Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Margaret. I’m Totally Lying; My Name is Jackie.

A truly lived life seems only possible for the stupid or the stupidly blessed. Watching Salvador seems to confirm this [dumb, self-defined] dichotomy. In Salvador, the innocent die, the evil do just fine, thanks for asking, the stupid survive, and the stupidly blessed stupidly sacrifice.

Besides that, Salvador just makes you think about all of the horrible government conspiracies and how justice will never prevail, and the futility of things like legal systems and constitutions and whatnot. I wish I’d never worked in law; it’s no place for an idealist. But being less of an idealist takes me out of the “stupid” camp. Jury’s still out on whether I’m stupidly blessed. Sometimes I think I am. Sometimes I remember I’m just like everyone else. Mortal, boring, not of note. Consumer, waster, user. Accumulating instead of creating. But there’s still time to be John Hoagland.

And I am too fat. My low-level depression (also known as “normalcy”) manages to fight off the happy pills. It’s never a good sign when a little postnasal drip becomes a reason to cancel therapy and a night out with friends. As long as it’s just a week and not week after week of seclusion…

I was half asleep at 5 a.m. when I bought some boots online. My New Years resolution is to buy myself clothes whether or not I can actually afford them. Living vicariously through my seven year old, wardrobe-wise, isn’t as satisfying as one would think.

Every day I vow to perform some small housecleaning feat, but it seems that day after day, it’s the kitchen. I am only living in two rooms at this point: the kitchen, to cook and clean, and my bedroom, for everything else. My vow to not watch movies or television episodes on my laptop, in bed, is so much bullshit. My sleep hygiene project only made me more aware of my awful sleep issues.

I only want summer so that the sun rises before I do. So hard to get out of bed in the dark.

I am dangling out of a second story window, held by strong hands. I look below, which seems, to my (two year? less than two year?) perception to be an unbelievably long distance. My legs dangle below me; I look down. There is a green yard under me, but the two Doberman Pinschers snarling and jumping into the air, waiting for me to fall, are what truly inspire my terror. The man holding me out that window is yelling something at a woman a couple of windows away– she is telling him to put me back into the apartment.

The man is my father.

The woman is my mother.

The Dobermans are innocent bystanders. I am innocent, but not a bystander.

I talked to my aunt (on my biological father’s side) tonight, and had a bit of an out-of-body experience midway through; had some confusion and had to remind myself of who she was and how we’re related. Reality and words clashing, or something. All of my contact with her has been in writing, so talking with her made her seem so different to me that I actually became disoriented. I didn’t realize how much I had dissociated until later. I still feel kind of fuzzy from the whole thing.

Or maybe I’m just losing it. I had a moment of panic on Friday when I couldn’t remember the numeric portion of my address. I had to get my drivers license out. It was quite unnerving.

She gave me some information about that side of the family that I didn’t previously know. She was a little guarded and didn’t tell me much about her parents, but told me a little about her three brothers (including my biological father). She sounded less impressed with my biological father’s level of intelligence than my mother was– I recall him described as some kind of con-man genius. Also, it sounds like grandiosity runs in the family (uncle), as well as professional victimhood (father). I have not been immune.

I realize I am more “surviving” than “winning” my life. Perhaps the fact that I view it as a winnable game is a problem I should address? Maybe I should be in therapy for ten more years?

Weird recurring dream last night about people I work with. The nicest and most ethically irreproachable were, in my dream, liars, cheats, and otherwise disappointing and thoughtless people. It was a pretty intense dream to have had a second time.

Still thinking about fostering. This week the seven year old is visiting her dad and most of her siblings, so I get a much-needed and glorious caretaking respite.

I think I’m ready to start writing some autobiographical pieces. Probably a vignette at a time. Weirdly, last night I made a snap decision to possibly contact my biological father, with whom I last had contact at age two or three. The problem is, he’s a lifelong con artist (and alcoholic, who’s been fake-dying for 20+ years), and my aunt worries that I won’t have my bullshit meter properly activated. I like to think that I’m pretty good at this, but who knows what bullshit he has in store? My poor aunt. I think I’m giving her a heart attack. Between this and my Facebook postings…

The big kid FINALLY got his homemade car registered, and I finally got my car back. This probably means I will see less of him. He’s on his first winter break from college and pulling together his design school application. Let me know if you’re good for a letter of reference!

Of fostering. It’s something I always wanted to do. First, I wanted to do it “when my son got older;” then I ended up with my niece. Then I thought I would do it when my son moved out. He recently moved out. So now I’m thinking about it more.

Am I crazy? People will say, “Yes.” But that’s what all the fostering paperwork tells you people will say.

Maybe I should continue to read Plath biographies. I don’t find her poetry particularly enticing (more of a Hughes girl, even though I’m not poetry fan; you have to make it ugly and un-poetic for me to like it) and her prose is a little amateurish for my tastes, but I can relate to the paralysis that comes with wanting to write. Plath needed crisis or depression to write.

I write, so I guess that makes me a writer. An unexercised, flabby writer.The key is just to write. Where’s the harm? There’s a handful of you reading this. As in, one hand. Less than five? And yet it’s so hard. I have an Augusten Burrow-ish novel in me, wanting to get out for the last twenty years. All I need to do is write. Just write. No one has to look at it. I don’t have to abide by the arbitrary 1,000 words/day command. NaNoWriMo can kiss my ass.

Still, too hard.

I’m waiting for some magical moment where a book jumps out of me, where the planets align (gag) and I just do it. And then it appears on a store shelf, and Augusten Burroughs calls me to say, “And I thought I had it bad!” And then we laugh and playfully try to one-up one another with the stuff we didn’t write about, because we couldn’t make it funny. But then we get serious and talk about how long we’ve been in therapy. Augusten tells me to lighten up on the drinking and maybe I tell him I don’t have a problem, that I can quit anytime. And then we both say “Deniallllll!” at the same time and laugh and laugh.

I may be slightly tired and punch-drunk as I write this. This dishwashing is not for me, it is for other people. Surely I was not intended to wash dishes and dirty clothes. I wish there was a deity to recognize the obvious imbalance in the tragedy-to-joy ratio of my life and compensate accordingly.

There’s just more dirty dishes. And I am in charge of xmas trees and grocery shopping and clipping toenails, as well. Unfair.

I should stop reading depressing Plath biographies.

I don’t understand why I’m 37 and single. I am not so awful. Still, I am good. My kids are marvelous. I miss the big kid. I’m thinking of being a foster parent. I need to take care of people.

Also, I want someone for me. Maybe someone who takes care of me a little?

Frieda’s clumsy poetic efforts notwithstanding, she was right about the Sylvia Suicide Doll. You needn’t be a Hughes or Plath scholar to see the ease of succumbing to dichotomy: Ted or Sylvia? Sylvia, obviously. Easy. Sylvia’s depression is productive. Take a handful of pills and crawl into a space under the house for three days. The Bell Jar. Spend an agonizing winter alone in a freezing flat in London with two small children: Ariel. But you’re found with your head in an oven before Ariel can be published, and who really cares about The Bell Jar until your head is found in an oven? The world loves a genius martyr with saved children; wet towels stuffed in cracks to keep the gas from the babies, who have been left with food and drink to keep them until the doctor arrives to make everyone a victim. But Ted is a terrible victim and it is hard to feel sorry for him, no matter how many Birthday Letters he writes.

Less-productive Assia, who sees but doesn’t predict that Ted will be Ted, has no creative bursts to make her an interesting suicide doll. A poetry groupie,  she’s no earth mother leaving food for soon-to-be orphaned children; she stuffs the cracks with rags but keeps Ted’s unwanted daughter with the oven. Assia should not go to Ted & Sylvia dinner parties. Assia should learn a thing or two from Sylvia, besides gas ovenry. Assia doesn’t have an Ariel. But she’ll get some poems. Shura will get far less.

Despotic boss: deposed.

Good day.