The fate of my old car...

Ok. My old car was sold. For $1,100. But, on the positive side, it was sold to another dealership, and so I can still buy it back. If I win the lottery, that is. Or *when* I do, rather. I have got to keep positive. We're about to have a big storm here, and I had to park my new car outside, so now I have to worry about it getting wrecked. The basketball hoop in my driveway is freestanding (sort-of; it's on a pole that's been stuck into the ground), and I'm just hoping it doesn't crash down onto my new car. Sigh. Always something to worry about. If I had my old car, I wouldn't worry so much, because anything cosmetic is not that big a deal, but...well, I don't know. I've been spoilt over the past three days of driving my new car. So, when it gets destroyed or all trashed up, I can at least have the past three days to look back upon with fondness.

So this has been and shall be a banner week for me. And I want my old car back. And I don't want my new car to be hurt. And I feel like could cry for a week over everything! Grr. As if my life weren't stressful enough already.

I normally enjoy rain and storms, but I'll not be enjoying this one, I don't think. Too much else to consider and worry over. Too bad I don't drink much, or take pills. Tonight'd be a good time for either, or both. :-P

I miss my car, altruism, the lottery, and my Plan!

I miss my old car. We understood each other. I am ragingly sad. This really sucks. I want to buy my old car back. I am really, really sad. I know it sounds stupid, but it's the truth. Right now, I wish I hadn't done this, and I feel like my car probably misses me. I actually did cry. Ok, so I'm stupid.

:-) I could sneak back onto the lot and go steal my old car back...I *do* have an old spare set of keys. And I know my old car would be so glad to see me...

Ok. I'm not going to do that. But I would like to buy my old car back. I could just drive it sometimes, so it doesn't feel unloved.

On a related note (bear with me on this one), I collect fortune cookie fortunes; I do this for a number of reasons, none of them good ones: first of all, I think they're the best kind of advice, if you're thinking through something. If you try to talk to someone about whatever it is you're thinking through, they're not going to listen to you, and when they do give their input, it's usually got some agenda behind it. With fortune cookie fortunes, you don't have that problem; true, they're not listening to you--but we've already established that your friends aren't either. What makes the fortune cookie's advice better is that it's without the hidden agenda (that plus it's trying at least to make you feel better about yourself). So it's like impartial, kind help--and that's always nice, even if it's wrong. My second reason is because I feel that fortune cookie fortunes are a good example of altruism. I mean, the person writing them is just trying to make people feel better--there's no ulterior motive. Well, I know that there's the ulterior motive of buying the fortune cookie, but to that I would point out that they're given out free in Chinese restaurants. Now I know that the next thing one could say is that the Chinese restaurants buy them because people like them, and so there's the profit motive. To that, I would just say "shut up". That may not have even occurred to them--they might be just doing it to be nice, and, Occam's Razor being what it is and all, we should look to the simpler explanation first before accepting all kinds of elaborate explanations involving middlemen mediating the relationship between the (non)purchaser and the nice little old Chinese guy sitting in a back room typing out helpful sayings on teensy pieces of paper with a typewriter that has red ink. So there. It's altruism, quod erat demonstrandum. Pfft.

Having established firmly that Chinese fortune cookie fortunes are good, impartial, altruistic advice, a third reason they are great is because they have lottery numbers. Now I know that the lottery is "a tax on ignorance", and blah, blah, blah. I actually rarely play it. I don't play because, first off, I am in agrees with Voltaire on this one--you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than you have of winning. Secondly, assuming that we all think Voltaire's da bombest, thereby making it kind of a moot point, I don't play because I forget to. A lot. Like actually 99% of the time. I can't say that I would play more often if I did think there was a good chance I would win, because I think I would still forget. I'm just that way.

Butsoanyway (yes, that is *so* a word), as I was cleaning out my car, I found an old fortune cookie fortune. It had been there for a long, long time; it was wedged between the center console and the seat, towards the back. You would have to be practically tearing the car apart to have found it (which I might as well have been doing...ugh). So my Brilliant Plan (yes, it does *so* deserve capital letters!) is this: I'm going to remember to play the numbers in the next lottery, and they'll win. And then I'll take the money (well, a couple hundred dollars of it) and buy back my old car.

Brilliant, isn't it?

Update...wheee...

I give my solemn vow that this entry will NOT start off with "Ok". God, that's annoying.

I haven't done anything phenomenal today. Yesterday, I bought a car. Well, I figure I deserve something--like A/C. Now I have to do all the mundane crap, like clean out the car I'm trading in, and all. Bleah. But it's cool; I haven't had a "nice" car in like, forever. I'm not really very image-conscious, which is why I've been driving my POS for so long, but I have to admit, it's nice to (potentially) not have to worry about all the headaches that come with driving a POS. Like breaking down, and having no A/C. My previous car was a 1991, so you can imagine the details, I'm sure. So I've exchanged those headaches for the headaches of having monthly payments. Eek. Truth is, that makes me a little nervous. Ok, that makes me more than a little nervous. I don't like being *that* much in debt. But, on the other hand, I have this coming weekend off, and I'm tempted to drive somewhere--it'll be nice not having to worry about breaking down, or something. Sigh. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm neurotic sometimes. :-) No--really--I have my moments. Swear. :-)

Ok, so I'm happy. I'm happy I bought the car. I feel a little guilty, like I don't deserve it, and a little anxious about the payments and stuff, but otherwise, I'm happy. I just get a little scared when good things happen to me. It's like an anticipatory kind of scared. So I'm stupid--we knew that.

I wish I had something to go do tonight. :-\ Weird, I know. I'm not that big a birthday celebrator, but I do wish now that I had something to do. Well, besides clean out my car. I'd better go get finished.

P.S.

Today is my birthday. Yay. Now that that's done with...

Ok, so I'm not much for celebration.

Now if I could just get some sleep for my birthday, that would rock. I'll write more later. Promise.

Excedrin P.M. is your friend...

Sigh. No--really--it is.

Stupid bimbo forgets to type a title...

Ok--I'm temporarily giving up on posting by email, because the font comes out so dark. I probably should just change templates, but I kind of like this one. Maybe I will change later.

I'm playing online poker right now (ok, well sort-of playing; actually, I'm just clicking stuff when my turn is up. I'm not in much of a thinking mood right now.), and it's raining. It's actually pretty nice; I just love the sound of water--fountains, rain, waterfalls--anything. I hope it rains all night. It's always easier for me to fall asleep when it does, even though it underscores my loneliness in a way. Well, to me it does; I'd rather be falling asleep with someone.

I was going to go on to sleep--well, actually, I did--and just post this later. But I just got up. Grrr. No more rain, and the frogs are chirping. Well, really not chirping--more like quacking. Loud. Picture a flock of ducks on your front lawn--yeah, that. I have an indoor cat, and he wants nothing more than to go outside and find out what is making all that noise--it's kind of cute. Like he'd know what to do with a frog; if it jumped, he'd probably wet himself; he's a big chicken. But he's cute.

Ok...I'm going to try to sleep again now.

depressing

    Ok; I still haven't figured out how to fix the text.  This could be be because I am stupid.  I guess this means I need to either stop posting by email, or get a new template that doesn't do this.  Depressing, because I kind of liked this template.  I wouldn't mind so much if they had a template that had penguins and snow, or autumn leaves, or something.  Or a pretty stream, or...  Ok.  I know.  Shut up.  Sigh. 

email posting weirdness...

 

    Well, I see my post, but the text is darkened.  Why?  Who knows.  It's bedtime.  The Rebellion of the Blog is thwarted by me being sleepy and not caring right now.  Too bad, Mr. Blog. 

silly poker people, like me

 

    Hmmm...ok.  So this is my first post by email!  :-)  I am getting so blogger-savvy, it's scary!  :-)  Gee, I hope the sarcasm comes through loud and clear...  I'd really hoped to be further along in my understanding by now, but, eh.  Can't do everything.  Right now, instead of sleeping, I'm playing online poker.  Now how bright a life decision is that?  Well...so what.  I have to hone my skills to get on the World Poker Tour sometime, don't I? ;-)  Ummm...yeah.  What I want to know is, why is it that whenever I have a really, really good hand, the flop is always bad (and vice versa)?  I just don't get it.  Oh, well. 

 

    And some people (particularly one in the room I'm in right now) take losing so seriously!  I mean, c'mon--it's play money!  I've been playing for about an hour, and I'm getting ready to quit; I've been losing pretty consistently, and you don't see me calling anyone names.  Geez.  Although, on the other hand, if this did happen on the WPT show, it would probably be pretty interesting.  Oh, man--or fist fights!  Think about it--full-contact poker.  :-)  I knew you'd see it my way.  :-D

 

    Ok...I'm heading off to bed now.  I hope this posting works!  Good night.

Family Day

Ok, so I suck--I called in sick to work today. I feel like a bum, true, but...it's been months since I was out, maybe more than six. I went to this expo-type thing they were having downtown. It was great--it was a kind-of science/technology thing. I played with some of the exhibits. :-) I just basically wandered around there for a few hours, failed (pathetically) to find enough bravado to walk up and talk to a cute guy I saw there (so much for the New Me that's going to try to pick anyone up! I am such an idiot) and then went to talk with my father.


Our relationship isn't the greatest. Well, it's better these days, but he's stopped doing the things that made our relationship not-so-good. When he was married to my Mom, he was pretty abusive. These days, he just acts like it never happened. I guess I am ok with that. For years I didn't talk to him; I had kind of run away from home anyway (not that there was an actual home left, they were divorced, so I kind of ran away from home in theory), so there wasn't a lot of purpose in talking to him. I was angry at him for the way he had treated all of us, especially me and my Mom; we got the worst of it by far. Then, a couple of years ago, my younger sister started telling me every time she went to see him that he'd asked about me, and really wanted to see me and stuff, so when I moved to where the (sort-of) rest of my family was, I went to see him. He likes to talk a lot; he always has. He's actually very knowledgeable--he's a professional (read: doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, etc...), highly educated, and so on, and does have a lot to say in a legitimate sense. When he's being nice, I've never minded talking with him, or listening to him. So I guess in a way, I'm disappointed in myself for not sticking to my guns, as it were, and denying him the pleasure of my company for the rest of his life. On the other hand, I guess it's not such a big deal anymore. No one really cares. And I don't ask for or take any money from him, so it's not like I'm being a friendship-whore about it, or anything. For a long time, I figured that if I ever did get married, I'd have to do so after he was dead, because otherwise, he'd have to walk me down the aisle, or if I made alternate arrangements, he'd show up anyway, or...something else awful. In a way, this was a good thing. First, it kept me from marrying one person who was a jerk to me anyway. Second, the kind of life I want kept me from marrying someone who didn't want at least a semi-traditional wedding--I think I deserve at least that; it doesn't have to be anything fancy, but I do want a ceremony and stuff, it's the stupid romantic in me--so doing something like running off to a JoP was out of the question. Thirdly, I would be embarrassed really to go into all of the details as to why I wasn't going to have my father there, and my Mom never remarried, so I didn't have like, an alternate choice...I list this as a good thing because it kind of kept me from getting close to anyone I've dated so the not marrying wasn't a big deal. I know--I make no sense. Anyway, so I guess in the long run, any way he treated me is immaterial, and so whatever. One of the first times I went over there, his new wife pissed him off, and he turned to stare at her with one of those "I'm going to beat the shit out of you" looks, and it made me laugh. I mean, he's not going to do that to anybody--he's too old--and...well, I guess I'm immune to it. I mean, it didn't make me nervous or upset like it used to. It was weird. I guess you would have had to have been me and been there to understand.

So I drove out to visit him for about two hours. I guess he likes having someone to talk to, and it's not all that often I go, so I don't mind. He's doing fine. I guess that's good.

After I visited with my Father, I had to drive all the way across town to have dinner with my Mother. She'd found a new place to eat, and wanted to share. Check it out: halal Chinese food. No, I'm not kidding. In her own way, my Mom's cute. I should probably mention here, that we're not Muslim. Not even Middle Eastern. :-) We've got a moderate amount of Jewish, and I'm ok with kosher, I always _feel_ like the place is cleaner even if it maybe isn't, and I guess halal's not all that different, but...it's just the Weirdness That Is Mom. Leave it to her to find the only halal Chinese restaurant in the tri-state area. Possibly the world. :-) I mean, what's next? Vegetarian BBQ? Kosher Cuban? Now, in fairness to the restaurant, the food was awesome. I had a kick-ass orange chicken, and their "Chinese tea" was actually jasmine tea, which smelled and tasted _wonderful_, and everything was very pleasant. I didn't tell her about visiting my Father, though; that always upsets her, so I figure why mention it?

I had better get to sleep soon. I've spent the whole day doing not very much productive, but I think I needed the break.

Like clockwork

Amazing. This is my life. I as much as think about quitting Eviljob, and the second I press "Post", my son-friend calls and needs money to fix his car. It's only about $100, not that I necessarily have that just lying around, but let me assure you that it could be worse. It's not the money. It's not. Really. It's that it just feels like even if I joke about having a life, Life won't let me consider it for even a moment. I'm not angry. I'm just...I don't know. It would have been cool to relax and think about Total Freedom. Or the cute guy in my class. Or just being held and things not being so screwed up, even if I know nothing is ever going to really change. Whatever.



Of course I said I'd give him the money. I'm not mad; I'm just grumbling. Sorry.

She catches a clue...

All right; it's reality check time. This just dawned on me.

In the grand spirit of being brutally honest--with myself about myself, if no one else (I would sooner die than tell Miss Stinkypants that she's obnoxious, for instance)--I am forced to admit that I would have a lot less time to grumble about, or even consider, what she's doing if I were getting laid on a regular basis. There; that's blunt. Maybe that's why some people just annoy the hell out of me, whereas if others are finding them annoying too, they're sure hiding it well. Or maybe they just don't give a damn, because they're involved enough with their own personal lives to just not give it that much weight.


I think I've figured it out. I need to get a freaking life. Well, one that doesn't revolve only around work, school, and all the people who rely on me for everything. I need to quit the one job that I hate anyway, tell my mom to take responsibility for herself, tell my son-friend he's on his own, catch up on sleep for a week or two, and then go to like, a bar or something, and pick someone up. I mean, I've thought about it. No, really--I have. I'm so out of the loop on this boyfriend-getting thing that as far as a plan, that's the best I can do. I figure I could totally quit Eviljob, cast everyone off to fend for themselves, and, well...where do people go to pick up people? Well, I mean besides dumbass things like speed dating and all; it takes me more than five minutes to figure out where I am most of the time--I couldn't evaluate someone else in that time. So where would work? Bars, I figure. And maybe I'd have better luck if I picked someone up, instead of the other way around; that other way hasn't worked very well in the past.


Ok...I'm finding this funny. I don't even really drink all that much. Plus, I have really bad taste and/or luck when it comes to men. I mean _really_ bad. Like being a server, I could tell you horror stories. And I'd be too concerned that whomever I might meet in a place like that would be a career alcoholic, dysfunctional beyond salvation, or inclined to punch me to emphasize key points when they speak. Plus, I'd have to talk to them, and I'd probably screw that up. So I can't really. And I can't cast off my damn tribe. I'd be too worried about them to do anything else. And I can't quit Eviljob; the tribe and I need the money. So I can't. Ok--bars are out, quitting is out, casting-off is out. Out, out, out.


Next plan: I'm going to walk right up to Mr Really Cute Guy in my class, and ask him out. I'll let him know that, because of Job1, Eviljob, the tribe, and more schoolwork than you could shake a stick at, I'm limited to only going out on Thursday evenings between six and eleven p.m., some Wednesday evenings, and maybe Saturdays after work, but only for an hour or two because I have to work all day Sunday, and only if I'm caught up on everything for that coming Monday. Maybe I should write this all down, so I'm ready. And while I'm fumbling through that, I might as well allow a few minutes to start talking on autopilot so that I can throw in something monumentally stupid and embarrassing like how beautiful his eyes are, so that he's left with the impression that I'm a raving psychotic stalker moron. I mean, who wouldn't want to wade through twenty million "ummms" to hear a half-coherent compliment? After that, I probably should pencil in a couple of minutes for tripping over something, slamming my hand in a door, or dropping my books on my foot. You know--casual demonstrations of my physical prowess. And, to make sure I'm memorable (Cosmo says to make sure you're memorable!), I could maybe finish off with six- to ten-million "please", "ummm", "I just love the way you ___ (insert something profound, like "write with a pencil")", etc... If I plan it right, I might be able to do it in front of everyone in class--so that he has the pressure on him to be social and say ok, of course.

Or maybe that's not a good idea, either; it might not go off as smoothly as I've planned.

Ok, so at least I have an insight into why some things that shouldn't bother me do, or moreover, maybe why I'm peevable and not all that happy sometimes. Not that I can really do anything about it. But...well...insight is good, isn't it? Sure it is. Yay, insight.

Obnoxious. Just plain obnoxious.

Ok, so I now have a heaping _pile_ of stuff to read and write up. I mean a literal mountain. As if I am ever going to make it through this all. But that's ok. :-) I guess it could be worse. In all honesty, when I get this stuff, I'm not whiny. I save my whining for here. I'm doing basically ok, with the slight exception of one of my coworkers annoying me. It's been snowballing. I mean a lot. We went out to dinner the other night, and I realized that she's one of those people who really talks down to servers--hence my previous post. She has a lot of other obnoxious habits, but they'd just annoyed me in the background before. Our server came over and she literally didn't let him finish saying hi before she made a comment about how he took a long time to get to us.

Now, I've been a server before; it's not something I was all that good at, or should/would probably ever do again, but I feel for them. Most are doing their best, have a lot of crap going on you will never know about (I could tell you some horror stories...), and are nice people. Sure, there are some bad ones, but that's true anywhere. But anyway--back to my story: So she starts fussing about the amount of time it took to get to us. In fairness, it was a bit of a wait, but the place was slammed. So he apologizes, and most of the meal goes well enough, although she made another nasty comment when he didn't bring her a second drink after she'd asked (I figure he forgot, and that falls under "no big deal"). Then when he went to clear her soup, the laws of physics intervened, and her spoon fell off the plate and into her lap. My god, you would think that this was a beheadable offense. I pointed out that it would probably wash out just fine, to which she started griping that that wasn't the point. Ok, so what _is_ the damn point? I got embarrassed, and apologized to him, and that just made her worse. I mean, you would think she was trying to get some knocked off the bill or something the way she was carrying on. I'm not trying to ascribe a tacky motive to her, but the whole thing was very tacky; there's no way to make it otherwise. I ended up tipping way more than normal on the whole bill, because we'd split the check, and she wasn't tipping him at all, then she got irritated that I _did_ tip him (I made damn sure she couldn't see how much), as if I'm supposed to support her in her nuttiness.

This nastiness-to-those-we-perceive-as-beneath-us thing has happened a couple of times before, and I guess I'd excused it as being semi-legitimate irritation, or a bad day, or something--but now I see the pattern. The semi-legitimate irritation, to me, is a personal-interpretation thing. I'm not going to trounce all over someone else's right to be ticked off, it's still a free country. We'd gone to get coffee--you know, at one of those coffee places that take your scoop of coffee, spread it out on a frozen marble slab, and mix in Oreos and whatnot...oh, wait--that's those trendy ice cream places...nevermind. Anyway, we go to CoffeeCool-O-Rama, where I get a coffee, and she gets a quintuple mocha tequila sunrise soy nut cherry surprise toffee crunch caramel latte, size veni vidi vici, with extra whipped and Doritos on top. Or whatever. And, in her eyes, there wasn't enough Doritos, or caramel, or some central ingredient. So instead of asking politely for an extra handful of crumbled Doritos, or sloosh of caramel, or both, she goes back up to the Caffinette (trademarked job title of CoffeeCool-O-Rama employees, of course) and starts off her polite request with "You messed up my latte; you must be new." Well, call me petty, but I wouldn't have reacted any differently from the Caffinette; she was a little offended, and while the Caffinette fixed it, they traded little catty comments back and forth ("I'm not new, maybe you mis-ordered"; "I never mis-order, maybe you should check your manual of how these are made", etc...). But I figured since no one threw any quintuple mocha tequila sunrise soy nut cherry surprise toffee crunch caramel latte, size veni vidi vici, with extra whipped and Doritos on top into anyone else's face, well...no harm done. :-) But now I see the trend.

Why do I feel the need to vent in epic detail? Because I find it actually very annoying. I mean, mostliest because it's just hurtful. Thirdliest because it embarrasses me. Those are the two easy ones. Secondliest, the difficult one, is because it makes it seem like this person is like, Queen of The World (or thinks she is, rather), and let me tell you--at the restaurant the other night, I wanted to throttle her. I am just mystified at a bunch of things that fall under secondliest: Why do people put up with this? Where does one get the idea in the first place that you can do this? Why isn't there more reward in being a nice person? I guess this is the big one that makes Secondliest hard for me to wrap my mind around. Deep down, I feel like there's no real reward in being nice. But as for me, I feel like I have no choice. Like at dinner--I can't not tip. I can't not apologize. I would have felt guilty for weeks, and I'm serious; I would feel like I had done it. And I don't like making others feel bad about themselves...I don't know. I don't know what it is. But it's annoying, and it's also annoying when she interrupts people, or finishes their sentences (especially when she's wrong about what they were going to say, which is often), and so on, and so on... I should not be so emotionally invested in what other people do, true, but I am. Not that I know why, really. But nevertheless, now I'm eagerly awaiting her getting the swift kick in the pants she so richly deserves. What else can I do? I mean, how do you tell someone that they're completely obnoxious?

Words To Live By

Always, always remember:

No matter how nice they may be to you, if the person you are out with is rude to your server, they are not a nice person.

This ranks right up there with "If they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you".

Swear.

And then the rains came...

I just lost an entry as I tried to post...grrr. :-) Teach me to not save, eh?

It's really raining here. That's nice, and on top of it all, I have tomorrow off--from everything. I'm going to sleep in! Yay! I will, that is, unless I do something stupid like I did the last tme I tried to sleep in, and set my alarm out of habit. :-) I do have a lot of reading to do, but I can get most or all of that done tomorrow, plus I managed to find on my hard drive a document that I typed a few months ago that I can recycle for something I have due in probably under an hour, instead of having to spend a few hours in creative...errr...creating. :-) So I'm happy. And I shouldn't have railed on my coworkers like I did here. This is why I'm glad I rarely ever say things to people. I was just upset. I still am, but I'm trying to not think about it. But today has been great, and tomorrow is looking like it'll be great, too! :-)

past my bedtime

I can't sleep. I want to, but I can't sleep. I'm eyes-stinging sleepy, and I just can't. I wish it weren't so damn quiet here. Times like this I wish I lived above a 24-hr cafe, or something. I'm going to go turn CNN on and fall asleep. If subliminal learning worked, I would be the most up-to-date person in the world. It doesn't. I'm not.

No title fits. Sorry.

All right...I'm taking a break. This week is going from bad to worse. And not just for me. One of my work-friends’ children has died. Her child was only ten years old. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it upsets me more to hear people talk about how the child is in heaven, etc.; I mean, I guess it makes you feel better, but it just sounds to me like you’re saying it’s somehow ok.

I very much do not think that it is ok.

I am probably never going to get the chance to have children. I don’t not want children. I definitely don’t hate children--there are a number of reasons that maybe someday I’ll go into, but the fact remains that I’ll probably not get to have them. When I hear about someone losing their child, I can’t help but feel pain for them. I’m not assuming enough to go saying I feel what they feel—I know I cannot understand or even come close to imagining the pain they must feel—but I feel a deep sorrow in my own way. Because I know that if I ever did get to have a child, I would have so much love for them, and so much of myself in them in every way, that I would rather die myself.

I wonder if it actually does make the parents feel any better to hear this, or if it’s like when something bad happens to you, and someone says “I know just how you feel”, when they don’t and can’t. I wish I could ask, but I guess I can’t. Or, rather, I mean I know I can’t. I’m only guessing how a parent that has lost a child might feel, or how I would feel if I were they. I have had two very horrible things happen to me, and I believe that someone might feel really badly for me, but they don’t know how I feel. And it’s hard to assume what someone else is feeling, so I am probably getting whatever parents feel wrong, but I’m doing my best.

So what my co-workers say, I know, is none of my business. And I’m not trying to be judgmental. I don’t say anything censoring to anyone, I don’t give them funny looks; I just do the nodding my head thing. If that makes me a hypocrite, whatever. But I just don’t like it. Even if I did believe in heaven…it still wouldn’t be ok. So I am sad; I am very, very sad, and knowing that her child is in heaven, and everything else I’ve heard doesn’t make it better. I’m probably sounding “holier than thou”, and that’s not what I mean; I’m just trying to say that I don’t like the way the world is run. This whole thing isn’t fair, and I feel like the whole world should just stop for a while or something, and I know that people die all the time, and sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn’t, and the whole world can’t stop, but that doesn’t feel to me that it’s like it should be. Everyone is important. We should treat them like they are important. And it’s not ok that they are dead, even if you do think they’re in a “better place”. What if they were hurting, or were sad about something, or needed something, or…I don’t know. I mean, if I had a child die, every time I had not done as I should by them, or said no to something that, when you look back, is trivial really, all that would haunt me. Probably forever. I still sometimes feel badly when I think about when I was a kid and my mom had to have her mother—my grandma—watch me during the day; I wanted my mom, and I didn’t want my grandma, and as far as I was concerned, that was that. I tried to run away in my Big Wheel, and I did outrun my grandma, and really upset her and everything. And I still think about that sometimes and feel so very bad about being so horrible that it makes me cry. I hope my grandma understood, but maybe she didn’t. That sort of thing is what I am talking about, and all those sins of omission we do every day.

I also wish I knew how to help more if it really is as bad as I imagine it must be. I don’t know how to convey that it really is ok to call me, for example, even if it’s at three in the morning. I mean, of course I’ve offered to help, or listen, and everything, but I don’t know if that is enough. Really, I know that that isn’t enough. And that just makes me feel even guiltier, and I don’t know what to do differently. I just feel completely useless and inadequate, even more so than usual.