Susan Senator

I am a sick man...I think my liver is infected.
--Dostoevsky

You've all got to understand. Things have been so bad here that I have been nearly nutty. I have been feeling drained, sad, and trapped. I cannot get Nat to relax. Every day there is an outburst that makes no sense. An arm-biting, yelling and screaming episode that can last ten minutes or on and off the whole night. He is so fragile these days, so easily shaken. I cannot stand to see him so messed up and angry, out of control. What is it?

This brings out all kinds of feelings in me: sadness, inadequacy, and imprisonment. I need some escape. There is none. Writing is slow. Friends are on vacation. Ned works long hours. My vacation is weeks away. It is raining. I can't eat for fun. I have very little time to myself with the boys always, always, always around (Ben is not in camp! He hated it so I took him out. It is miserable keeping him off all the technology).

I want to change my dance name again. I can't tell why but now Lilia has bad memories tied to it, painful associations. I want to be Natacha, which is who I said I was to everyone on my first day at Penn. Also like Natacha Atlas, my favorite singer.

I want to call my book Making Peace With Imperfection. The former stupid title I had sucked. Piece de merde. Slick and glib. I ain't. Are We Having Fun Yet??!!!! Makes my teeth shiver, like nails on a blackboard.

This is going to be another book that will probably be ripped out of me like an emergency C-section. I am going to give birth, but it feels like a crisis.

(This is getting too emo, as Max would say, even for me.)

Okay. Enough of this swill. If the space around me is suffocating, I shall have to create a beautiful space where there is none. I have to dance, I guess. Probably in the fuschia.