My world keeps shrinking and it's swallowing me up, pressing closer and closer. I've got a million things to do but I can't focus long enough to get anything done. Dd keeps opening and closing the french doors and each click of the lock grates on my last nerve. "Stay in or stay out" I say. Click. "Pick a place to play and stay there" I repeat. Click. Click. In the time it takes me to make this entry I will be interrupted a score of times, I'll start several chores and wander off on a tangent only to come back and try to type a few more lines before dd demands my attention again. I'll get a cup of tea, let it go cold, reheat it several times because I've forgotten it in the microwave...

I'm trying to write a novel. Again. Totally different from the one with Dylan and Jennifer...The DaVinci Experiment (started LONG before The DaVinci Code I might add). Maybe when school starts next month I'll be able to start work on it again. I hope so. I think it's a good story.
Writing is a lot harder than it used to be. I have way too many distractions and don't have nearly the vocabulary I used to....mommy brain or early menopause is kicking my ass.

Dd just came in, leaned against me and started playing my calculator like it was a piano. Her hair is in dire need of brushing and/or cutting but she will allow me to do neither. I think the hair fairy, like the toenail fairy, will have to pay a visit during the night.

I wanted to talk about the wide open world of my youth...
I was born in New Jersey and back then it was wide open. I lived on a skinny dirt road called Black Brook Rd. click click The calculator is back. The calculator is gone again. click
We had a beautiful home that my father built himself. The grounds were terraced and landscaped and perfect. We had an inground pool. We had a big garden that was routinely overrun by rabbits and we had chickens. I remember collecting eggs in the hay baler.
This was the house where I learned to ride my bike. The house where I had my 6yo birthday party. The house where the monster peered through my bedroom window and filled me with dread that has lasted a lifetime. My brother had yet to start trying to kill me, but my grandfather had. click Calculator again. A trade. A meltdown. click and crying. Wailing. Temper tantrum. click More whining and crying. slam

I'm going to shut myself in the closet for awhile. click

Is it possible to be TOO considerate? Or TOO friendly? How are you supposed to know if people are truly your friends or are just humouring you? Perhaps, merely tolerating you because they have nothing better to do at the moment. At what lengths should one attempt to go to reach out to someone in friendship?
I have a friend who calls me quite often. She tells me all about her family problems, the back breaking schedule that she keeps for herself and complains incessantly about, and about the great time she recently had with her best friend. We don't see each other very often because of her rigid overscheduled lifestyle. We got together fairly recently and it was exhausting. Not because we did anything athletic or exciting but because it was several hours of listening and trying to appear interested in her incessant chatter. It is nearly impossible to get a word in edgewise and quite impossible to get an entire sentence out before being interrupted, and having the topic swept back to her. I feel like the stand-in when her real friend is unavailable.

Obversely, there are a few people with whom I would like to spend some time getting to know better. These attempts often fail for whatever reason. Maybe I appear too needy, or exhibit stalkeresque traits. Perhaps the "killing gift" kicks in and people quietly slip away to change their phone numbers. Who knows.

I think it must take great skill in having a balanced friendship where one is not dominant over the other and where the people involved have actual two-sided conversations.