I was supposed to go buy a table from craigslist today, but my GPS got confused by an address in a place that's not an incorporated town, and I couldn't figure out where to go. This is the third time that I've tried to buy this same table from this same person, and something always happens. (Well, last time what happened was that I just forgot.)

I know that a whole lot of my issues with assembling things is that, when I was a kid, the fact that I was able to put stuff together with minimal instructions and badly drawn diagrams that confused adults was frequently part of the "Look how smart she is!" stuff. I really need to remember that, for most of the bigger pieces, I was mostly directing my dad about what pieces went where, and I didn't need to do much of the heavy physical stuff.

I love assembling furniture, but I will pay someone else to avoid heavy lifting every time.

Is tonight the first night of Eid? The mosque next door is having some kind of major shindig. I don't mind except their roof deck is *right* outside Dylan's bedroom window, so I hope he can sleep through it!

Jessica, I seem to recall something to that effect. I read an article about a mosque that was considering canceling their festival because the nearest Saturday happened to fall on 9/11 this year.

Yeah - I thought it was 9, 10, 11 this year but maybe they're starting early because of 9/11.

I hate to be cranky about this because of the whole Ground Zero Mosque kerfuffle, but to be fair I'm equally cranky about the church on the other side of the building during loud Christian holidays! And the randomly loud neighbors behind us who as far as I know aren't hosting any kind of organized religion in their house.

Hey, as long as it's an equal opportunity cranky!

Googled for sliding scale psychotherapy in this area. First came the pleasant surprise that there was one place in So Pas that even does that. Second came the serious bummer that I'm screwed for being a single childless woman. It's a child & family specialty practice. I will try to console myself with the thought that at least I don't have to wrestle for childcare or get up early to take someone to school.

I'm screwed for being a single childless woman

Darn you for your practical approach to life events.

Honestly, people have said to me--not recently and not more than once--"If you had kids, you could get all sorts of help from the state." Yeah, like that's a reason to bring children into the world.

You're a child. You have a family. There ya go.

Strangely, children over 40 and who are yourself don't meet most agency qualifications.

Hahaha, Aims! It's so true. My family is definitely the reason I'm screwed up but somehow I don't think they'll see it that way. If my father weren't so anti-therapy, we could really stand to do some family therapy (my parents and I). Ain't never gonna happen, though.

Possibly self-indulgent so skip it if it offends =>Recently I've been thinking that I'm unlucky that I was relatively high-functioning. I really really needed a mentor growing up and never had one. I'm one of 15 kids, my dad is an emotional abuser, I have basement self-esteem, I've always ALWAYS had problems making friends. And I never realized how much that stuff would affect my ability to make a living. I naïvely thought I'd be judged by my work rather than by the stuff people judge you for in grammar school. So it came as a shock when workplaces felt a lot like grammar school to me. And of course there's the part I play in things by thinking so little of myself that I don't reach for the stars. Anyway, suffice it to say that if I hadn't been so good at repressing things and getting my schoolwork done despite this and that, someone might have intervened earlier. It's been very very hard trying to fix it after the fact.

BTW - I'm glad there are special services available for kids and families. I'm not trying to cap on folks who choose to have families. I'm just bummed that so often in my adult life I'm not in the demographic being served. So I didn't get help when I was a kid and I don't get help as an adult. Of course, I can look for sliding scale psychotherapy elsewhere. It just would have been nice if the one in my town wasn't exclusive so that I didn't have to bike or pubtrans somewhere further away.

Spidra, it might be worth checking with individual providers in your area, to see if they're willing to bill on a sliding scale. My therapist in NJ did.

Don't feel bad about feeling bad! It takes a certain level of self-awareness and objectivity to understand your childhood from an adult perspective, and your family from an outsider perspective. Realizing what you lacked in childhood is how you start knowing and getting what you need now.