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2002-06-24 | 10:55 a.m.

Was talking to my friend Mike about starting Adderall (which I haven't yet been able to do, thanks to the blithe indifference of Dr. Blandman and his staff. Long story). She's concerned because of my history with meth, which is fair. Since she lives too far away to visit regularly, but reads the diary, I told her to watch the diary for entries that suddenly go on for miles.

We laughed, but after I got off the phone I realized I'm really hoping that I can write furiously on this drug. I have so many things I want to write down! I know you can't tell from your end, but every day I think of 10, 20, 30 things I want to write about here, yet I am always telling myself no. I don't have time, I have to finished x-and-so many other things before I'm allowed, I can't get it all out, can only write about so much at once.

I want to write down a lot of stories from when I was younger. I just want to get some things down that I know I will forget about eventually. The more I think about the past, the better I remember it.

When Maxine was here, she said, "Remember the time you and Criminy fell in the duck pond?" and my mind went completely blank. I had no idea what she was talking about. Then she provided more details, and I began to piece it together. We were at Children's Fairyland in Oakland for a field trip with the girls' preschool. The girls were just two years old, and Criminy tumbled into a shallow, man-made pond and I had to wade in after her. Criminy's trademark, then and now, was the ability to sound like a freight train crossed with a fire truck whenever indignation fueled her tears, and boy she did she let it rip. And I was almost certainly laughing so hard I couldn't walk straight, because I am the sort of person who cannot help but laugh when somebody falls into a pond, even though I was simultaneously worried about her swallowing fetid pond water. I'm sorry, but that's the way I'm made.

It's strange but the image I remember most clearly from that day doesn't have anything to do with falling in the pond. Instead it is a snapshot of another mother who was there. She was young, very thin and frail looking, and even though we were at a grassy park early in the morning, she was wearing club clothes, full makeup, and eight-inch spiked high heels. She had dragon lady fingernails and long, elaborate curled hair, the works. Think of a young LaToya Jackson. Now my mother was a reasonably glamorous figure when I was a kid, but this woman didn't look like anybody's mother. I felt sorry for the kid who ever tried to get close to her.

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