111218 i m so tired i m as tired as a mil jug full of bbs FUCK it wouldn’t be a problem except i left actual thought work for this morning instead of getting it done over the weekend so now, adter i do this, i have to actually think and focus and make decisions, and as we all know, that makes my brain hurt typing makes my hand hurt sleeping makes my neck hurt going to sergio’s was kind of fun but made my social conscience hurt taking millie and her date was nice and it’s nice that she’s doing stuff but something about it made my something hurt too. not sure why. is she just cursed because she’s the second child? i mean i’m pretty sure she’s not just a shallow person, but their conversation, the part i overheard in the car, just seemed so banal. maybe they saved the real stuff for when megan and i weren’t there eavesdropping literally dropping from the eaves i don’t know, i’m just worried about her. listening to that boy with his pubescent voice mansplain how his favorite song lyrics were “like a metaphor” was cringe-inducing enough, but somehow the boringness of it all was just oppressive. maybe i was just tired and still dumb from smoking with serg and michael last night. i don’t know. something about it all just seems... off, somehow, and i don’t know if it’s just 100% some little bullshit problem of mine, or what. partly i just don’t want her to get hurt, but that’s stupid of course. you have to get hurt, right? if you don’t get hurt, you aren’t doing anything. maybe it’s i just don’t want her to be totally disillusioned by the world, now that she’s poking her head up and out into it. i’m glad she’s having fun. i just wish she could relax her voice. the talk-laugh thing makes my ears ache. like when she’s saying some memey thing to her little friend, and it’s like the words themselves come out as articulations in the midst of the beginning phases of a laugh that never completes. it’s like a wave that never breaks, or a sneeze that sustains “ahhh” but never gets to “choo.” i wish she could just talk and also laugh, instead of this weirdly forceful yet tentative combination of the two. And I wish she could quit saying “Me,” every time someone says or does or refers to something that in some way she feels like she can humorously relate to. I wish she didn’t feel like she had to be so smart. I wish the drama club had been able to get a director who didn’t tell them to (or just stand by and let them) mug it up and ham it up and throw away every line by commenting on them all and overacting them all and waggling their eyebrows every time there’s a pun. And I wish they’d found someone who had decided to do a real play. I mean, yes, they had limited time because they got a late start, but I mean shit. There’s plenty of one-act plays out there. Why this goofy kid stuff? Jesus Christ. I mean come on. Kids need real drama. They need it to offset all the phantom drama in their own minds, perhaps (as we not quite old but sort of beginning to pretend to be old people love to say) *now more than ever.* I just don’t see how a very *very* slightly more grown up version of the plays that lib and cel used to invent and put on for us while giggling constantly in the basement is the thing to do in a high school drama club. Leave the silly nonsense for Milton and her middle school musicals, will ya? At the very least, you could drag out an old chestnut. It was like a series of outdated music and tv memes. It was ingratiating itself to the parents in the room. Gah. Whatever. I bought her flowers and put a card that said “Good job Millie. I love you.” So that was nice. I am proud of her for doing something that was scary and getting up there and following through and being on stage in front of people and doing it. I want her to feel blanketed by the warmth of love and support. I want that energy to flow into her and through her and spill out all into her days. I guess that’s all a parent can really ask for. Let these housplants be watered and have sunlight and warmth and a big enough pot and some fertilizer and some music in the background and have the dead leaves trimmed off and be unmolested by cats and beetles, and oh i don’t know what i’m saying. if i think about it too much i just keep spiraling farther and farther away from whatever it was in the first place. I’m just worried about her because she’s going to audition for a musical and I’m sorry but Megan’s right--she’s just not a strong singer at this point. Maybe she could be! But who’s going to teach her? How do you teach someone to find and sustain a pitch with your voice? She just pinches up and kind of whistles it out and especially in the high range it’s so often just kind of a mystery pitch. I don’t even know. I’m not a good enough singer myself to understand exactly what’s happening, but there’s just kind of a chalkboard effect. It’s like there’s a pipe that’s too small making a high pitched keening somewhere in the walls of an old brownstone. I just feel like if she could *relax* and really listen she could reign it in and settle it down and let it out. I hope that can happen, but in the meantime I just don’t want her to get majorly disillusioned and then end up shutting down or giving up because of thinking she needs to be a certain kind of good at a certain kind of thing in order to continue being out there and with people and doing stuff. Like I mean she used to say she was a bunch of different sexuality labels I’d never even heard of before, then she said she was gay, then she said bi, and now that this little boy asked her out she’s like ok, bi, but again, who knows. I can’t even tell. I just don’t even know her well enough to picture any of it. That’s so weird. Out of all my kids, I feel like I know her the least well. Is that because she conceals more? She used to write stories, too, and wouldn’t let me read them. I think they were probably really good. I know there’s a whole person in there. I’m frustrated because I feel like she’s trying to show it and I don’t fully believe that all the parts she’s putting out there are the most natural genuine parts. But who the fuck am I to say that. I don’t know. I guess I can just be as supportive as possible and not overthink or over-talk it for now, and try not to get annoyed with the stuff that rubs me the wrong way. I have to let her be who she is, even though I’m not convinced she knows who that is yet. But I can’t tell her who that is either. As you can see, I’m not getting anywhere with this. I should stop because this is probably getting boring. What about my other girl, the one who is about to escapr from a hotel room? We’ll come back to her, too.