you know, they have words for this....

I'm not sure what.

"older" and "out of shape" or "on death's threshold".

Okay, perhaps not the last one. I'm not a hypochondriac.

Saffronlai [8:47 AM]: i have a dull ache in my chest
Saffronlai [8:47 AM]: i'm not sure if it's heartburn or i'm having a delayed heart attack or what
Missus Jeezus [8:47 AM]: Uh oh.
Missus Jeezus [8:48 AM]: Is your left arm tingling.
Missus Jeezus [8:48 AM]: ?
Saffronlai [8:48 AM]: huh.
Saffronlai [8:48 AM]: no
Saffronlai [8:48 AM]: but my chest is
Missus Jeezus [8:48 AM]: Probably not a heart attack.
Saffronlai [8:48 AM]: good to know
Missus Jeezus [8:49 AM]: I'm here to help.

Read Marian Keyes' Rachel's Holiday last night. Spent most of it crying. I'm finishing Billie Letts' Where the Heart is today.

Today I will have Fear and Loathing for breakfast.....

wild club child.

When I think Keith, I think Rolling Stones Keith, Keith with the bad ass leather pants and the flaking eyeliner and the spiderwebs crackling from his eyes.

And then I think..Vampire.

Cos...really...the sixties, the seventies...the kind of abuse he's put his body through and he's not dead? There are nefarious forces at work here.

Roxy just amuses the crap out of me...tho, I've been told I could be a Sasha too.

oh no. It's a Wacky Asian thing!

This day gets better and better.

My mother tells me in her learned way that I'd be "absolutely beautiful if you lost 20 pounds."

This right after she said, "Being beautiful is the second most important thing right after having a good attitude."

My grandmother chimes in with, "Being a girl, you have to be beautiful...it's what's going to help you in life."

Excuse me for a second while I scream my head off.

Oh My God. I live in the fifties. I mean it. My parents. This, their entire world view -- and if I become my mother in another 20 years, I will personally go out into the middle of the highway and just have a SUV crush me.

I can't. I can't be living here any longer and be happy and ignore this stuff, because this goes beyond 'constructive' criticism, this goes beyond different viewpoints and cultures and age gaps. This is my family and I have to deal with it, but Oh My God.

Because yeah, I'm a 21 year old social misfit who frightens away the men and the girls, let's look at that too, and to be told repeatedly that I have to be this....

I'm just...

.............

it's like high school all over again.