You know, the CEO thing is weird... someone was JUST telling me this week about problems she's having with her husband's ex-CEO. He didn't want her husband to leave the company and is making all sorts of absurd threats against him. The CEO is in touch with the husband's ex-wife (and my friend is cordial enough with the ex to know what's going on), so I got to hear part of the email to the ex... and it was just stupidly ridiculous.

I know I've read somewhere that there are more psychopaths as CEOs than any other career! So I don't know what the deal is, but it seems like being crazy and pushing people around might actually be more useful in that role than actual intelligence or skills?

And ugh - I'm so sorry about your parents, and you having to figure out how to pay most of your medical bills as a teenager. Geez! Yeah, I really don't get people who have kids then decide not to actually take care of them. And, yeah, I think people who ignore their kids and then want to be friends when they're all grown up are just ridiculously out of touch with reality. It IS frustrating!

Do you have any brothers or sisters? It can make it a bit easier, I think. You asked about having to take care of them... I think you have to make that choice yourself. It's really, really hard.

In our case, my sister and I (we have a brother, but he's still struggling with addiction/jail) tried to help my dad out a bit when he lost his job. But, he's so... immature? Clueless? Not together? After we gave him money, we didn't hear anything from him for awhile... like... nothing (including my 40th birthday, nothing!). Then in August I tried to contact him for his birthday, and found out that he had moved and didn't tell any of us (!). You might remember that thread here, it made me feel absolutely nuts! Like, seriously? I think my sister is finally at the point that she isn't willing to give him more money - ironically, not because he didn't pay back what we gave him (we both knew that wouldn't/couldn't, we assumed it would be a gift to him) - but because there was absolutely no sense of gratitude or desire to stay in touch, at all. He's depressed, I get that. But this has been a pattern for our whole adult lives, so it's pretty well-established at this point. Honestly, I wasn't sure we should have given him any money to start with, but I care about my sister, and make more than her... so I didn't want her to shoulder that alone.

I feel bad for him. But honestly, he's made so many really bad decisions. He's in his 60s now and has no clue on how to manage money, hasn't saved *anything*, doesn't own a house, and basically gave a good chunk of his income (or so we believe) to the ex-girlfriend so she could be the horse farm she's got now. It's just crazy. (Oh yeah, and he cashed out my college fun when I was in 9th grade, just before kicking me out of the house and sending me back to my mom's.) So, yeah, sorry, but I'm not feeling any sense of personal obligation here.

I don't know, maybe you'll be nicer than me but like I said, I think you've got to sort of determine what you feel OK doing. Part of my issue is... I'm alone, not married, no kids... so I really have to make sure that I'm saving money for retirement, so I don't end up where my dad is now. I'm not willing to sacrifice that, because I really would have no place to go.

And, I *love* your advice about not responding to your parent's unvoiced requests. Thanks. I will have to take a deep breath and keep that in mind.

re: The therapists... yeah it's been nuts. I really wonder if therapy is just not what it's cracked up to be. It's so frustrating to see people that have really gotten something out of it, when it generally just leaves me feeling like I've been beating my head against a wall.

This current guy has some good points, but there's a lot of things that I feel like he just doesn't get. He tries much harder than the other ones though, and never gets defensive (which is impressive, since I... apparently... am really good at very nicely telling therapists that *everything* they do is *wrong*!) I wish it weren't so expensive... OR that it were more obviously helpful now. I just hate to keep going and spending so much money, only to find out much later that it wasn't at all helpful. I just don't know.

Maybe you're right... I'm not sure that I should take a break now (I still feel like I'm getting started) but I wonder if it would be helpful going back to every other week. It would definitely help the finances... but then 2 weeks between sessions ends up feeling like an *eternity*. It's never easy, is it?!

re: The pottery class... are you still *enjoying* it? If doing it is still fun, and you still feel like you're learning (i.e. you don't feel like you've plateaued) - I think there's value in continuing. I've never done pottery, but four months isn't that long. Though, I can imagine how discouraging it would feel to have all those reminders around... all the pieces you made and aren't happy with! (I assume there's no way to melt them back down and re-use them? ) In the grand scheme of things 4 months isn't much (it's like 1 semester if you were in school, but if you were in school, you'd be doing it every day!)... especially for something that requires such physical-ness, you know (as opposed to reading a book and learning something fast). The physical stuff seems to always take longer!

I read somewhere (you've probably seen this) that there was a study on making art. The people who were the best at the end of the class were the ones who made a LOT of art during the class... i.e. they got better by making tons and tons and tons of bad pieces (it might even have been pottery, I can't remember!). The other half of the class spent a lot of time working on fewer pieces, I think, trying to learn as much as they could from each one and to "perfect" each one (which is more in tune with how I like working!). They didn't do as well. There was something about doing it over and over and over hundreds of times that helped the students get better, even though a lot of what they were doing wasn't very good.

But really, I think the end determiner should be how you feel doing it, if you're still enjoying it, and still feel like you're learning and engaged (and not bored).

Hope you had a good weekend, and managed to avoid anything work-related!!!