Dear You/Me,

It is no fun to wake up gagging and hungover when you’ve had absolutely nothing to drink the night before. You wonder if other people wake up this way. You wonder why the sadness seems to evaporate from others in time, and why it pools in you, and the pool simply gets deeper—toe-deep, ankle-deep, mid-calf. How high will it climb?

I watch you from my place just outside your skin, and from my place buried in your core. My heart goes out to you. You loathe victim mentality (and the phrase “victim mentality”), but at the same time, you are having a lot of trouble imagining how this story could possibly improve. If it were up to you, and no one needed you, you would crumple your life into a ball and hurl it into the nearest trash can. You would maybe take that risk, go out with too many pills, with people quietly murmuring: “Can you imagine?” “So selfish.” “She hid it so well.” “She had so much going for her.”

You would see if this “purgatory” solemnly defined by the Catholics actually exists. You are certain you would work hard to try to fight your way out of that grayness—with renewed soul-strength, finally released from the bills you cannot pay, the house, the people who do not understand how someone can go under so very steadily, for such a long period of time. Surely she’s full of crap. Were it not for your lovely, loved, loving daughters, you would risk permanent limbo, because words have failed you, your own love has failed you—miserably and colossally—and even new patched walls cannot make that better.

You think perhaps a tattoo would help. “Forward,” you would have inked on your wrist. “Only forward.”

Sometimes, you are afraid to leave your room. You would like to skip from bedtime to bedtime, with no 14-hour span of anxiety linking sleep to sleep. Your sleep is unhappy, full of the same sense of dread and loss that your days steep you in. With no money yet and no job yet and a mind that refuses to cooperate and the terrible fear that continues to get worse—you are not much of a candidate for anything bright or shiny or extraordinary or lucky. Luck is something for others, now. It no longer seems to apply to you.

You want it back. You want your luck back. You raise an eyebrow at people who say blithely, “You make your own luck.” Your gut insists that the playing field is not that even, but maybe your gut is not as wise as you once thought it was.

Except for your daughters—now that’s luck, and you did, in fact, have something to do with their making. You hit the jackpot there, and you know it. You have been blessed with bright, beautiful children who anchor you to this earth, and keep you from the gray limbo you’re almost willing to visit, to move into indefinitely. No one will ask you there to be out of the limbo in a few years. From what you’ve read, you can stay there, as long as you want, sometimes longer than you want. Extended visits are encouraged, they say, in the gray, liminal place.

You know your daughters need you. That is your best attribute and best shot at survival—recognizing this. You think you may be doing all right, as their mother. Flawed but honest, occasionally frustrated, firm, silly, audacious, smart and loving, sometimes even wise—this is not a bad combination of attributes for a mother to have. You are “good enough,” “better enough,” as a mother, and that seems to be working. Good for you, kid. Good on ya, kid.

But what to do with this unyielding grief? Today you woke up in a mess of tears. Might as well get it out of the way, as you pushing yourself to go out later today, and you know your propensity for bursting into tears in the wrong places, in front of the wrong people.

Today, you actually feel sick to your stomach, nauseous with loneliness and wanting to begin again, somewhere else, as someone else. You do not know how to reintroduce yourself to your female friends. Because you fear you will simply vanish again. It is better, you think sometimes, to disappear and not return, than to come and go and come and go. That seems unfair to them and to you, and it will only make you seem more flaky. You hate that word: flaky.

You expect that every choice you make right now will have a terrible outcome.

You are not sure how you could afford to go back to school, to learn a decent trade: ultrasound technician, vet tech, social worker. You are not having much success as a freelance writer—you are not having any success. You are stumped. Your mind is crooked and confused and too fast and too slow and not playing by the rules.

The medical bills—arising from an acutely strange, acutely painful physical condition, something you decided not to ignore, because you thought that was wise—are pouring in. You thought it was smart, not to ignore this. You were supposed to have had health insurance at the time. That was what you understood to be true. You have resubmitted the bills again and again, you have talked to the right people—and yet the hospital still wants its money, lots of it, from you. None of the promises that it will all be okay (and that you were covered by insurance) has proven yet to be true. You choked when you found five massive bills from the same hospital complex—thousands and thousands of dollars in bills—in your mailbox the other day.

The doctors say you need to go to another hospital for evaluation and treatment. You don’t disagree. But you don’t dare set that up until you figure out what is wrong with your insurance. You don’t dare, because if you get another batch of ridiculous bills, you will lose what is left of your coping skills.

Oh, for Christ’s sake—for your sake—you do not want to be a victim. You never did; it’s not your style. You wonder what the word is for someone who cries a lot while trying to manage difficult circumstances. You wonder what the word is for someone who wants to stop strangers on the street, to tell them she used to be quite strong, thank you very much. If you cried less, would that mean something better about you? Could you fend off the “V” word a little longer? You would like nothing better than to be a cocky, carefree, assertive, raging sonofabitch. You would like to be dripping in moxie and fabulousness and opportunity in the face of adversity. But the past five years have reduced you to someone nearly unrecognizable in the mirror.

You know you are supposed to sell the house eventually. You get that concept. You considered “resale value.” There was mold, water damage, peeling wallpaper. So you tried to be proactive and smart and spent precious money to fix it. The floors are splintering—you thought it would be wise to fix those as well. Was it? There is no one to talk over these issues with, no one to help you make these decisions. It is difficult to trust your own choices. You don’t know what is normal, what is wise, what you are allowed to expect from a house, from your family, from yourself. You realize you are afraid to talk to anyone for too long because you are starting to think no one can believe (as you can’t believe) the tears keep coming. Maybe they would not mind the tears, but you do not want to risk it.

You know who reads your blog from the visitor stats. You don’t understand what they are looking for or why they bother to keep checking it, if they have dismissed you anyway. You wish you could carve open your heart, split it like an avocado, present it to them on a plate. You wish you could let the entire story play out, flickering like an old-time movie on a screen. You wonder if they would be surprised, if they would reconsider their position on the small matter that is your life and the choices you have made.

You appreciate the honesty of the person who said, “I don’t read your blog. It upsets me.”

You don’t mind committing words to paper, to screen. You know that sometimes, what you write here, is helpful to someone else. You are not afraid that your daughters will read this someday and see that this time was hard for you. They already know you are sad sometimes, that you are working hard to turn this around, despite the fact that you don’t have the answers. They know that they are not the cause of your sadness. They know that you are doing your best and that you see them doing their best. There is a calm honesty and acceptance among the three of you. You know that to be true.

You want to be kinder to yourself, but this is difficult to do when you wake up gagging and alone. You have been feeling more fearful than you have for a while, since the man you didn’t know seized you in a bar, put his hands on you the way he did. You jump at small noises. You are grateful for your big moose-dog, who sleeps beside you every night and makes sure you wake up in the morning, with a large, gentle paw on your chest or your arm.

You have grown used to making your own coffee. The coffee machine does not keep the coffee warm, so thankfully, it gives you something else to do, two other steps in the long day: 1) walk to the microwave 2) reheat a cup of coffee. You recall reading that the number 42 is the secret to the universe, so whenever you have to microwave anything, you microwave it for 42 seconds—again and again, if necessary.

Kid—You/Me—listen to me: It was not supposed to turn out like this. We both know that. But what I know that you don’t is that nothing—nothing—turns out like it was supposed to. Maybe we can find a way to persuade you of that. I’ll take the reins until you can believe it.

Last night, you dreamed that you were alone in Paris, and that there was a shopping mall (chic, still, because it was Paris, after all) that was built open-air: half-inside, half-outside. Your friends left you, to pair off, to discuss engagements, love, marriage, happy renovations in happy houses. Meanwhile, you climbed solo to the top of a yellow curly slide in the mall. The top was very high up, at least seven stories. All around below you, people were in love, making promises, offering rings, making plans. You scooched your bum onto the top of this yellow plastic curly slide, pushed off with clammy hands, and sent yourself plummeting in wide curlicues toward the street a building’s length below. It was dusk, darkening quickly. The lights of Paris were gorgeous. You went fast, faster. You felt the wind on your face, your hair whipping behind you. The sadness was intense, but the exhilaration of your rapid, swirling descent in this bright yellow half-tube allowed a brief override of the grief.

At the bottom, amid all the lovers and promisers, you decided to climb again, to the top of the slide, to descend once more.

Still, you woke up crying and scared the dog, who is also woeful, missing his red sister as you are. But the yellow slide—keep that, yes, keep it. Trust me on this. Maybe if you ride it enough times, it won’t end in graying street, in stopping dead amid pairs of lovers. Maybe it will take you somewhere else. I can’t promise anything, and you wouldn’t believe me if you did. “Promise” is a sick joke of a word now, as is “love” or “unconditional” or “understanding,” I know. But there was something in the exhilaration of that yellow slide that mattered, matters.

Or so I believe.

Sincerely yours,
You/Me

Box One

I lament the box gone missing, the new website design. Don’t worry. If you liked the multimedia box, with its breedemandweep YouTube treasures, you’ll be happy to know it will be back. I just have to figure out how to move the BlogHer ads around to accommodate my little box.

Trouble is, the coding will take me some time. Doesn’t come easy to me.

Box Two

For some reason, my other box (the really cool one that births babies and holds the secrets of the universe) has gone haywire, and that’s holding up all things mundane (html coding) and not-so-mundane (creative work, travel).

I have my teeth sunk into 2010, though, and I am not letting go.

Been having pain and various symptoms for six months, but they’ve worsened recently. So various ob/gyn medical tests have begun in earnest—and let me tell you, poor Earnest is really confused!

Trust me, I want to be grateful for ready access to healthcare. I usually feel that way. In general, Massachusetts is a great state to be a low-income, single mother with medical issues and only state-provided health insurance.

But this week, I have been sick to my stomach with a muddy mix of worry and disgust. Yesterday, I met an aloof radiologist who used my time to tell me about his life, although I was obviously frightened and in need of answers. Funny anecdote, yes, ho ho! Your wife got pregnant with an IUD! How droll!

When I stopped him, to ask questions—no, you don’t understand, what else can you tell me, I am in pain, what happens next?—he fled the scene, passed the buck. “Looks fine to me,” was all he could say.

But it doesn’t feel fine. Not at all.

This week I had a humiliating pelvic exam—totally against protocol. The doctor did not leave the room for me to change. She threw a robe at me to put across my knees, and told me to yank down my pants immediately and leave my mudcaked winter boots on. “No. Don’t take them off. Just pull them up to your butt,” she said.

At times like this—when I am not feeling well, and I am in the presence of Authority—my Catholic school past kicks in and I numbly do what I’m told. Later, I feel the shame. As if I’ve done something wrong. As if I’ve troubled them, created a story of pain that does not exist.

During the pelvic exam, when I tried to explain that yes, that hurts, and yes, that hurts even more, the doctor had nothing to say. Nothing at all. This is my primary care physician, the doctor who is supposed to know me best.

To fill the silence, I told her I had made the mistake of Googling “interstitial cystitis” and “ovarian cancer” in the same night.

Her gloved hand still inside me, she said sharply: “Why would you DO that?”

I said, “Because I was alone. And I couldn’t sleep. And I hurt. And I need answers and I’m scared. That’s why.”

I know many doctors are frustrated by patients who attempt to diagnose themselves online. I get that. But I think it would be helpful for physicians to ask themselves, Why are my patients diagnosing themselves online?…and really let that answer sink in.

I think most patients would be happy to give up weeks of Dr. Google diagnoses for one hour of compassionate care from a physician willing to explain what’s going on—more than once, if necessary.

The quickie pelvic exam took place at an office that also screwed up the scheduling of an important ultrasound. Although the office expects 24 hours’ notice for cancelled appointments, the office apparently does not expect of itself the decency to apologize to its patients when it is at fault.

At this office, I could not get my primary care physician on the phone when the pain reached a level beyond which Advil could do any good. Her gatekeepers did their job well, refusing to connect me to her, and in fact, recommending that I just take myself to the ER. Seems to me there should be at least ONE step in between, a simple step in between Advil and the ER, involving the doctor who is supposed to be yours—your guardian.

I am an active, compliant patient. I’ve never blown off an appointment. So I’m getting frustrated. And I’m scared. I’m making all the right phone calls, showing up for the right tests (the next batch begins next week), but what’s lacking is a physician here whom I feel I can trust, whom I feel is taking the pain, the bleeding, the various other troubling symptoms seriously. They are not in my head—but it doesn’t help to have “bipolar” tagged on my charts, for sure. There is a shame that goes along with that diagnosis that pops up in offices, I have found: medical offices, government offices, law offices. As if I am less, in some way. As if I make too much, too much, of the world, and thus, of myself.

But something feels very wrong inside my belly. And I don’t know who is listening, besides my physician brother, in WA state.

(Thank God for Joe! I tell him he needs to let me clone him and start a practice out here with his clone, but he’s not going for it.)

Today I wake up in full-blown panic. THERE IS A CHARTREUSE POST-IT WAITING FOR ME DOWNSTAIRS. I left it for myself before bed. Classic to-do list. Heinous tasks involving INTERACTING FACE-TO-FACE WITH OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. Horrendous, death-defying feats related to MONEY AND SUPERMARKETS AND JOB SEARCHES.

Grimly, I get up. I am breathing funny. Kids, with D. Dogs, loaned out to W. It is quiet enough to think, but my hyperventilating kind of ruins the peaceful setting: cute kitten chasing after crumpled receipts, sun shining in.

Ah, crap. Here we go.

The worst thing on the list is a weekly trip to the Department of Transitional Assistance. This does not mean they help you onto buses or airplanes or skateboards. No, these are the folks who answer questions about WIC and Earned Income Credit and jobs that no one else, even in this economy, wants to do.

I give my name at the desk. They see so many people every day, they do not remember me.

“Mattern. Like ‘pattern,’ with an ‘M’.”

“Right. And you’re here for?”

“To see one of the Job Specialists. About a job. I saw it in the thing—”

“Right. Have a seat.”

I smile wanly at a jovial man in his 50s sitting across from me. We roll our eyes at each other, shake our heads. Neither of us wishes to be here. He could be an out-of-work neurosurgeon; I could be an out-of-work writer. We know that we are and that we are not better than this.

I am an out-of-work writer. But I can’t get back to being an in-work writer yet. Tech writing, marketing writing—right now, the meds I take to keep the polar bears in check fuzz up the chunks of my brain that I used to use for the dry, organizational writing that pays bills. It’s alarming, to be presented with the old work, and to find the capacity is no longer there—or, at least, not there right now, not with these chemicals swirling in my noggin.

“Jennifer?”

A grizzled chap with poor teeth (I can say that, because I’ve got crooked bottom teeth, so) waits impatiently by the door to the innards of the building.

I stand up. “Hi. Yes. Present.”

“Follow me.”

No introduction. No handshake. Nothing. This is how it always is. There is the sense that one is being called in to the principal’s office.

I follow him obediently to his cubicle. “DAVE SMITH,” says his cubicle nameplate.

He asks me what I want. It’s that flat. No points for effort here.

I take out the job newsletter that describes a job I might be able to do. I’m not sure I can do it, but I might be able to. I ask DAVE SMITH what he knows about it.

He doesn’t know a thing about it, and doesn’t seem to care much. He taps listlessly at his computer keyboard, leans back in his creaking chair.

“All I know is what it says on the paper. You can fill this out and bring it back here.”

He shoves another piece of paper at me. I am a paper magnet, these days.

“You don’t know anything else about this? Do you know what the starting pay might be?”

“No.”

I lean back in my chair.

“I’m a single mom. Two little girls. I’m transitioning out of writing work. It would help to know what I’m dealing with, you know? Financially.”

“You’ll have to talk to them directly.”

“But I’m supposed to bring my application to you,” I say.

“Yeah.”

This is how it goes. These social service people are exhausted. They work deadly hard to keep the whole damn world from unraveling. We, the ones who have been rolled and spit out by the crashing wave of the recession, are exhausted too. Everyone is really frickin’ exhausted.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay,” says he.

I stand up to go. I turn back around to face DAVE SMITH. “You know, you guys should at least introduce yourselves. I didn’t know your name until I saw your cubicle.”

DAVE SMITH looks surprised. “It’s easy. It’s just Dave, David, and Dave over there. Three Daves.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know that. I gave you my name, and you didn’t give me yours. It’s already pretty demoralizing to be here, you know? We kind of schlump in from the waiting room. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“You didn’t really SCHLUMP IN, I didn’t notice that, no.”

“I’m just saying. It would go a long way. Introducing yourself. One name.” I hold out my hand. “I’m Jenn. I’m sure I’ll see you again, Dave.”

He shakes my hand, leans in. “I know what it’s like. Transitioning out of writing. It’s not a bad thing to transition out of.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I say.

Sometimes, it helps to get away.

I go the water when I can manage it. I’d never been to Cape Cod. So I found a way to swing it, packed almost nothing, and headed off with a dear soulfriend who’s also assessing, seeking, wondering. We wander well together, always have.

It’s a writerly retreat, with sand between toes, and a fire at night.

1) I’m working on putting together a collaboration with various BPD-focused souls, like me
2) crafting a tiny Boston Globe piece (while it’s still in print)
3) working on a chapbook of poetry that I quite possibly should have attempted at a more tender, less embarrassing, age
4) assessing other life options that have nothing to do with writing.

Looking for a sustainable life for me and the girls is top priority. I don’t know how to make the writing sustainable yet. But I keep coming back to it.

Trying to find a way to make the second half of my life more rockin’ than the first.

Consider this a postcard of love. Miss you.

I show Keith the Plumber my dripping shower faucet, gesturing elegantly with my left hand. I feel like a Price Is Right girl. Keith, this job could be yours, IF THE PRICE IS RIGHT.

Keith touches the water. “It’s hot,” he says. “That’s not good.”

“Of course it’s not good,” I say, cheerily. “I would think there was something wrong with you if you told me it was good! We’re on the same page! Isn’t December excellent?”

“I can’t work on that kind of faucet,” says Keith.

“Sure you can!” I say.

Keith gives me a peculiar look. “Nope, that fixture is about forty years old. I’m not insured to work on that. It’s not scald-proof.”

I mull this over. “I’m almost forty. I’m not scald-proof either. But my doctor works on me! Ha! Ha ha!”

If I am officially a loon, I’m really going for it.

Keith smiles weakly. I deflate slightly.

“It’s bad, right?” I say.

Keith nods.

“How bad?”

He takes a step back. “I’d have to install a new scald-proof fixture.”

“How bad?”

“Six.”

“Hundred? Thousand?”

“Hundred.”

“Oh,” says I. “Six hundred. That’s funny! That’s very, very funny! Why don’t you go look at the downstairs leak, and I’ll think about this.”

Keith goes downstairs with my friend, who knows where the leak is in the basement. I have not been introduced to the basement leak, as people in my life have been kind and have not wanted to create any more havoc in my overtaxed brain.

I hear all sorts of discussion through the floorboards when I head downstairs, doing my I’m massively medicated and someone just asked for $600 because I’m forty, no, because my faucet is forty! hip wiggle.

Keith and my somber-looking friend come upstairs. “Oh ho!” I say. “It’s bad, right? Also bad?”

Keith makes his official estimate on the scary pink plumber paper. Much addition and no subtraction. He hands me the yellow copy of the scary pink plumber paper.

$1258.

One thousand two hundred and fifty-eight dollars.

Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho! Merry Christmas! I think we will bathe in the sewer and simply wrap scarves around the pipes downstairs! And buckets! Isn’t this what buckets are for? For putting under leaky things?

*****

That was my thought process.

We sent Keith a-packing—pleasantly, of course, as I have a habit of being pleasant in the most unpleasant situations, such as childbirth, funerals and plumbing estimates. I am delightful under duress, charming in crisis. Until people leave. Then I freak and muffle my head under pillows.

I figured I had some time to think it over.

HO HO HO HO HO!

The shower faucet is raining water and will not stop. It’s gotten so bad during the past few days, I have to close the bathroom door to sleep, because the sound makes me nuts. A stream of hot-water dollars going down the drain. EX-CELL-ENT!

Gets better!

This morning, I put my hand on hot water knob in the shower AND IT WAS HOT. The tiled wall around the faucet? Also hot.

I called the plumbing folks again.

“It’s a great day here at Plumbing Paradise! How can we help you?” said a woman.

This sort of caught me off-guard.

“Is it really a great day there?” I asked.

Her voice changed completely. “I have no idea,” she said grimly.

“Well, this should cheer you up. I need Keith to come,” I said. “My faucet is HOT TO THE TOUCH. The wall is HOT TO THE TOUCH. Water is POURING OUT and I can’t stop it.”

“Hm. Tuesday the 23rd? Can’t do sooner. We’ve had some emergencies.”

“Um, I’m a little worried I’m having an emergency. Can you ask Keith? It seems VERY WRONG that things are getting hot.”

“I’ll tell Keith.”

“I just want to be sure the WALL DOESN’T EXPLODE AND RAIN SCALDING WATER AND BROKEN TILE ALL OVER MY BABIES.”

“I’ll tell him. The 23rd?”

“Christmas Eve-Eve. Unless Keith thinks this is an emergency. Which, you know. It could be. Did I mention I have babies? And dogs? And there’s me? And we brush our teeth in the bathroom? Ho ho ho?”

“Got it.”

*****

In the Berkshires, it’s ridiculous trying to get a contractor of any type to come quickly. Christmas Eve-Eve is not bad, IF WE DON’T ALL DIE BEFORE THEN. Check back, dearies.

Keith, the job is yours, EVEN THOUGH THE PRICE IS WRONG, AND IS SURELY GOING TO GET WORSE.

Merry plumbin’ Christmas. May all your faucets be merry and scald-proof, and younger than forty. And we thought forty was just a tough age for women. Ho ho ho ho!

In case you’ve been decorating your house with, gosh, candy cane lights or tending to your own family’s selfish, needy-pants needs and you haven’t been checking my blog every seven minutes AS WE AGREED YOU WOULD, let’s recap, because I’m generous that way.

1) Peeps, I was in the hospital. Because apparently crying on the floor next to the washing machine for hours is a sign that something just ain’t right. Word to the wise.

2) When you just ain’t right, they put you in the part of the hospital that has locks on the windows. But you can watch the Comedy Channel, and pretend Jeff Foxworthy is in the psych ward with you, so it’s not so bad.

3) Who am I kidding? It’s bad. It’s scary. But there’s free ice cream and peanut butter.

4) No, it’s scary even with the ice cream. I wrote in my journal a lot and painted dog and teddy bear figurines for the girls (“art therapy”) and went to “group” (Would anyone like to say anything? No? Anyone? No? Bueller?) and watched short VHS movies starring Wally Cleaver. Fo shizzle!

5) I didn’t see Nurse Ratchett. Although one of the nurses did get all uppity with me for “caretaking” my roommate in the middle of the night. I thought tending kindly to a freaked-out terrified woman at 3am was a promising sign of mental health on my part. I still do.

6) I’m home. Things got worse, post-hospital. So the Doc and me, we done add a new med to my Cosmopolitan Crazy Cocktail, a med strong enough to bring down a rabid rhino in two seconds flat. I was told to expect weight gain, diarrhea, balding, acne flare-ups, dizziness, drowsiness, and the second, third and fourth coming of Jesus Christ.

7) Sophie calls my disorder the Polar Bear Disease. I like it. It took me a while to accept the diagnosis, but I think it explains my desire to head north to Iceland, or south to Patagonia.

I can’t travel just yet, as this Bipolar Bear done been shot with a tranq gun, is how it feels.

9) But this Bipolar Bear is still trying to do some Christmas shopping online without freaking out. She puts her head down in between surfing online stores because their happy happy happy models make her a little nauseous. Or it could be the meds. Hard to say.

10) This Bipolar Bear would like to know why Wall Street and the Auto Industry get bailouts, but she is still expected to pay off $60K in student loans, like a lot of other struggling good folks. This is so dang crazy, the hospital seems less crazy than out here. Raise your hand if you want a bailout because you’re worried about feeding your family! Yes! You there! And you! I see you. Trust me, I see you.

Girlfriend here needs a CHANGE.

And you guys are SMART. So I’m asking YOU: Which profession is just dying to get its lucrative hands on Jenny of Breed ‘Em and Weep?

I need a fresh take on the matter. I need it bad. I need it so bad, in fact, that in one week, I will award one of this post’s commenters a $25 Bear Bucks Gift Card to Build-A-Bear Workshop. (In keeping with the totally random swag, I will pick a name at random, out of a baseball cap.)

Rules:

1) No writing-related jobs. Can’t. Take. It. Anymore.

2) If you provide proof that the career path offers paid training/full scholarships, your name goes in the baseball cap twice! Yee-hah!

3) Relocating would be a bummer and a snarly mess. I love the Berkshires of western Massachusetts! Free leaf-peeping for foliage voyeurs!

I await your career (and life) guidance. And some fuzzy bear awaits you. Bless you.

Dear Economy,

I don’t understand you, I admit it. I should by now—I’ve known you long enough. But every time I think I’ve got a handle on what you’re all about, my theory goes up in flames, like my heating budget for the winter. You’re a sly one, a real fast talker, a confidence man. I always used to wish you’d pay attention to me—the Girl Next Door. I used to think we’d be good together, if you took some anger management courses first. Now, not so much. I’m smarter than I was then. I don’t expect too much out of you anymore.

I know you and Wall Street are all serious and stuff. And I know your parents love the fact that you and Wall Street are all coupled up. It makes them look good, prosperous. Your family shops in bulk at Capitalism R Us and flashes whiter-than-white made-for-TV grins at the rest of the block and thinks of itself as a pretty powerful clan. It would be impressive if it weren’t so pathetic.

I watch you come and go from my bedroom window. You don’t seem to need me much most of the time, or notice I’m there. You’re obsessed with Wall Street, everybody knows that. You’ve got her all over the inside of your locker, I know, I saw. I used to feel that way about Kevin Bacon from Footloose.

But whenever you and Wall Street have a falling out, the story changes. You stomp around and wind up on my doorstep, cussing, being all lovesick and lovelorn, demanding my attention and friendship, acting like you care. Then, when I offer advice, you totally ignore me and go back to doing the same old crap.

I know you and Wall Street have been going steady for some time. I can’t say I like her. I think she’s out for herself. She doesn’t give me the time of day. When I tried to get to know her better, for your sake, she said I’d need a minimum of $1000 before she’d even look at me. When I told her I didn’t have $1000 just yet because I lost my job and have $65K in student loans, she turned on her heel and walked away with her buddies, laughing. I think she was off to vote for herself for Prom Queen.

And even don’t get me started on her family. Cripes.

So now I hear through the grapevine that Wall Street’s in big trouble. You guys have been in trouble before, but this time, you’ve really blown it. Some people are saying you’re to blame; others are saying she got what she had coming. I won’t tell you the kind of words folks are using. You can probably imagine.

I’m thinking all of what I’ve been hearing is true, or close to it, because you’ve been leaving me crazy notes in my mailbox and in my locker. You keep signing them with fake names, but I know it’s you. You want me to fork over some cash to help you and Wall Street out of your mess. You say you don’t plan on paying it back, soon or ever, but that I should just trust you when you say it will help me out down the line.

My mama brought me up right. Meaning: Generally, I like to help out, to pitch in. But this time, I’ve had enough of your crap, you and Wall Street’s. I’ll help you out, but only on my terms.

If you want my tax refund for the next 10 years, I’ll consider it if and only if you forgive all my student loans, the ones I can’t even make a dent in, not if I want to keep a roof over my head and feed my kids. That would be a nice start. If you want my help, you’re going to have to pony up with some universal health insurance. I’ve been wearing the same glasses for 6 years, and buying my contact lenses online from Canada, guessing at my prescription, and man, my eyes hurt. If you want my help, you’re going to have to cut up your credit cards, and keep your paws off NPR and PBS, permanently.

You’re going to have to stop spouting that rhetoric about how we’re all in this together—suddenly—when you haven’t paid an ounce of attention to those of us who’ve been worse off than you and Wall Street for years.

You don’t get to take money from the people that you and Wall Street don’t let into your clubhouse. Except you two will probably find a way to do just that. That’s just who you are. Who listens to the Girl Next Door, the one without $100—let alone $1000—to her name? Not you.

Go on, tell me I belong in Denmark. I probably do. Too bad I can’t afford to get there. Denmark’s approach to its people makes sense to me, the concept of ‘you get what you pay for,’ when it comes to government programs that try to bridge the gap between rich and poor. I like the concept of living in a country that has a safety net that helps the people instead of the institutions that have forgotten what people are.

Call me naive; call me a socialist. I gave up caring what you thought of me a while back, after you swiped my credit cards after the bankruptcy. If I can figure out how to live on cash, not credit, I’m sure you and Wall Street can too. You’re supposed to be a lot smarter than I am. So I hear. Time and time again.

All I’m going to say from now on? Good luck with Wall Street, Economy. I always told you she was high-maintenance.

And stop bothering me already. You’re not getting my unemployment check. Not this week, at least.

Sincerely,
The Girl Next Door

I have new red things. One helps heat the house (not a Jotul…it plugs in); the other two help me make friends.

I share them with you. If you have a laptop, shake it up and down. Because I would be jumping up and down while I introduced you to my new red things.

The fake flames make me laugh. But it’s warm!

And a really solid follow-up. Heather Ryan sticks the landing. Yesssss.

Not all the judges agree, but I give her a 10.0. Or a 16.259, if you’re going by the new judging rules. Either way, I’m happy she’s out there, giving voice to the hard stuff.