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2001-09-14 | 12:16 a.m.

I did start my period today which is comforting to me, because I was really starting to wonder if I was having a bit of a mental crisis. Just have been feeling very disappointed and angry at myself for being so self-absorbed, when something so horrible has just happened.

Like today, I actually said to someone, "I've had a really lousy week," forgetting for that moment about the terrorist attack. And then I come to my senses and think, "Jesus, I sound like such a MORON!" I had a bad week. Christ, it's embarrassing. I embarrass myself.

On the whole, my thoughts have been pretty heavily focused on the attack. I'm not saying that because I think I deserve recognition for it; I'm just saying it for context.

Okay, I Give Myself Permission to Sound Like an Ass in the Diary. I've probably done that before, but just in case I haven't, now it's official. And retroactive, too.

So here's a thing that makes me crazy about myself. I have a spontaneously occurring noble thought ("I wish I could get to New York and help the rescuers"). Then I think, that was a noble thought (though of course you couldn't get there even if you had the money because nobody can fly right now, which you probably thought of subconsciously at the time you were having the noble thought, which is how you managed to have it at all--knowing that it couldn't possibly come true, rendering it a thought so useless it isn't even noble). But I want to be able to have the thought without the meta-thought, without the little personal back-pat followed by the tearing down. It's not necessarily self-aggrandizement to think that I could help the rescuers, since I did once work with a search-and-rescue organization and have participated in at least one search for human remains (after the 1991 Oakland firestorm), but it sure sounds like it, doesn't it? It feels like self-aggrandizement just mentioning it at all. O, how I wish I could help rescue New York! Sure, lady. You didn't even make it down to the fucking blood bank after you heard the lines were long. (Yeah, well, it's not like they won't still need my blood in a week. My blood type is A negative, it's a rare type.) See!? More self-aggrandizement!

I exaggerate, but only a little. My thinking is bad, in a way that strikes me as Catholic. Punitive, guilt-inducing, shaming. I feel ashamed that I'm not doing more to help--to help the people of New York, but also just to help make the world a better place, but I'm very aware of how comfortable I must be with that shame. Because I do nothing. Next to nothing. Out of every hundred helpful activities I dream up, I do maybe one. I have a one percent helpful rate. I can't even remember the last helpful thing I did. Well, actually I can--I volunteered for one hour at the school book fair today. Which makes me feel kinda lame, really, almost like I would feel better about myself if I hadn't done it at all. But that's also because I talked to this other mother and I think I was throwing off weirdo vibes and so I feel regretful for even going.

Plus when I got there, I had already been crying LITERALLY for three hours. I was wearing sunglasses the whole time and that probably seemed weird. And you know I was upset. That's when I had my other dumb-noble thought--to give up writing and do peace work. Which of course pays very little if it pays anything at all. Nobody ever got rich trying to make the world a better place. Not that I know of, anyway.

But here's one thing I thought of that doesn't make feel too bad about myself (though I admit it is both self-absorbed and infantilizing). I realized tonight when I was at the lab, trying to get caught up on my computer evaluations (along with my editor, who has lost all faith in me, a subject I'll leave for another day)---I realized that the most calamitous event in modern history happened the other day, and I had to take it in all by myself, with no Duff, even though I am completely unused to being a single person. Everything that happens we go through more or less together, and we talk about things, and he fills in my information gaps and helps me arrive at my opinions. I know that makes me sound like a dope, and it's not exactly like that. (Though sometimes, yes, I can be a real dope. Like a SuperDope.) But this time he wasn't here, and I started getting loopy and weepy, and I couldn't bring it back around. It goes without saying that thousands of Americans are having a much harder time right now than I am, but for me also this week was harder than usual. I am not trying to compete with anyone. I am just trying to carve out a little black hole in which I can hold up my bad week and say yes---this belongs to me.

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