Thank you, Gayle. At least my latest regression hasn't brought me back to the place I was months back when I did feel like the scum of the earth. I think I "got over" that one.

Skeezyks, I know that when I was a kid in the 1970s, I never had anyone approach me about family issues. It would have been nice if someone had - every once in a while, there were little clues that there was something not quite right in my household, but no one every went anywhere with it. Which is a shame, my life perhaps would have been very different. And, my mother was too afraid to do anything. So, it all just flowed along. Such is life in North Korea.

Hiding in plain sight. Keeping up appearances, so to speak. It's always been a theme in my life. I guess the one thing I never had a problem with was bullying at school. I was sort of the opposite, I was the weird loner kid who wasn't able to be "one of the boys" because he wasn't allowed to do any of the things outside of school hours that it took to do that. I desperately wanted to, but Kim Jong Il Lite (my father) forbid it. I remember when I was about 7, I was invited to a classmate's birthday party on a Saturday, and it was "boys only" - every boy in the class went but me. The mom brought me a "goody bag" with some party favors, and a piece of cake, on the following Monday. It made me so sad, because I wanted to be "one of the boys" so badly.

I still have fantasies about being "one of the guys". One fantasy I haven't pursued yet - I really, really want to play on a softball team. That was a 7 year old's fantasy, crushed like a bug by Kim Lite, too. And, to this day, I want to do that so badly. I know I would be terrible - I cant' pitch, I know I can barely hit, I think I could do a decent job fielding at least. I just don't have the time right now to pursue that - a goal for some future spring and summer before I get too old.