My birthday Hpnotiq is gone. It's been a bad month.

I'm not an alcoholic. Really. I'm not. But oh. my. Lord. At the end of my horrific, nausea-inducing, lose your faith in humanity, take up domestic terrorism or homicide or maybe even use your history degree to employ methods of medieval torture difficult days, mama loves a screwdriver. And Colin Firth movies on Oxygen.

STABITTYSTABITTYSTABITTYDIE.

Except for books, which are relatively easy for my grandchildren to haul to Half-Price Books and sell, I am never buying anything EVER AGAIN. Seriously. Or saving anything. I just cleaned out a linen closet and, yeah, I'm no longer buying anything I do not use every day. Lipstick? Seriously? I wear like three shades. The other 30 tubes I have lying around? YOU'RE GONE. You'll be lucky if I hang on to my credit card bill long enough to pay it.

I'm never painting anything EVER any color other than white. Because while my taste may be fine, I never want to make my granddaughter stand at the end of the driveway calling her friend, slightly tearfully, going, "Um, yeah, I know it's like nine o'clock in the morning on your one day off, but there are a jillion shelves and I'm scared and don't know what do to and can you please come and help me!?!?!?" And I know my grandparents didn't want that either because they loved me and I know for sure my grandfather at least would want me to be concentrating on my Cold War flashcards that I just abandoned on the floor in order to pursue Screwdriver #2 rather than, you know, his woodwork.

BTW, if Mary and Keelin ever need help cleaning a house? I'm there. I owe you guys. F'r reals. It takes a special kind of bond to say, sure, I'm going to stick my head into a cabinet full of oil paint because you're keening a corner mumbling something about how you should buy one tube of toothpaste at a time.

Oh my goodness. I haven't slept past six-thirty in two weeks, I literally almost lunged at several people at work today, and dear God, I need another screwdriver.

But first I need to write a critical analysis of the different South American revolutions/wars/whatever the hell else they were doing down there/I don't care, I'm an American imperialist/capitalist pig/leave me alone AND OH MY GOD I HATE THE WORLD.

I'm sorry. I really am. But I am at the end of my f***ing rope.