Master of the obvious.

 
    Dear Christine, Hi. Really glad you came to the party and I kind of apologize for ... well. Remember when I walked you out to your car? And then I started talking and would not shut up and you had to stand out in the valley cold and listen to a crazy drunk woman talk ON AND ON for an hour? Whoops! But... if it is any consolation I only do that with people I really, really like. For example: you.

    Love,
    Your crazy and rather talkative friend Laurie

And of course everyone knows by now that I am a little bit unbalanced, the good kind of crazy (for now) where I don't wear my bra on my head or put tin foil on all the windows and outlets, but I tell good stories and maybe have one or two or seventeen quirks and if you're just around for a few hours it is all highly entertaining.

Maybe that is why he left?

Do you think I will ever truly know why?

Do you think it matters?

As time passes everyone expects (hopes?) that I will get better and happier and fixed, and of course maybe the opposite is true, and I get unglued a little every day. No real reason not to be. I am the sort of person who is often humored. And this is just who I have always been, even though I get a little scared sometimes (I can tell you that, right?) knowing that I am not right, crazy as a bedbug, but functional in a Walter Mitty sort of way.

So. Yes. Today and today only I will acknowledge it, I will be honest, tell ya'll the truth.

I am a little bit not right.

In my family we call this "colorful" or "touched." A good thing about Southerners: we like to keep our crazy people out in the open, none of that institutionalize them crap for us. We can take it. We are Southern and sometimes we are colorful. End of story.

Just a little bit not right.

Of course all this is coming up with:
1) Drew leaving, departures that make me remember when I used to have a friend (HUSBAND) at home all the time, we woke up together and talked about coffee and the cats and mundane things and

2) shit BREAKING, everything all at once (First, the tall guy telling me I wasn't pretty enough, next the car overheating in a big pile of steam and smoke, third, the cat gets sick) and I get scared that it is happening again, that everything will break again and I am powerless to stop it and

3) the holidays. LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW, how your co-workers ask what your plans are for Thanksgiving when they sort of already suspect you'll be home alone with a bottle of cabernet and your Tivo and some instant mashed potatoes and you are totally OK with this... it's their looks of thinly veiled pity that make you crazy.

And my day?
Roy was very sick, no one ever knows what is truly wrong with him (he has asthma, and a hard time breathing sometimes) (plus he is very emotional, or maybe I am?) and that was an expensive visit, almost $500, with X-rays and medication and I swear to a fiery god that I will keep Roy alive through the sheer force of my will; and I will not leave him he will not leave me and also, I love that animal. Anyone with an animal knows, you have one (a favorite) you don't mean that one to be the favorite but it is, and by God YOU WILL NOT LEAVE ME. We have had enough departures for one year. No one else leaves here. OK?

The Jeep is... oh shit, I love that Jeep (no one ever accused me of having good judgment) and while no car on the planet should require THREE BRAND NEW RADIATORS IN ITS LIFETIME, mine eats radiators for breakfast. So... $757.12 and now this is a thousand-dollar-day and why NOT admit I am crazy? I earned it. After all.

I earned it.