her poem wasn't that special. She wasn't some wondrous creature at all. She was just stupid to ever believe she was.

A convergence of things and people in my life, making me feel that way. A whole neighborhood with doors that close quite specifically on me, these last few weeks. Or months. Or no - years, I suppose. More the fool I.

But hey, that's why God made liquor. And cheese. I am very into cheese lately.

For some reason when I wake up in the morning, I walk on the outside edges of my feet. Like, instead of putting my whole foot down. I have no clue when this started, but it really can't be a good thing. I think I have a subconscious fear of fallen arches. Or something.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. Completely forgot. Oops. (Note that I actually have not an ounce of chagrin in me over the matter, though I spose it would've been polite to send a card. Whatever.)

I got this cardio kickbox workout dvd, because I can only make the class at the gym 3 times a week (sometimes only 2) and all other workouts have become far, far too boring for me. This dvd is similar to the turbokick class, but I was surprised to find how comparably easy it is. Anyway, it's a good intro to the whole concept, in case you're looking. I'll keep doing it - just will double the sections and add some extras - but I need to find a spot on my floor that isn't too squeaky. Every step is annoying and it's an hour of squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak squeak because of my 60-ish year old floorboards. If it bugs me, I'm sure it must infuriate Rose my downstairs neighbor.

In conclusion, I cannot wait to get my hair cut tomorrow. Thank you and good day.

Various n sundry

• My cold is clearing up, currently in the Each And Every Sinus Passage Itches Like A Motherfucker stage. I'm out of Nyquil. so maybe I'll just swallow some benadryl in the hopes of killing the desire to scratch my eardrums.

• In the realm of UNBELIVEABLY EXCITING NEWS, the eye-talian will be opening her very own salon on Friday. At last. All that's left to do is browbeat a plumber into doing somethingorother and sweettalking the fire marshall. Easy-peasey. She's downright squealing about it, that's how thrilling it is. Opening day at last, hurrah. My split n frizzy ends are pretty thrilled, too. I have an appointment for Saturday.

• There are 3 flights of stairs leading to my apartment. My niece counted them once - 45 stairs total. I have always pretty much despised the last 4-6 stairs, because that's just where my whole body gets sick of the stair-climbing thing. (Anyone who's ever climbed the stairs with me has had to endure my whining at step 39-ish.) I've climbed them every day for the last four years, and paused in exhaustion/breathlessness every single time at step 39-ish. Everyday, for 4 years. Suddenly these last coupla weeks? I don't hate the last 5 stairs. My bod's just fine with it. Apparently, this is what a regular, intense cardio workout can do for you. Kinda shocking, really.

• I'd like to thank Goran, who said I have beautiful eyes. Or maybe amazing eyes. Or something. Whatever, it was unsolicited and spontaneous and undeniably sincere, so it qualifies as a genuine compliment, and keeps coming back to me these last few days. It's nice, altering my internal monologue to: I'm a waste of space and time and breath-- but hey! I'm a waste with nice eyes. So that's, like...good! Or at least not bad! It's the little things that keep us going.

• I got Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go in the mail today, from the swap. I love Ishiguro, but I admit I'm... um, trepidatious? about reading this book. I'm so sick of really great authors writing just meh books. I want it to be amayyyyyyyyyzing. But what if it's just okay? Or gawd help us - what if it sucks really really really bad? I'm just sick of disappointment. Bleh.

• I also got Eat Pray Love, that book every female in the western world is reading. I dunno why I got it. I guess because the hardcover was on clearance for like $7 and I needed to add something to my Amazon order to qualify for free Super Saver shipping, and I figured I could toos it into the swap and make the swappers happy. Anyway, I'll probly read it this weekend. I predict I will loathe it. And heap scorn upon it. Assuming I have the energy, that is. And assumingI don't inexplicably love it.

• Celebrating Mexican Independence Day in America is stupid. It just is. I mean, if I emigrated to like Ireland, I wouldn't want a 4th of July parade in Dublin. Seriously. Stupid shit.

Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with

Salomé
and
Kate
and
Chas
and
Doug
and even
Suisan and her batshit mother because lawdy do I ever know the exasperation of a mom like that.

Here's mine:

Read Madensky Square by Eva Ibbotson

It's really good. If I could write a book like that, I'd be quite pleased with myself, that's all I'm saying. Wonderful storytelling, fantastic characters, memorable in every way. Not overwhelmingly fantabulous, just a really really good story about good (but flawed) people and, well, life in general.

It's not exactly a romance, though it has some romance in it. It's set in Vienna. The main character is a dressmaker.

Oh jeez. I have a head cold. My brain function is hindered by snot. Just read the book. Yes, all of you, male or female, lovers or haters. Yes, you too. Read it. It's a pleasant and entertaining interesting and informative place to be, the pages of that book. Don't pass it by.

Anyone read anything else by her? Recommendations welome.

While I'm sitting here waiting for the decongestant to kick in before I do anything so energetic as, like, showering and making coffee, I'll mention that it's

Smart Bitches Day

Do feel free to bitch and tell us all about it.

Ugh, I have a cold. Head cold. Much mucus. Though there's generally wayyy more mucus than this, but this time I've been fast about swallowing mucus-busting pills and such. (Nyquil, Dayquil: how I love ye. Even if I hate the taste of you, Nyquil. Barf.) Still, the stuffiness presses gainst the sinuses. Headache. Ugh.

Yesterday, when I felt it coming on, I real quick-like took some of that Airborne stuff. Didn't work. It's a scam, I tell you - a scam!

I need tea. I'm almost out. And totally out of milk. And more DayQuil. And soothing throat lozenges. And soup. And I was gonna go to the liberry today, waah. Now more than ever, I needs me a bevy of servants. Or just one to go run some errands for me. Useless cat, no help at all. I shoulda gotten St Bernard. Lil keg around the neck, very handy. Except the purring warm fuzzy schtick is pretty nice. Just wish she could fetch me a hot toddy too.

Okay, I gotta lay down again now bye.

Maybe I should have named the cat Bellwether instead of Thunderpussy. She knew before I did, clingy and affectionate, constantly purring at me, following me from room to room, giving me stern warning looks when I leave the apartment. She knows somehow, in that way animals have. So it's not just the people who email that worry.

Anyway. I've been through this before, a few times. It's not just a typical bad time, a typical transition-time filled with anxiety. It's something else. And it comes with a lot of silence. What a wasted and pointless life mine seems, centered as it always has been on figuring myself out. I manage to forget who I am and what I am, and have to remind myself. Constantly.

Some of it is a conscious effort. This is how you talk to new people, I'll tell myself. Now let's work on smiling. I coach myself to point out the positive in what appears to be a negative situation, which is exhausting. I remind myself that being likeable isn't automatic, it takes some effort. I tutor myself in the most basic things, hoping eventually to graduate to laughter. Then I remember that these things didn't used to be work. Used to come natural. I just need practice.

But it's more than practice. It's a recognition of things that I've spent the last few years fighting against. And now I see that life will be a lot easier - for me and everyone around me - if I stop fighting against those things. Now I just have to re-learn how to be like that, how the world looks from there. Align the way I see myself with the way people (known and unknown) see me. Remember the limits of my own worth, because it may be that I deserve many, many things - but then lots of people deserve lots of things, even more than I do, and they don't get it. I'm not entitled to a goddamn thing. Remind myself to be happy that I have anything at all. If life isn't satisfying, work to be grateful every minute of every day for the little you have instead of wishing you could chuck it all. Stop resenting that it's not more. I have a good job and a nice home and a handful of people who seem to care about me. If a life that blessed is not enough, then it's me who's the problem, me who's lacking. Not everyone and everything else.

It's my grandmother, of course. Her face and her smile and her voice, all in my mind's eye like a gentle recrimination. It's her contentedness, which is a direct result of her humility. Re-learn that, foolish self.

When I wanted to quit smoking, I just told myself I wasn't a smoker anymore. When I wanted to be in the habit of exercising, I just told myself "I work out every weekday. It's what I do." We define ourselves. It only takes believing. (Hah - "only", she says, like it's such a small feat. But it is, really. All you have to do is want to believe.) The trick is that it's in your head. In your head, so your new definition can't depend on others' agreement. You can tell yourself I belong in that world, I am worthy of that place, but you can't expect the inhabitants of that world to agree. No matter how fabulous everyone agrees you are.

It's not one thing that's happened. It's an accumulation. That's generally how it works. You wake up one day and realize that the reality is not quite like the glossy brochure you've been admiring for so long. A smaller life, a lesser self, an acceptance of relative unimportance, pruning back the ego. Not reinventing or rising from the ashes or whatever. Like shedding a skin you didn't even know you had. Shedding yet another skin, and getting used to a new one (which feels remarkably like an old one). Absurd life of mine, skin after skin after skin.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to talk as it's happening. There just aren't words to go with it. And naturally there is a lot of shame mixed in with it all, which rather muffles me. No words, or I'd manage to figure out why it reminds me of silt settling in a river. Little particles of self drifting down in the murky green, finding their place according to the flow of water. Silence and more silence down on the river bed as I lie there and acquaint myself with how the world looks from this new place, with how people see me, how I fit and where I fit and why, and oh what does my voice sound like anymore? Quiet and still, it's the order of the day. No thrashing about or it'll get all muddy again, and I won't be able to see again.

Something like that.

Maja did an SBD. Let us know if you did, too.

Right. So, that thing I really wanted? The Big Hope. Not happening.

Misery, thy name is Beth

Yeah yeah - SBD. Go here to see who's bitching. I don't even have the energy to link beyond that.

(I swear to gawd it'll get better soon. I mean it's got to, right? It's just that like every third day, there's something else that is just so fucking depressing. Jaysus. But either it'll stop, or I'll get to that aww-fuck-it point. Hopefully soon. Until then, waah fuckin waah. Whatever.)

So there I am, laying in bed and being sleepily grateful that the resident feline has let me sleep past dawn for once, when it hit me that today is technically a Monday. It's Labor Day, for you non-American types, which means a day off to enjoy the last of summer, and also means that I completely forgot about

Smart Bitches Day

Please do feel free to bitch away. I haven't thought about it at all, but I suppose I might whip something up if other people do. Comments open. Let me know if you're game.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that pumpkin spice lattes are back. I said: PUMPKIN SPICE LATTES ARE HERE.

That is all.

You know how old people eat supper at like 5pm and are in bed by 8:00? I think the feline equivalent of that is waking up at 4 a.m. Thunder is almost ten years old now (!!!) and though she's spry as ever and not a gray hair on her, that's getting up there, for a cat. She seems to wake up unreasonably early and then gets bored and pokes me awake an hour or so later. She didn't used to do this. It's really fucking annoying.

My whole week was stupid. And crappy. I actually spent a lunch hour crying in the parking lot. Because I enjoy pushing the envelope marked Pitiful. Whatever. Many bad things, work chief among them. One of the peeps from my former job emailed to give goss, and among the items was how this one guy (not a peep, but I liked him plenty) quit after he was written up for not answering an emergency call because he was at a wake. I just sorta boggled at that. It sounds more like my current workplace than the former. It's unbelievably how shitty employers can be.

Omg but I'm not going to talk about it or even think about work because it's a 3-day weekend. Hurrah. I'll go to the gym. I'll take walks in the park (because it's lovely weather). I'll go to the liberry and put this list of books on hold. I'll do dishes and swiffer, or at least I'll tell myself I will. I'll lay around and read, I guess. Laying around and doing little but sleeping and reading is actually one of the best things after a bad (two) week(s).

Still wish I had somewhere to go or something to do. But hey, don't I always. Summer's ending. Suck it up.