Dear Miss U --

Like Ozzie and Dexter, my first thought is that reading is never a waste of time. And like Dexter, during this year of deep depression, I've been cognitively disorganized and can't focus to read very much. I miss it.

The list of other time-wasters left out two that can lead to profound trouble in people's lives -- shopping and, because I see it all around me here in the casinos -- gambling. I went to a casino outside Miami once and boy, are those electronic "slot machines" dumb. You put a buck in the machine, touch three boxes on the screen, and pouf, your buck is gone. I figured I could throw it out the car window and take more joy in the idea that someone who needs it might find it and brighten their days.

I also agree that taking care of your family is PLENTY to do. I just a read a post where some other person was beating up on self -- and my current T is pointing out to me all the little things I say to myself, big and small, that put myself down. So I am alert to all the self-critical things we tell ourselves and share on the list.

I think there are writers' groups online. If you love to read, perhaps writing, journaling, recording family history would be appealing? Family history might give motivation to contact family members for bits and pieces of the family history? I find I don't have as much stress being with people if we share something in common (and if I keep the time together manageable -- right now, about an hour or two at most, but in better times, 3 or 4).

When I was descending into the pits of depression, my T urged me to do things to satisfy my "inner child," bec. my whole life had been work, the discipline of exercise without much joy in it, the focus of reading, but very little play for play sake. I started making bookmarks out of construction paper, ribbon, glitter, a set of tiny little acrylic accent paints, holiday greeting cards, and a Hodgepodge type clear-drying glue-finish for a stiff clear coating. It was a great change from the little scraps of paper I use to mark books. I also invented a way of cutting up refrigerator magnets so that they could be glued to a fold-over bookmark and grip the page, instead of falling out. My cousin liked it so much that she brought it to an elementary school class to use as a project.

Well, I guess that shows how "childish" my little project was. But I did like playing with the glitter. Now that I am moving around so much and can't tote glue and ribbon and glitter and scissors etc. with me, nor spread them out someplace to work, I miss it.

Is there some little thing that seems "silly" that you might do. Because I think it is the silliness of some things that finally makes us smile -- and perhaps, one day, even laugh out loud.

And great, because if I lost one -- as I am always doing -- I could always make another. Now that I am moving around so much and have no stable home of my own, I do not have my bookmark making kit.