Probably should have sent these diary entries in reverse order (my perspective) so they'd show up on the blog in a way that makes it easier for the reader. Oops. If you're seeing this one below/after the Diary 1 entry, then I probably went in and changed the time of the post in the Blogger menu. I think I'll also have the last 3 entries show on the screen, so if I actually DO start posting a little more frequently, folks won't miss one in between.
~Sofie~
(edit: did that and now trying to fix the formatting issues that cropped up somewhere between my email client sending the files and Blogger turning them into posts *sigh* not fun - if I cut-and-paste the file so that the commas and apostrophes appear, line breaks get funky)
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November 22
Crap.
I got fired today. Apparently I’ve been running late more often than I thought and the Powers That Be are actually observant – if not caring – gods. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I just paid my student loans for the month and the mortgage payment is due in a little more than a week. My final paycheck will be direct-deposited sometime in the next few days and they’re deducting for the times I’ve been late, which apparently put me over my allotted sick leave somehow so this paycheck will be a small one. There is no food in the house – I was going to go shopping after work, but now I don’t know where I can find the money to buy even the basics. I’m dining on a few stale Ritz crackers I found in the back of one of the cabinets – no idea how long they’ve been there but they are at least the color they’re supposed to be.
The jerk next door is beating on his pregnant wife and kid again. I’ve been listening to the crashing and smashing sounds for the last 20 minutes at least. The little girl was screaming for a while – those all-too-familiar involuntary screaming-sobs that only stop when you pass out. I bet he actually broke one of her bones this time. Sounds like the wife was trying to get between his drunken rage and the kid again, and now it’s her turn since the kid is mercifully silent.
I’m staring at the phone. I truly disgust myself, you know that? I know what that kid is going through. How many times over the years were those screams my own? My mother’s? Mary’s? And I don’t even have the energy to call the police to come stop him. What the hell is wrong with me? How much of a total screw-up can one human being be?
Mary’s wedding announcement is staring at me from the top of the newspaper pile. It was complete with a large picture of the joyous couple. Perfect professional marriage – she’s a doctor, he’s a lawyer. Perfect teeth in perfect glossy smiles, held just long enough so as to start to seem forced at the corners of their eyes. She has it all, doesn’t she? She must have got all the ambition genes from our parents. Hell, we knew by the time I finished high school – when she was only in her 3rd year of undergraduate work at Case Western – that she was going to make it into med school on that “pre-professional” track thing they offer there, as much as she’d “confessed” to being afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep her grades up high enough to stay in the program. I swear, she actually thrives on the stress life gives her, the same stuff that makes my skin want to crawl off my body. I tried to follow in her footsteps, to be as self-assured (at least on the outside) as she always was, to pull myself out of that hellhole of a family, but I never did have the same kind of stick-to-it-ness that she was born with. Heck, I couldn’t even manage a full semester at CSU. If it hadn’t been for Mary passing along the Medical Assistant training pamphlet, I’d probably be flipping burgers somewhere. How stupid of me to dream that she and I might actually be a professional team someday, that she was passing that along so that I could work with her, basking in the reflected glow of being related to her sacred self around some tastefully decorated medical office somewhere (preferably far, far away from our parents).
The noise next door just stopped after the sound of some glass breaking and a door slamming. Mr. Alcoholic Idiot stormed out, swaggering in the general direction of the bar down the street. How nice for him that he doesn’t have to drive there. Maybe he’ll trip on a curb, fall in the street, and get run over.
I’m going to Edgewater Park. I need some time alone with the lake. If you don’t hear from me again, don’t come looking.
~Dia~
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2 comments:
I love the way the diary entries really show us Diana. Her inner struggles are very real and invoke a genuine emotional response.
:) Glad you like it. So there is a clear difference in voice between Diana and Artemis? I hear the difference in *my* head, but I know I'm way too close to it, as is Elliot (you know who I mean, not his real name either, but since he's unlikely to comment on the blog instead of just walking into the room and giving me his feedback... well... whatever). And, of course, since he's been my sounding board for YEARS on this things make sense to him that may not be sensible to other readers. Hmm... I think maybe I should start advertising this blog to more people who HAVEN'T kindly sat around and listened to me go off on plot elements/background for years already! LOL If you know any such creatures, feel free to send them a link to this thing - the more the merrier (and the more likely I am to actually update frequently)
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