nine eleven. When buildings and hearts become fragile and collapse. When loud cries and futile pleas get lost in mayhem and smoke. When plans and planes crash and burn, crash and burn, and years go by and the situation gets worse, not better.

How can things be more unresolved? How is it the risks feel bigger, the fear more a reality than a reaction?

There's got to be a push for more discussion, for more clarity, for more resolve. Things need to be addressed more clearly and firmly. It has to begin; online, maybe.

I live near an airport. A plane just flew overhead, the hum of engines reminding me of the first time I heard a plane fly after the air ban was lifted. The fear, the sadness, the anger that things had gotten to that point when they didn't have to get to that point. Seeing the faults of both sides, wondering why reason works with neither.

That morning was so crisp and brilliant. Sunshine. Clean blue to the sky. Leaves just starting to change color on the two trees in front of the house. Nothing can change those facts. That is how things were. That is how things were supposed to be.

I still can't believe all these years have gone by so quickly and offering so much time for resolution and justice, of any sort, but it feels like all this time has brought is more discourse, more uncertainty, more ... death. Some point to the fact there's been no further attacks on the USA soil; but that is not to suggest that Americans do not continue to die for this... and that other civilians in other countries do not continue to die for this.

What is this? A disagreement? A land dispute? A religious ideology debate where points can only be made through killing and body counts are adjectives used to express how strongly each side feels? Why can't this be expressed with words alone? Why can't this be resolved with verbal exchange? Which side is more incapable of compromise or logic? Is religious blindness any different than the blindness that is corruption of power? Aren't both sides guilty of not representing their societies and truly only interested in protecting their control over those societies and not the societies themselves?

If this could be broken down, piece by piece, in the most simplistic and basic of terms, with each side offering to step back and just review the logic of each stance, to consider each charge, to contemplate every idea for resolve and then to take the initiative to at the very least try... things could work out, smooth out, and eventually fade out into memories, lessons from history, times gone by. It will get to that point someday, so why not start the process now? Why wait for a few more generations of senseless revenge and counterattacks and pre-emptive strikes... why not demand change now? Why not demand that another day can not go by without a talk to begin the end of this?

Are the people in the highest of power globally really this incapable of basic problem solving?

The boys go back to school today. Winter to third grade, KC to fifth. : )

Today the boys go back to school. Winter to third grade, KC to fifth. : )

We've been up since three thirty a.m. here... things continue to be unusually obscure. Got a phonecall about a dead guy found behind a store. Appears to be a murder. Kenny says this year being as odd as it has been can only mean one thing: The Red Sox are going to win the World Series. It's his birthday today... all morning his phone has been ringing about the dead man, which for some reason almost seems to fit in with the way things have been going the past nine months.

And after a one hour phonecall with Nikki last night, I believe she is ready to work on helping the doctors understand her. I don't think she knew before why it is so important to let the people working with you know where your thoughts are at. I also think she's ready to give understanding herself a try. Got some books together for her, along with some other personal items, and will be bringing them to her this week. We had a good laugh about the parallels in our lives, even with the differences. It was great to be able to laugh together within the harsh reality of the situation. Somehow I think this particular phonecall will become the starting point of things really getting better for her. For the first time ever I think she is beginning to understand that becoming her father is not her destiny or fate. I called him to alert him to what is going on, but as usual his condition is at a point where he can't see outside of himself. I know this part of things is what has made things a little harder on Nikki than they should be, but I think as time goes on she will let go of her anger towards her father as well, as he is not to blame (you can point the finger of genetic coding down many, many generations... nobody is to blame and the origin could have happened to anyone.)

I'm personally not climbing out of anything here, just sitting on a ledge inside myself, keeping out of danger and just functioning until I have the time and quiet to sort the rest out. There's almost too many other things going on to deal with anything else besides Nikki just yet. If I remain focussed, as her mom, and if she remains intent on getting through this... there can only be a positive result.

In the meantime, as things get worked out there with Nikki, the boys will be starting school back up again this week, so we are having a back-to-school party for the neighborhood kids who were here most days this entire summer. With the start of school we realized we were planning to start the School Scrabble group this year, but we've decided that there's no way to run the School Scrabble group with the unpredictableness of Nikki's condition, so we're going to give KC's former teacher who wanted to help us run it the kit. We can help in smaller ways, like going to the school once every other month to teach some of the basics on the huge Scrabble rug with the velcro letters we put together, but we can't forsee being able to do things on a weekly basis as there's no way to tell what Nikki's situation will be on a daily and weekly basis. As time goes by we hope to be able to play a more active role in the group, but for now we've decided it's best to keep things as flexible as possible just in case Nikki's situation needs more of our time and energy.

Wints is excited about showing his new dog book to his classroom, KC is excited to play in his first football game after practicing for weeks. They both had a great summer and seem anxious to see everyone at school again... it's a fantastic time to be in the elementry school they attend.... Each classroom has a computer, the majority of teachers grew up in the 70s and 80s, and it's a small enough school that everyone really knows everyone. When there's a school concert, attendance is almost always close to 100%. When one student is going through a hard time, the entire school body will help. It's a very organized school. About the only whacky thing at the school is the nurse, stories of her phonecalls to parents circulate throughout the hallways during any open house or school event. She's a nurse who takes her job... very seriously. Very, very seriously. Some might say too seriously. I personally like her quirky nature, although she has said some things to me that I found amusing when I know she did not mean them to be funny.

I'm waiting for Kenny to be hungry so I can start a nice, big breakfast. He's usually hungry within half an hour of waking up, but this morning took a little longer for him to crave something in his tummy...

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, there's a dead guy behind the stooooooore, happy birthday to you...

my surreal life... after a day that by 1:00 p.m. had been in the top ten of 'worst days of my life', Kenny comes home an hour later to share the great news... a promotion at work along with a tremendous pay raise. And his boss bought him a very cool football enclosed in a case.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to regain my mental composure and not allow myself to be sucked into the sensual world of insanity. I plan to read all five Erma Bombeck books I recently got from an auction at Ebay.com before the end of September; if humor of that caliber doesn't help, nothing will. I also got 4 of the same Erma Bombeck books for Nikki to read... I'm hoping it will help her see that even families without the disabilities she has still have hard days where things just go wrong.

This has been a very, very, very fucked up week, now that I sit here and think about it... filled with extreme moments on opposite ends of positive and negative.

Negative: Magellan's extreme incompetence as a 3rd party vendor; they are going to get Blue Cross in craploads of trouble legally.

Positive: 2nd place in a cribbage tournament

Negative: Nikki's condition and situation

Positive: Kenny gets promoted, large pay raise

I won second place in a cribbage tournament last night.

Today has been one of the worst days of my life.

I'm having a harder and harder time coping with the chaos...her mental illness seeps into aspects of my life and their lives that I had not expected it to. I don't know how to fight her invisible demons, I do not know how to protect her from her own actions, I do not know how to help pull her out of her confusion and suffering. I remember when I was her age how I thought once I was an adult I would be so powerful and capable of protecting those I love with much more success. Being able to help them, and knowing more and more along the way so that I would be able to fix anything. Now I find that being an adult does not give you the capability to solve all of someone's problems; and health issues and mental issues only make it more difficult and impossible.

I am powerless. I am incapable. I do not know enough about this to be of any assistance. I am beginning to feel helpless and afraid of things that are out of my control that I am powerless to change, and it's having negative effects on her, them and me. It's dredging up the bottom of my mind's ocean of personal pain and suffering, and that aspect is pissing me off as I feel now is not the time to reflect on anything from the past, I want to concentrate on the present and the future of helping her and us in the process. But bits and pieces keep coming back to me, vivid and fucking painful to recall, and weakening me to lower and lower levels. This is not good. I want to fight it.

I do not know what to do anymore. I feel like running, like Forrest Gump, coast to coast over and over again. Or just up to Canada or down to Florida. Running. But to run is not an option, it feels like it will only make matters worse. But I'm falling apart mentally, I think... shattering into pieces again. I lost track of two hours yesterday, possibly close to three, I can't recall the exact cut off time, but I found traces of what appears to be cleaning/organizing frenzies and some writing/sorting out. I guess that's probably good and bad, but it also could just be stress.

I'm going to call on Friday to make an appointment for myself next week after the kids start school. Just to be safe, even if I feel I don't need it, I think I probably should keep a specialist informed about this.