sweetheart redux

frances farmer arrest For 3 weeks, I was an outpatient at the rehab and mental health facility Las Encinas.  In some ways, I’d always assumed I would end up here.  I remember me and my mom going to visit a family friend there once when I was a kid, and my mom half-joking about wishing her Medi-Cal benefits were accepted there.  She wasn't interested in sobriety at that time and wasn't in the middle of one of her existential breakdowns, so I believe she really wanted to be there like being on vacation; the grounds were beautiful and you got 3 square meals a day and were surrounded by interesting fuck ups.  We visited her friend.  He was detoxing from crack and seemed fragile but also fortified by the crisp eucalyptus-smelling air there and relieved to be taken care of by professionals.   I had heart surgery when I was in my early twenties, and dumped by a live-in boyfriend shortly afterwards.  I was single and very ready to mingle so ...

I have been incredibly depressed.  To put as blasé a spin on it as I can, since that seems the most apt tone for a blog no one reads, I’ll just say I’m going through a 1/3 life crisis (and/or I am between effective anti-depressants).   Accordingly, I have been treating myself with kid gloves, which primarily entails letting myself go balls-out in indulging my constant need for entertainment, even though this indulgence is inconvenient for a fulltime worker, attentive mother, and sometimes mean but always well-meaning wife like me.  Yet, I’ve somehow managed to squeeze in many, many plotlines these days.   When I get a spare moment at work, since I take my lunch at my desk, I have been reading the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, which I downloaded from the free ebooks (for classics) website Project Gutenberg .  This is really a great book.  I usually gravitate towards contemporary fiction, but since I discovered the Project Gute...