Wendyhi's Journal

I was working on that story again last night...I know I have a knack for it. (I can even tell you what was wrong with Palin's speech: she deviated from the basic pursuasive argument stucture.)I know how to write and organize my thoughts. And yet I sense I must seem pretty scattered to the outward eye, moving from one project to the next, having a talent, but not really focusing that talent.

I think over the last few days, the reason for that has become clearer to me. My family seems utterly fixated with the notion that I do things that are practical--practical to them.

Well how many practical things must I do before I get to do what I want? I think it's a procedural thing that's been misfiring in all of this. Each time I make ready to focus on my objective, my parents will insert some stipulation or agenda, nothing short of requiring that I do only practical things. That's well enough, I have nothing against being practical, but there's no off ramp from this highway to a more scenic route!

More and more I see this now as being a manifestation of who my parents are. Over the years, I can recall numerous times where  my mother effused a desire to see her daughter make use of her creative talents, and yet she's among the first to sing the Anvil Chorus of practicality. (I get it already, I get it! You can't live on air, you have to be able to support yourself, be able to stick a little something away for the future....)

Ya know, I'm piss flat broke but I have no debt. You'd think my father would be turning handsprings because to him debt is the worst of all four letter words! But no, this is about "matching" in my dad's opinion. I suspect he would financially match whatever I could monitarily muster. I think he must fancy himself as some grand, Rockefeller type, who'll bestow matching grants on worthy recipients.

 I guess I've got to get my thermometer inched up a little bit...work hard and save up for school. Then he'll come along on his half-assed white horse and rescue me with the rest. And OK, if he'd actually do it, that might have been a nice idea 30 years ago when I was a kid in high school looking for ways to go to college.

And I think the whole thing is that it would be a whole lot nicer if we could just sit down together and he could explain such things to me, explain his views etc. But here I am left to extrapolate and read the tea leaves like the media does with Sarah Palin, speculating on what other reasons might be in the mix. (Personally, I think it could be as simple as that she saw herself becoming a distraction or liability to the GOP causes and according decided it was time to pass the torch or the basket ball or something.)