I just fired off a quick "To Do" list, and it has almost fifty items on it. Some of them are easy (#30: clean out purse) and some of them are slightly more complex (#19: find place to live). But I need to get a handle on it, because I am falling further and further behind.

An additional problem is that if I don't spend every second with my family, I feel guilty. And my parents have no problem laying on the guilt trips. No matter what I do, how many errands I run, how much time I spend, it's not enough. Short of keeping a 24 hour vigil by my grandmother's bedside, nothing is going to be adequate.  Not for my parents and secretly, not for me either.

Last night, my father got angry with me because I didn't want to take my mail home with me.  It's like, one day worth of junk mail. I just don't need one more thing to deal with. I have enough mess in my house, enough clutter in my car... enough fucking mail in my purse... but I didn't feel like explaining this. I just said no, no thanks, I'll get it another day. I was exhausted. It was late. I just wanted to go home.

My father wouldn't let me leave. He chased me outside with the mail (one letter in a plastic grocery bag) and said, "What's the matter? Why can't you just take it with you? What's the big deal?" Thanks, dad. Thanks for not sweating the fucking small stuff.  

And that's just one small example of the guilt my parents love to pile on us these days.  Just yesterday, Abby got lectured to clean her room (after working a hard 20 hour stint as a PA on that baseball movie). We got lectured about sitting in her room and talking. I got lectured about the fucking mail, and about not coming over on Sunday, and on and on.

When someone is dying, part of the process is to feel guilty. And when you are raised Catholic, you're expected to feel guilty for everything anyway. So why, oh why, do two already guilt-ridden kids need more guilt? Ask my parents. They insist on providing us with it.

Then I come home, and the apartment is a crowded mess, and nothing has gotten done, I just want to cry. I feel like I'm being buried under the detritus of my life. And all I want to do is upload my entry and talk about books, and watch The Real World or something. Escapism. I'm not ready to turn around and say, "Okay! Dishes! Laundry! Bills! Bring 'em on!" 

There is a huge weight on me all the time, and nobody is being much fucking help.  Even my sister just wants to talk about HER relationship and HER problems.  There's not that many people I feel like confiding in. There's not that many people who are emotionally available to me right now. 

Everything stable in my life is being swept away in one huge tidal wave of change. I just want to close my eyes and wake up six weeks from now. sitting in a tiny apartment (in the Oakland ghetto, probably) surrounded by boxes.  Starting over. This destruction phase is heartbreaking. This is the hard part. 

There's a tarot card in my Arthurian deck for how I'm feeling. The Washer at the Ford. In the traditional deck, it's the Death card. It represents the destruction of an old way of life, and the beginning of a new one. Renewal. Change. Rebirth. 

I'm tired of watching my old life die. I'm ready to be born again.

Much later, back in the jungle...

So how about that Survivor, eh?

(Ahoy!  Spoilers ahead.  Warning!  Warning!)

I had a great time watching it tonight. I called Tim at 7:59 to make sure he was watching, and he answered the phone with, "Yeah, yeah, I remembered this time." We called each other at almost every commercial break: he thought Richard was going to go ("Fatty's gonna get it!") and was disappointed when he won immunity. I thought Kelly was going to go, and then when I saw the kind of screen time Sue was getting, I was leaning towards Sue. 

I was on pins and needles throughout the vote, and was truly truly shocked when I realized that the Final Four picture wasn't real. It was the most exciting episode yet; I don't know how they do it.

Neither of us expected for a million years that Gervase was going to get it. I truly believed the Final Four picture. And the Gervase-X theory was sounding more and more plausible.  I guess we got played by CBS. Anyway, I can't wait to check out the message boards and see what's up with that.

Have you noticed for the last three weeks, the person who wins the reward challenge gets voted off? (Even though Jenna didn't win, she still partook of the reward.) Maybe people are bitter... except that Gervase sweetly shared his pizza, and if anything, I'd think it would win him points.

Anyway, for the first time, I kind of liked Gervase. The target on his shirt was funny, and the pizza sharing was endearing... damn. Those damn editors. I bet this is exactly what they wanted.

Thank god for Survivor Summer, man.  And Tim. I don't know what I'd do...

And we should be gracious enough and mature enough to accept it when we are not nominated, even in favor of people we find annoying, or less deserving than ourselves.