I wonder how she is doing. Honestly. We used to correspond but she hasn't responded to the last two letters I sent via snail mail. We used to be at each other's throats back in the day. But something happened and we became friends. I discovered that she had the same insecurities about life and raising her kids as I. Suddenly the insults that I had hurled her way wracked me with guilt. What was the point of my barbed comments anyway? They served no purpose than to belittle her and make me feel superior. A great testament to my own character, eh?

So what happened? Did we become friends because she came around to my way of thinking or because I took the time to read exactly what she wrote and didn't try to fill in the blanks or read between the lines? Maybe a little of both. Suffice it to say, I looked forward to hearing her opinions even when they differed from my own. Many times her comments would give me pause to reflect on why I felt the way I did on certain matters.

I really miss her.

The mastermind of chaos and dissent just burned her lunch. Who the hell walks away from eggs frying on the stove? It's a good thing I like them crispy.

I may be an instigator at times and even a practitioner of dissent, though hardly a master. Bunny is the last person I would have suspected anyone would think I was in collusion with. She thinks I'm a whiny little bitch and that's me in a nutshell. I'm ok with that. I am insecure. I will agree on that. Envious at times, yes, but not jealous. To me jealousy connotes anger and the desire to hurt the other person. I bear no ill will at all. Towards anyone. But envy, that's another story. I envy my mother's ability to grow any damned thing she sticks in the ground. I envy my husband's ability to tune things out and not worry about the little things. And I envy Camille's charisma. Some's got it. Some ain't. I don't hate her for it. That would be stupid.

I am insecure in my ability to maintain relationships. Whenever I post I feel like Stacy. Just blathering away and I can just feel the breeze kicked up by all the rolling eyes. One liners are all I feel really comfortable with and I'm always afraid someone will take it the wrong way.

I was Queen of the Nerds back in highschool. I never ate lunch because the cafeteria was too claustrophobic for me. After awhile a couple of other loser-types joined me. Pretty soon there were 5 or 6 of us that hung out. One of the girls was so awkward and nervous she would puke under stress. It's a wonder she was able to function at all. We hung out for about a year and then she snapped out of it. Somewhere during the summer she got some confidence. I think basically once she got her braces off she got laid. Suddenly it was really uncool to hang around us loser-types. Typical high school stuff, right? So, I guess I have abandonment issues as well. Maybe that's why I felt the way I did about the admin stuff. It felt like the hookabitches were leaving me behind.

wow. I really need to work on that.

It should be. I'm sick and tired of being lonely all the damned time. I've been trying to find some kind of local groups to meet people. Other moms in particular.
There's a new group for displaced yankees 50 and over. I'm a displaced yankee but I'm only 44.
There's a group for moms of toddlers and preschoolers. My kid is in 2nd grade.
There's a group for people new to the area but only within the last two years. I've been here for seven years now.
Moms Club was a joke.
Mothers & More didn't have any vacancies. That was four years ago but I'm on the list. Right.
I don't belong to a church.
That's about all there is. It sucks. I'm in that awkward stage of no longer hip but not quite in AARP land.
I wonder if there are other mothers in the area that don't quite fit anywhere? Square peg mamas? Maybe I need to start a group myself. That's a scary thought.

Yesterday was a bust. I paid my $20 copay to see the doctor who was going to remove a cyst. She wouldn't do it. She said it was too large and I needed to see a surgeon. Great.

I went to the grocery store and back home to clean the house. Busted ass actually. The mother, who approached me at the busstop and asked to come over, didn't show. Dd went over to their house instead. Fine. Would have been nice to have a head's up though. She'll probably show up today when the kitchen is currently destroyed. I'm working on a craft project for the in-laws and there's crap everywhere. I've also got a cheese pie in the works and laundry going.

Made a giant score at the grocery store yesterday. I had to have dd's prescription refilled. It costs $3.35. Kroger was giving $5.00 off groceries per prescription. I made money already. I also had a coupon from Rite Aid for a $20 gift card on transferred prescriptions. Kroger honours them so I got $20.00 put on my Kroger card.
I got a cart load of stuff, used a bunch of coupons and BOGOF coupons, and paid with the rewards checks that Kroger sends me occasionally for using their mastercard. I ended up putting $3.06 on mastercard and walked away with groceries for a week. I love shopping like that! The people behind me in line weren't too thrilled because it takes a long time to check out. I always get stuck with this one lady who can't comprehend the Buy One Get One Free concept. Then she had to have someone show her how to run the rewards checks. Again. And then I always get this one chick that bags my groceries. I'm all for hiring the mentally challenged but I wish they would please please please teach their baggers that they don't put a gallon of milk on top of a bag of grapes. For real. And she always rolls down the top of the bags so when the cashier has to see if I actually got a certain item for a coupon the bags have to be opened one at a time to find the object. It's exhausting and I can feel the animosity like a tsunami from the people behind me. But... I still walked away with a cartful for $3. ;)

Dd has a playdate this afternoon. The house is a wreck. I've got a 9:30 appt this morning to go "under the knife". I have no idea what to expect but I know it's going to hurt like hell. And for some reason the master bath smells like a greyhound terminal men's room. Not to imply that I've ever been in a greyhound terminal men's room but I'm sure it couldn't smell much worse. At least my feet aren't sticking to the floor.
My dad is sick. My friend's mom is having a liver biopsy. Another friend is pissed at me beyond reason. Dh is nagging me about starting the tiling. And I haven't started working on my anthology project.

Kill me now.

I wonder what happened to my parents. I remember back in the 60's my mom would take art lessons, she was a den mother for the cub scouts, and she had friends. We had a house that could have graced the pages of any architectural magazine. It was quite a showplace and my dad built it. I remember we used to visit the Grosses at their greenhouse and the Martin's up the hill. The Baker's and the Reiling's. Right across the dirt road, Black Brook Road, was the house where dad was born. A mile down the road there was a dairy farm.
Then one day someone bought the tract of land next to our place and built a house right on the property line. Then the Bowers' sold their dairy farm to a housing developer and a huge subdivision was carved out of the fields. My parents decided to move.
We bought a farm in upstate PA. 437 acres. The nearest neighbour was exactly one mile away. Our mailbox was two miles away. Interestingly enough the Reilings had also moved to the same area a year or two before. We met new people. The Barkers. The Cornells. Most of the families were related somehow. Mom would have a craft day so the little Cornell girls could come over and I'd have someone to play with. But that didn't last too long. Pretty soon it was just me and my pony. I can't remember spending too much time with my brother. After that it was a flurry of moving back and forth. NJ, PA, VA, NC. Somewhere along the line my mom started taking art classes again. The old neighbours from the house in Jersey, the Grosses and the Bakers, all live within 30 minutes of them now in VA. My NJ cousin's widow lives about 45 minutes away. My mom's sister and her huge family live about 45 minutes away. And my cousin, from NJ, lives probably 20 minutes from me here in VA but hasn't spoken to me in years.
It's weird how we were surrounded by the same people throughout my lifetime no matter where we moved.
The irony of this is that my parents do not consider any of these people friends but merely acquaintances. Exactly how many years does one need to socialize with someone before they are considered a friend?
So, how did my parents get to where they are now? They have isolated themselves and have no "friends". They have become hoarders despite having moved umpteen times. I don't get it.

It's been nearly two years since I started a novel during NaNoWriMo. I think I'm finally ready to get back to it and see if there is anything there. The old novel is still in the back of my mind but it's not going anywhere. It's hard for me to get inspired by cadaver dogs and floaters these days.

So...I joined a writers' group today. They were holding a meeting at the central library and I sat in. They have a formal meeting once a month but try to have informal coffee chats twice a month as well. The main goal is to produce a finished work. Right now they are working on an anthology and the deadline is November 15th. I'll be deep in the throes of NaNoWriMo again at that time. I hope. Last year I didn't make it past the first week. Pitiful. This year I have no other time suck so I should be able to pound out 1,000 - 1,500 words a day. I might not be able to do it on the weekends when dd and dh are monster distractions but maybe if I stay up late after they all crash I could get something done. I would love to get back into the habit of writing everyday. I think I'll start tomorrow with some exercises. Hopefully someone will kick me in the butt should I stop.

I've recently been handed some lemons. I'm not sure what to do with them.
Should I make lemonade and see it as a freeing experience?
Or should I eat them whole and shiver in their sourness?
I'm really not sure.
No more responsibility. No more peer pressure. No more stoicism when coworkers are losing their shit. Sounds good, but there is a price. I hate to admit that I've wasted yet another large chunk of my life. That's what stings. To be so completely buffaloed after all that time. And, yes, I do feel cheated. All that time...all that effort...all that stress. For absolutely nothing. I never expected the venom to be so vile. I tricked myself into thinking that I truly belonged because I wanted to so badly.
So, I'm back where I started and probably none the wiser. Determined to try harder but probably even more cautious and armor clad than before.