Wednesday, February 18, 1998

Gus, another online diarist, turned thirty this week. I might have to ask him what it's like. The day is now eleven days away, and I am not sure if I'm looking forward to it or not.

I shouldn't feel down about this. My mother was thirty-five when I was born, at a time when her contemporaries were probably herding fourteen-year-olds around the house. I do have to admit that I am not at all envious of women my age who have "started a family." They all look so tired, they all look so worn out, and they all are so vocal about insisting that this is the greatest thing they've ever done. I am pretty sure they're fibbing about something in there, I just haven't figured out what it is.

My mother was never starry-eyed about being a mother. From when I was young, she was always pretty direct about it. She and my father were always pretty cool about treating me as an equal, if not in everything, at least in conversation. They would explain things to me. They explained Watergate, in terms I could understand and not be overwhelmed by (I was six or seven at the time). They explained why Jimmy Carter was failing in his presidency. They discussed why Iran/Contra was so threatening in what it represented. At a time when I was hearing way too many pseudo-intelligent people in college spouting off all sorts of theories about Reagan and the Constitution, my parents were pretty calm and direct in saying that Reagan's real threat was in losing control of the people behind the scenes, that they were running him, and not the other way around.

Say what you want about Bill Clinton, say that he makes mistakes, but his mistakes are his own, and I can't recall him blaming renegade staffers. I always felt Reagan was just completely out of touch with what his own people were doing, and that that was dangerous.

It seems like a lot of people my age think of Reagan the way my parents' generation, for example, felt about Ike. I never did. Maybe that's because my parents didn't really like Ike.

I want to clean some things out of the closet. There are a lot of things in it I don't wear, and I'm getting that urge to look different again. I've gone about as far as I wanted to in the business-suit direction, I've explored all the possibilities of sweats and running shoes, and I have more sweaters than anyone. I don't know what to do next. Maybe I'll try out the hooker-chic look or maybe vinyl or burlap or something else. I just don't know. I'm so used to looking like me that I don't even know what to compare it to. I'm about to be thirty, and I want to change some things. I don't have any clues how to do it.

That's probably why I'd like to spend some time with someone else again. I want someone else's opinions on things. I want someone to be a little critical and shake me out of being so me.