It never ceases to amaze me how genuinely caring, loving, thoughtful, kind, devoted, compassionate and empathetic all of you are to me.

You astound me. I wonder if I can give as much as you all do, just by letting me know you are here when I am a mess and running into brick walls. You break my heart, as I worry about my problems, which may be bad, but could be so much worse. And there you all were, extending hands to help me up when I didn't think I could stand and I knew that no one could hold the weight on my shoulders.

There you are, helping me with simple gestures, and some of you have never met me. It quietly validates the position I took today in an e-mail war with some of gingi's indie rock boys who believed that the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia are disproportionally credited in the history of music. And there you all were, maybe not fans of the Dead and certainly not born when they formed and set out on their revolutionary mission of love and unity and adventure - there you are keeping that concept alive by just being thoughtful and human.

I don't want you to think I don't recognize that, no matter how rough things may be for me. And yes, they are rough and yes, they will get worse before they are better, but you all did something incredibly human and incredibly rare today and when I read your messages, I was moved.

This New York scrapper was touched. Thank you.

*~*

Things aren't so good for me and my family right now. It kind of all came at me at once. But things could be worse, no one is dying, and for that I am incredibly thankful. I would like to work it all out on this page, but I come from very private roots and I just cannot open up here. We keep things "in-house" so to say, and we help our own. We are fighters too, so believe in us, because we will prevail.

I will sacrifice and things are going to be tuff for me for a while. There may be more tears in the future. But it will all work out, it always does.

*~*

|Following the theme of way cool people, I have new friend at work who rocks. She's so rock and roll she makes Steven Tyler blush. She's got stuff going down too. So misery loves company. We hung out over the weekend, had lunch today and then went out and drank whiskey and bourbon tonight.

Like I said, she rocks.

She's real happy to have found me, because before she only had her boyfriend and his friends. She's new to town. And I'm happy to hang out, because like I said, she's rock and roll. And it always helps to show someone new the town - it deals whole new perspective to you.

It was so weird to go out for lunch. I never do that. never ever never ever. But it really made a difference. After crying in the bathroom and silently at my desk, I felt like Popeye when he eats the spinach. And we smoked cigarettes after.

And then we went for drinks and had a ball. It was so nice to go out with someone who has no idea what is going on with me. Who doesn't know who I was or who I am or what I do. Just someone who catches the vibe that something is there and is looking to branch out.

And it turns out that she really needed a friend too, for different reasons. So after a couple of drinks we went our separate ways with a laugh.

I felt invigorated. And I got up the courage to come home and face my situation and I felt strong enough to call home for the first time in weeks and get back to my parents. I told them things are going to work out. i thought about what they told me and I have ideas. I have solutions.

And I could hear the change in their voices after speaking with me. I heard my mom laugh for the first time in weeks. And I could hear my dad start to sound normal. It made me feel even stronger. And I think I conveyed that. I hope so.

It's hard you know, me being the baby girl. Us growing up relatively comfortably and now this. But it turns out that I am stronger than I thought. And more importantly, I realized that I'm not the alone in this. It's not just my problem and I can't continue to assume everyone's problems as my own and keep them to me. We will work together, my family, and with you all of you helping me, and we will be okay.

We will.

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