Hey, Zen, if you're around? Do not need wake up call - repeat, wake up call not needed. THANKS.

I was not around, but I didn't call you because I forgot, so I'm glad it was okay that I did.

Major family hysteria drama meltdown last night and I didn't go to bed until 2am, exhausted and slept through all alarms, then late to online conference meeting but I don't care. Honestly, if this weren't my family I'd be out. Kid who's "starting her own business" has taken THREE trips to Europe since losing her job and is leaving for UK Sunday AND has booked herself another cruise for next month, and yesterday one of her credit cards lowered her (ridiculously enormous) credit limit and now she has no "money" (ie, thecredit she was planning to live off of the next six months) cue emotional meltdown and screams of being "scammed by the bank. I don't need people in my life who respond to an offer of financial help and advice in a time of difficulty with screams of I'm a Person Too Respect Me and Get Out Get Out and further screaming audible from outside the house. And my sister's now at my house crying and blaming herself for being a bad mother (not) and I just want to go back to being a hermit with cats.

Said "kid" is almost 30 years old.

I am the most emotionally stable person in my family. (a) holy shit we're crazy, and (b) how the hell did that happen?

So, perhaps her mother need not loan any money at all if these trips are mostly vacations (and not something for the business).

That sounds tiresome, Zenkitty. Maybe you could respect her personhood's ability to get her own damn money and get out get out get out whilst carrying your checkbook.

I'm sorry this is rough on your and your sister.

I'm tired today, mostly because I hosted my bookgroup's monthly meeting last night and was about two hours later than usual getting to bed. Which wouldn't be so bad, but I've been dealing with insomnia most of the week, so I started out with a bit of a sleep debt. This afternoon might suck a bit.

Sorry, y'all, I've got nowhere else to dump emotions. Family and friends-who-don't-need-to-know are all on all my other social media outlets, and my BFF is at work.

Just... seriously. I know when I was her age, I was pretty messed up too. I get it. But the way she treats people is just appalling. And she wonders why her men never stick around.

And now after hours of trying to mediate between the two of them as they scream at each other and at me, and then an hour of calming my sister down so she could sleep, I'm all shook up.

"Screaming" is not hyperbole here. I could literally hear her screaming at us, after we left, from outside her house.

Aw, Zen ::snugglezen::

good grief, Zen. I hope you don't have to this all weekend.

Maybe you could respect her personhood's ability to get her own damn money and get out get out get out whilst carrying your checkbook.

Exactly. She's not getting anything from me to support her unsustainable lifestyle. I think her mom has finally realized the futility of giving her money, not to mention what ultimately damaging enabling behavior it is.

if these trips are mostly vacations (and not something for the business).

The business involves selling her stuff to rich heavy metal rock-n-rollers, so she tells herself she's "networking", but really she's just partying. In Europe.

I am not on the razor's edge financially, but I WISH I could travel to Europe!

So three weeks ago I initiated contact with the latest potential future wife. I had put it off for a while, but I finally went ahead and sent the stupid e-mail. And from her first response, I was actually a little excited. Her favorite fictional architect was Ted Mosby, just like I'd hoped she'd say! Her favorite dessert was sorbet, which I had considered as a spoiler despite restricting the choices to dairy-based ice cream, gelato, and frozen yogurt! We e-mailed back and forth for a week and talked about books and writing and art and things. Had my parents actually found someone for me that I could have a good conversation with?

Because she was local, I suggested we meet up, and she agreed. I let her pick the place, a coffee shop. As I waited, I noticed that, hey, they were on Stampt and had a coupon and stuff.

When she arrived, we went up to order, and the cashier didn't really know how to do the Stampt coupon, which was irritating, and for some reason, I kept trying to explain it to her rather than just let it go immediately and not make myself look like a cheap-ass discount-obsessed fiend. But I bought her drink! That's not cheap-ass, right? ...Right?

And then we talked for a while about things. Mostly her job. She's an architect. Well, not officially, as she was taking the required licensing exams. I kept asking about what she did and why she did it because it was really interesting to me. Conversation was a bit awkward, as expected, but not in a disastrous way. She didn't seem to ask very much about me, which I took as a bad sign.

It wasn't a slam-dunk, "Oh, we are meant to be" kind of thing, but it went about as well as could be expected, I guessed. As we exited, I wasn't sure what the next step was. Were we going to meet again? Did she want to? "Well, I think that went well," I said awkwardly.

She did not explicitly agree, which I took as a bad sign, but she said she would contact me. Days went by, and she did not, and I thought maybe I had misheard or misconstrued, and maybe I was supposed to contact her after all. Maybe she thought I wasn't interested. I thought maybe I had given that impression unknowingly, and while I didn't feel that magical ~*spark*~ at our first meeting, I was certainly willing to give it another try. So I finally e-mailed her to clarify that I would be interested in meeting up again if she was. No response for a couple more days, which seemed to cement that she wasn't.

Last night, she e-mailed:

So sorry. It has been a crazy week. I apologize for not being more upfront that day. I felt like I was put on the spot and did not know what to say, but still I shouldn't have said I would be talking to you. I do not think this is going to work out.

Wish you luck with the creative writing and finding the girl that makes you happy.

I thanked her for letting me know and wished her luck as well. And then I wondered what I had done, what the fuck was wrong with me, that she thought it wouldn't work out based on that one meeting. Was it the Stampt crap? Was I too nervous and awkward? Was I too ugly? Maybe I didn't smile enough. Maybe I was boring. I descended down my usual self-pity spiral to bring myself to tears. Every single potential future wife had rejected me, even the ones I didn't even like. All I knew was rejection. (Untrue, but, you know: self-pity spiral.)

I don't know whether I've mentioned that my mom is in town to take care of my grandmother after her double-knee replacement. I've seen her several times in the last few weeks. And here I was again, at my grandmother's house. I had told her to record my NBC comedies so we could watch them together. We were also going to eat my leftover birthday ice cream cake. I wiped away my tears and tried to hold myself together because I didn't want to talk about this with her right now. I was too raw.

Sure enough, within a few minutes of The Office, she had to go and fucking bring her up, as they had been bringing her up for weeks. How was it going with her, she asked.

"It's over," I said. I should (continued...)