Ashbloemstraat

Personal war path.

Today I drove up to Oklahoma City, had two meetings, then drove back down. I had the theme to Inglourious Basterds in my head the whole time.

I have had a shitty couple of days, my friends. I had a doctor appointment that brought me to tears, for several reasons. Mostly I have just been under a lot of stress, which has never effected me like this before. Hell, I barely used to get very stressed before a couple years ago. You would not have thought I just had almost a week off! Even my doctor was alarmed.

I enjoy what I do generally, but, frankly, I need to redefine my relationship with it or I might lose it. And by lose it, I mean that both mentally and job-wise. And goodness knows I can't lose the job nor spare any sane faculties. 

So the drive was good for a lot of thinking and alone time, which I have also not had much of since David lost his job. Perhaps the theme for IB kept going through my head because I am determined to rewrite the book that I am involuntarily writing for myself now. I'm the anti-historical director of my own script. I'm Aldo Raine, and I've been chewed out before. I'm going to kill me some natzis. And by natzis, I mean my own personal natzis.

Whatever it may be, I am not going to work this weekend. Not one iota. Hell, I'll be working all next weekend in Los Angeles anyway, so might as well take this one for meself.

Another item on my 101 in 1001 list: See all Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen. So right now I am going to start adding some items to Netflix. Then I'm grabbing a book and going to bed. Good night, sweet friends. Good night.

Happy new year.

2007 was, by far, one of (if not THE) the worst years I ever had, so when I say 2009 wasn't a favorite please do keep in mind that compared to '07 it was a veritable non-stop fiesta with continuously flowing bubbly. Of course, it wasn't terrible, and when I say it was not a favorite we might as well all say in unison "FROM ONE PRIVILEGED WITH HEALTH AND LOVE AND A HOME AND JOB ETC ETC". I am a lucky woman in many respects, and when I say "good riddance, two-t'ousand noin" (because I like talking to myself in a fake Irish accent sometimes) I know that it could have been much much much worse (see: 2007).

The last year was not a favorite because I lost and found my joys so many times over that I forgot what I lost and then found again. And then lost. And then I was just dazed and confused all the time.

Somewhere between the time I lost the camera and new year's day I suddenly became a grown up. This is not to say I didn't do quite well for myself before, nor that I'll never make an immature mistake again, but I suddenly feel quite near my age - nearly 36 - and while that is not old (NOT!), the fact of the matter remains is that I hover somewhere near the middle of my life. That's right. Barring tragedy, my life is naturally almost half over.

I say this not to be morbid or annoying - there is nothing I hate more than when people turn fucking 30 and cry "AH'M SO OLD". I don't feel old. I think I'll probably still make some stupid mistakes. But I have to tell you - I recently awoke one morning and it was like I could hear the clock tick-tocking, and I could only set my jaw resolutely and say, "So here we are then, you and I". 

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker

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We've rearranged the living and dining rooms and it is starting to feel like a fresh start, which I seem to need, over and over and over again. I know I want to remain here until the end of our time in Dallas, whenever that may be, so the new year seemed as good a time as any to set it up the way we want; to start life anew. Anew. Anew from what, exactly? How many times do I need to start anew to be happy? I guess we'll find out when that Footman tugs at my coat - put the final tally on my headstone, please.

Resolutions come and go easily, but if I was to encapsulate what I hope for the new year, it would be as Alain de Botton wrote on his Twitter account:

Goals for 2010: Concentration, humour, friendship, ambition, courage, good cheer. An end to: paranoia, timidity, self-pity, evil, resentment.

All things on which I need work, and I intend to work hard. There are the normal hopes for change in routine, for the twice more a week at the gym than I currently do, the biking more in bad weather, the more regular writing. But I think - I am quite sure, in fact - that if I concentrate on the goals he set above, the rest will follow. The good will engender all sorts of energy; the avoidance of the negatives will leave more space for that energy to fill in positive and creative and - dare I say - more ambitious ways.

A somewhat funny but current struggle is how I personally will deal with the cloying ubiquity of Facebook. I have to say, I get on it as much as the next person, but I really am starting to dislike its insistence. It is driving me mad hanging onto my trouser legs, demanding attention and replies. And not nice replies either, like our blogs in the old days used to have. Just.... filler. Or its users taking things on it too seriously. Trying to write something nice or honest or creative or just plain casual on Facebook is like trying to give a thoughtful performance of Hamlet's soliloquy in the midst of a of a WWE match.

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I've said it before as well, but I do, in all seriousness, think this is the year to decide about this blog. To be honest, I'm not sure why I do it anymore. I used to do it for the small community we built, but with Brandon gone, Kat not blogging, Neil branding, and, well, everyone else dissipated to the ether, it just is not the same. I write because I like to write, I suppose, but I am not sure what the forum or message should be anymore. And if the only forum is a few real life friends (which is extremely appreciated and valued) then maybe it is time to turn to an email update, or a new way of communicating that isn't Facebook. Perhaps... THE PHONE?

Maybe after six years of blogging I am simply bored with it. I read some blogs and they are so obvious; there is little genuine and creative. The mommy blogs all strive to be Dooce, the politicals Andrew Sullivan, etc. etc. There is a huge roar and din that cancel each other out and leave, to me, a great internet nothingness. Visual white noise; black characters lazing in rows across the screen.

In fact, the only thing I use the internet for, really (except work and news, of course), is humor. And this is why I like Twitter so so much. I sign up for someone funny. I get tweets throughout the day of cheerful little nuggets that make me chuckle, often when I need it most, unbeknownst to the Tweeter. Then it is over. No stupid comments; no copycat blogging. DONE. I love it.

More goals for 2010: Do something good every day. Challenge myself. Stop being a financial idiot. Back to yoga.

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Lastly, I suppose I have to face, with great sadness, the fact that my Amsterdam life as I knew it is genuinely over. The friends remain, but with me, they've all grown older and calmer. Some stop drinking, some are pregnant. The ex has a new girlfriend, and while we both are cordial and happy for each other, the friendship seemed to finally, naturally, and with positive energy, dissipate. The visits are now no longer the old crew out en masse and screaming "KOM OP!", but rather me visiting loved ones one by one, and reminiscing about the crazy kids we used to be; the kids that no longer are. Again, still lovely and valid, but an end nevertheless.

So this may finally be the year that the annual Amsterdam trip is packed quite lovingly away, and David and I do something just for ourselves, or with other friends also due their one on one time. Of course I will be back, of course of course. But never again in the same way. Because it will never again be the same.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!

Everything so old and new at the same time. It's a strange feeling. Mostly good, not entirely not bad. One I have never had before.

**************************************

So with the decade past I bid goodbye to those memorable times, to Amsterdam, the pinnacle of my youth, and the blogs that helped me through the latter part of it. I hope moving forward we - but mostly I - can learn to use the internet well and kindly, not to mention the consideration and love I hope to put in my every day, real life. 

In closing: I bought myself a new (used) Canon Rebel to replace the old. It isn't as nice as the old one, but it didn't cost as much. I decided to start the year being nice to myself, because I don't always need to be as mean to me as I am. And like Annie said - everyone deserves a new toy sometimes.

I'm so tired.

Chimney falls and lovers blaze
Thought that I was young
Now I've freezing hands and bloodless veins
As numb as I've become

I'm so tired
I wish I was the moon tonight

Last night I dreamt I had forgotten my name
'Cause I had sold my soul but awoke just the same
I'm so lonely
I wish I was the moon tonight

God blessed me, I'm a free man
With no place free to go
I'm paralyzed and collared-tight
No pills for what I fear

This is crazy
I wish I was the moon tonight

Chimney falls and lovers blaze
Thought that I was young
Now I've freezing hands & bloodless veins
As numb as I've become

I'm so tired,
I wish I was the moon tonight

How will you know if you found me at last
'Cause I'll be the one, be the one, be the one
With my heart in my lap
I'm so tired, I'm so tired
I wish I was the moon tonight

Coupling.

Have I mentioned this yet? Because it's only by reading every single entry today I kept myself regularly entertained while doing a sort of boring data audit project. I can say, with significant confidence, that I have not seen the entirety of ANY Lifetime movie. And now I never have to. Thanks, Rusty.

In other online listening news, this is an amazing show. I cannot recommend it as a soundtrack whilst doing a boring data audit, because it can lead to drifting off into a reverie. Not a sleepy one. But definitely a dreamy one.

In other general pondering news, you know what is really important? Having couple friends to hang out with as well as single friends. I never got that before, but I do now. It's just that you understand the dynamics of being in a couple, and have different expectations of what a reasonably negotiated evening is (of course, SOME of this is from being 34 and I just don't want to go clubbing on a thursday anymore). Let's put it this way - I have RARELY had to kick any couple-friends out of the apartment/house because they wore out their welcome. It's like... a different CLOCK.

Then again, I think it is just that people naturally fall into couple behavior, even when it is platonic. So if you are a couple and you have a single friend over, SOMEONE is going to be left out of the vibe. It may be one member of the couple, of course. But it's rarely an even field. And of course there are exceptions, but do you know what I mean? Chances are, if you are in a couple, you do.

I guess what I am saying is that Jennifer, Sean, Paula, and Jimmy & the two of us had a casual dinner last night and it was kind of nice to be able to talk about relationship dynamics in the context of reality instead of theory. I have a feeling I'm going to irritate some single friends with what I've said above, but I guess what i'm trying to communicate is that while I NEED - sometimes DESPERATELY MORE THAN BEFORE - my single friends, I can only now understand why so many of my coupled off friends would seek more couple friends instead of just hanging with little ol' me. There is an importance to it - maying having other friends who are married helps validate the difficult/wonderful/fucked up/beautiful/profound choice you made yourself? Mm?

I'm talking myself into the dumbest hole EVER.

Land of the free, home of the brave!

Originally David and I had talked about trying to start a family right around this time this year – after my birthday and in the lead-up to the wedding.  I've been taking my pre-natals like the good girl I'm supposed to be. Of course, we also thought we’d be insured by this point, so that’s the main reason we have NOT been trying (not that we haven’t been, you know, PRACTICING). Well, certainly ONE of the main, but not by far the only. There are the additional problems of having little savings, a somewhat irresponsible social life, and the million things we have on our plate already between finishing the house, buying a car, paying for a wedding, me wanting to buy a new computer, and let us not forget we would still really like to move out of Dallas in the next couple years. I can NOT really say that having a child fits into this equation very well in the short term. In short, I’m not really mindfully chomping at the bit for it at the moment, so keep that in mind as you are reading.

That said, there is definitely a lot going on in the subconscious that does suggest I’m ready. Hell, part of the conscious too.  It would seem it is time for me to have children if only to stop the harsh judgment I have been doling out recently (both internally and verbally, much to David’s surprise) upon other parents.

I just can’t help myself. I scrutinize every child I see in public – how they behave, what they are eating, what they are and are not allowed to do. I am every Dallas parent's harshest critic.

Hey Dallas – your kids are poorly fed and badly disciplined.

But who am I to judge? ME, who knows so so much about childcare, right? It’s been under 20 times I’ve babysat in my life. I have a younger sister, but we are close enough in age that I never really experienced her as a child when I wasn’t one too. I’ve only held a small handful of infants (ha ha - SMALL HANDFUL. They were too!). The one time I tried to give a bottle to one I ended up with more of the milk on me than in the kid's mouth.

It is funny, because I would say otherwise I am not such a judgmental person. True, I do believe my first impressions of people to be statistically more accurate than not, but those are generally an emotional impression (like they are strange or unhappy or crazy people), and I make a very conscious effort to make sure people have the opportunity to disprove my first instincts. But I don’t care what people do or say or how they wear their hair or clothes or if they have a million tattoos or green hair or whatever. I don’t judge people based on their personal choices. I try not to, anyway.

But I am judging parents’ choices terribly these days. It is wrong. I admit it. I get my knickers in a real twist and then later I feel bad about it, like they could see my face or sense my displeasure, and then maybe they feel all the worse for what they are doing in what is already a really hard job. And the cherry on top of all this is while I can recognize it is hard, I can bet it is about 100 times harder, so I should keep my judgments and facial expressions to myself. I'm sure karma is going to slap me with the worst kid EVER for all of this some day.

What I am more ashamed of is the almost outright indignation and… well, flat out anger I feel when I think of a couple people I know personally. Now,  before I start explaining myself further, I want to make it clear that I am not angry AT these people. They are friends of mine and I love them.

How to explain this without seeming like a real bitch. I have this one friend who rather rashly had unprotected sex with his girlfriend of, oh, 3 months or so. And now there is a baby; and a beautiful one at that. And another couple we know, who for the past year have done little in front of me than bicker and argue and fight – so much so that I had already written them off as over; I was just waiting to hear it made official. Instead what was made official was that they are having a baby.

I do not even know if they read this. If they do - and you know who you are, I am sure - please keep reading before you get angry with me or anything. Anyway, I have been struggling with this for a while now. I just get so upset about it. So I had to really sit myself down and have a talk with myself about it. What is bothering me SO MUCH? I'm not MAD at my friends for starting families. I'm happy for them. I want people to have love and happiness and all of that stuff.

What I have boiled it down to is this: they have innocently become the conduit through which every current frustration I have with our society is funneled.  It is exactly the same as with my job search - it is the feeling that I am trying to do everything the way I am supposed to - I got the degree; I have good job experience; I was careful about not getting pregnant before I was ready; I'm finally with my true life partner; I am waiting for the job to finally come around that will insure me - AND I AM GETTING ROYALLY SCREWED WHILE I JUST GET OLDER AND OLDER. And other people are all LA DEE DAH WE'RE GONNA MAKES A BABY LURLEEN! CLEAN OUT A DRAWER!

I am irritated that these friends just decided to get pregnant on apparent whimsy, because there is no damn logic to it. But I suppose the real irritation is with myself. I cannot operate that way.

Honestly, I am happy for my friends' riches, either in money or progeny. I just do not understand why I feel so left behind, so willing to follow the rules. If I was still in Europe, I do not think I'd be this angry. In fact, I'd probably have a child by now, because I would be able to afford one on my socialized health care. I would not really care if it was with someone I'd only been with for three months, or with someone I bickered with all the time, because I would know that society was always there to help me raise the best family I could, even if I had to do it alone.

So in the end, it's this whole system I am angry with when I get irritated over my friends' good fortunes. I hate America so much right now. Fuck you, USA. Fuck you and your stupid fucking capitalist "democracy" which totally screws the majority of the population while the rich just keep getting richer. Fuck you for spending $3 billion dollars a week in Iraq for a war we should have NEVER started while I look at babies on the street and wonder if it just is not in the cards for me because I can't get any reasonably priced health insurance. Fuck you, Stupid Americans, for going along with a war that was guaranteed to be a disaster from the get-go, that anyone with a brain suggested from the beginning, but thinking "SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE" is a dirty phrase. Fuck you. Fuck all of you.

Oh yeah, and I'm mad at Flickr too.

Postscript.

Right now I fade, I fade. I played journalist earlier because I needed to tell you how special the weekend was. But now I have had a couple glasses despite my vow that I would not take any. Not because I really wanted them, to tell you the truth, but because after the weekend I find myself back in the habit. However, a couple glasses on my own makes me moody and sleepy enough that it won't last; certainly not past tomorrow. The drama of lonely self-medication is no longer appealing. Thank goodness.

Tonight I finished re-reading The English Patient, as I have every couple of years for the past fifteen. Perhaps it is the exhaustion of pure emotion; the heartache of missing friends, as surely as if I would never see them again, but I wept off and on during this reading. Which I do sometimes upon my reading, like the first time I read it, but not always. A page turned and a tear fallen.

Maybe it is just the echo of a war that is frustratingly monstrous in its cruelty.

I am so tired sometimes. A weary traveller, with no chosen home. I, like Almásy, despising nations. While being in love grounds all, even in my most heartfelt happiness I fight the promise of constancy. Sometimes I want to lose myself in deserts. I want to take up arms against the simoom and chart my own cartography.

It is not that I desire another. On the contrary. My greatest temptation is solitude.

This is, all, of course, ridiculous. There is a different sort of war and there is nothing left to explore. We know the rock paintings of the Gilf Kebir. My days of solitude are almost over. Most often I consider this a blessing. Most often. But not always.

Another thought:

Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.

I should clarify that despite the reference to the bridegroom, I speak of the bride. It is rarely David who is warlike. It is most often me.

Slow.

David had a little bit of a meltdown yesterday, and I realized we are really putting a lot of pressure on ourselves and that needs to stop forthwith. He is working non-stop, and therefore getting a.) little time to himself; b.) little time to have fun; and c.) little sleep. I am giving myself daily crap for not having a job yet (though thankfully I will get paid for the tour next week). Right now I am insisting that we calm the fuck down.

It feels like we have these looming costs, but really, we don't. The wedding is so reasonable at this stage, and while I am sure something will come up, I feel very good about our finances on this thus far. Our hopeful trip has been giving him some stress, but as I told him - hey, we've created a honeymoon registry, and if it doesn't look like it will cover everything we DREAM of doing, certainly it will cover part of it and that's just the part we will do! Right? Right.

I've created a first draft of my NEW RESUME. However, it's still mostly my old resume, cleaned up. I'm going to keep working on it, but at least I have one now that I feel a bit better about so if I happen to see a job I'm interested in right now I'll have that one to send off.

Wedding-wise, the honeymoon registry is done and we'll hopefully finish the Amazon one before we leave. We are having a hard time with that one because we don't need anything, really, but I don't want people buying us random crap at showers or whatever either. Tour-wise, I'm reading and studying, and really getting excited now. Also very excited because we'll spend the first few days in my old town of Luzern with my friend Sara who just had a little girl three days ago! That may be the littlest baby I have ever held, unless I hold a younger one before next week. Which is unlikely. I'm going to take David sledding on Mt. Pilatus. Hope we don't break any bones; that would be bad.

I am hoping this little bit of time away is going to help restore my creative impulses. I've been sort of trapped in the job-search/wedding-details hamster wheel recently. Being in new air and languages always perks me up. Maybe when I return this blog can get a little creative again, instead of just being a daily journal. BOOOOR-ing.

I've totally just bored the crap out of myself, but I'll post this anyway. Woo hoo!

Maybe I will never be all the things I want to be.

I took the picture above two years ago today, walking around my snowy South End neighborhood. David was en route to Boston, as I recall, and I sent him picture and text messages like this one every day he was on the road to keep his spirits up. But our spirits were up already, way up; my messages were extraneous, unnecessary for spirit-lifting. We'd met and fell in love a mere month before and could not imagine life apart and even today I said to him WE ARE SO LUCKY and he agreed.

But other than the happiness of having him sleeping in the next room from me, and this loving little kitten sitting in my lap, and the obvious fortunes of being healthy and not destitute and having a warm cozy home, I am coasting through some doldrums right now. This period of unemployment is forcing me to do some reflection about what I want my life to look like, and I have to tell you, I am drawing a huge blank here.

I have always considered myself a writer. But other than this blog, and some poetry, I guess I am not. I mean, I do not make a living at it. I have almost always had office jobs which, while I often found them interesting or even fun, never felt like my REAL work. Would I like to make a living writing? I have no idea where to start. And is that really what I want to do? Do I imagine that for myself?

I've been reading this blog off and on for a while called Electrolicious. I first found it after purchasing and loving Offbeat Bride; I just really liked the author and her style and I guess she reminded me of how fun the old rave days were and all that. And while I never doubted my non-traditional inclinations for our wedding, reading her book and the blog just became a really nice affirmation of all that. From there I started keeping up with her Flickr and dipping into the blog from time to time.

I bring this up because she and her husband seem to live a similar life to Davey and I - cute home, loving pet, open and affectionate, etc. - with the main difference that she is DOING WHAT SHE LOVES. And is making a living that way! I am just so intrigued, and fascinated, and - let's be honest now - envious.

For a long time I worked in the travel industry because I loved to travel. It might not have been the most sexy way to make it happen, but travel I did. It was my foremost passion for a long time, and I suppose that now I can say for eleven-odd years of my life I guess I did not so much do a job I loved but the BENEFITS of that job made me very happy indeed. I have been lots of places.

Now, everything feels different. Travel is still a passion, yes, but I am not sure a job wherein I travel all the time is what I want anymore. I want to be with David. I like our evenings in, cooking and reading. I want to sleep with my kitties every night. I suppose I am settling down a bit. But not, I think, in a bad way.

So I am reassessing my professional life. I need something new. I can just get a regular old HR job with a good paycheck and regular hours and spend my free time writing and crafting and doing what I really love to do. But wouldn't it be SO much better if I loved what I was doing professionally as well as personally?

I am at this crossroads, and I know now is the time to make the decision. While we are in Dallas, I have the luxury of minimal expenses and a supportive family and all that. If I am going to try something crazy or different, I should get on with it. We will be here a couple more years but not forever, certainly. I am lucky to have this window; to waste it would be tragically stupid.

Tomorrow I am going to Wellfleet to have some much needed Boston Friends Time. We are going to eat seafood and drink wine and I will probably ponder the nature of happiness in work and marriage and ask them lots of questions. We will listen to the sound of the wind on the beach and I will love it because there is something special about Cape Cod in the winter. I need to go pack. I will be back on Monday night, with photos and (hopefully) more insight.

Old and tired.

It has been a long time since I have dealt with any sort of direct bigotry or racism. Which is not to say that it does not surround me at any given time.

As a child I often sparred against my grandparents, who were racists of an old southern sort - they did not seem particularly bothered by individual black people, often having jolly conversations, but at home would make blanket statements about race and always, always referring to black people in racial slurs. I fought with my grandmother mightily about my two best friends in fourth through sixth grade being a black and a Mexican girl.

I do not think this made them bad people - obviously I love/d my grandparents very much - but they were from a different time, I suppose. And in some ways I suppose they were better than others. I never saw or knew of them being racist in person; I always saw them treat other people well no matter what color or nationality. Certainly closeted racism is no better (possibly worse) than bigotry outright, but they certainly impressed and taught me more with their behavior than their words.

Bigotry is an ever-present issue, but I feel I have grown up as blind to this as I possibly can, and believing that people should be treated differently based on color, gender, disability, nationality, et cetera is about as far away from my personal morals and beliefs as it can be. In high school I was the only white girl on an all black drill team. I never felt like I was treated different and I never felt I treated others different. This even though I was going to a majority white magnet school with special priviledges and certainly a better education, HOUSED INSIDE a majority black school smack dab in the middle of the west Dallas projects, and those girls probably had every right to be resentful. I've travelled trying to get to know what other nationalities are about. I took African-American studies in college. I try all the time to focus on the unifying qualities we all possess. We are so focused on individualism (which I am all for), but I believe people really lose sight of how we are all the same.

I'm not saying all of that to be like "oooo I'm so great", but just to describe myself. I think I'm pretty accepting, and non-judgemental, but I'm no love-fest hippy. I'm aware that differences exist. I just want to transcend them.

All this said, I've been irritated with people this week.

First: I interviewed a tranny for a position in the company, which freaked my colleagues out to no end. The person I was supposed to interview her with could not even come into the room. She tried to make sure the other colleague did not even SEE the candidate, because he would just lose it right there, she said.

Hey, ok, I understand that the transgender thing can be a hard thing to get one's head around. I'm pretty fucking liberal - hey, if people want to rollerblade in g-strings around Amsterdam, I'm all for it (there was a dude who did this, and we called him Assman); and if you want to be a man or a lady, I don't see anything wrong with that - but I can imagine that if you are not exposed to it, it can be hard to figure out just where to LOOK. But not wanting to see the candidate is discrimination, and my colleagues, who are black, should recognize that. I was a little irritated they did not see the parallels.

Second: I was on the train home last night, reading my paper. A kid plopped down in front of me and turned to me and we had the following conversation:

"Hey ma'm. Can I use your phone to holla at my boy?"

"No, sorry, I'm afraid not."

/irritated "I hope you never need my phone! I won't let you use it. I guess you don't let black people touch your phone."

"Hey. I don't care if you are green, I don't have a lot of minutes and I am not handing my phone to someone I don't know."

"Yeah, whatever."

This really fucking bothered me.

I hate these attitudes. I hate that we still have people hanging nooses to make some sort of statement, though they probably are too stupid to understand what exactly they themselves are trying to say. I hate that we have double-standards. I hate that I am implied a racist because I don't want to let some kid use my phone. I hate that because someone looks a certain way they are given shit at the airport. I hate that people talk about freedom of religion but oppose mosques being built. 

There is so much to like about people, but people won't allow me to do it! And I start getting cranky. Then I start to feel like I don't care about people anymore. And then I become part of the problem. I just do not ever want to be part of the problem.

How do you keep from being part of the problem, when everyone creates problems all the time? Shouldn't we all be worried about burning up from global warming?

Home is where I want to be but I guess I'm already there.

I had a bad day yesterday.

I don't know why. It was just one of those days when I felt like a failure; like I had wasted my life; that I am doomed for mediocrity and struggle for the rest of my days.

I sat at work and wondered why I made decisions that have me at the age of 33 with no career to speak of. Why my friends have made good decisions that have left them successful. My friends are amazing - doctors and lawyers and game designers and actors and writers and I, I am nothing. Talents and promise wasted away.

Looked at photos of Amsterdam and missed my friends and my life there, and cursed myself for making the decision to move to Switzerland with Mr. NC and leave the home I loved so much, and now the paths to get back there are difficult indeed. In fact, it feels impossible.

I left work and felt tired. Even as I knit on the train I wondered why I couldn't come up with a more creative project. I put it back in my bag, and chose to instead stare out the window, thinking about how David and I will never be able to afford the kind of trip we are dreaming about, and how we probably can't afford to have kids, and maybe I'm just the one who is too much of a fuck-up to have them anyway. If an application was required, I would surely be rejected.

I went to the gym and had a run and lifted some weights, thinking it would make me feel better. But instead it just brought everything I was feeling to a head, and I started crying almost as soon as I walked out the Y doors.

I went home and wept in the shower. I decided I hate my hair right now and it makes my face look fat and old.

Finally I stopped sobbing and I went over to my sister's for company. She was having a bad day too so we tried to make each other feel a little better over drinks, but we didn't try too hard, because it was not really going to help.

Later, I got drunk and passed out on the couch.

Today I feel mostly back to normal. I know I have a nice life - a really nice life - and my worst days are better than some people's best. I am healthy, my family is healthy, my friends are safe and loved. The decisions I have made have resulted in payoffs wonderful and myriad - the friends I have made, the places I have been, David, David, David. Days like yesterday are ridiculously self-indulgent and selfish and I really just do not feel that way most of the time. I am a happy and thankful person.

But they happen sometimes.