a week in portland, oregon

it has been exactly a week since i left los angeles. i have cried morning. will it stop? i miss my bathtub in los angeles. i miss pulling into my garage and feeling like i'm back home from wherever.

i have a problem. my 12 year old daughter is starting her new school next week and she doesn't want to talk about it. she has a mini panic attack and tells me to stop talking. i think she is so scared of being around strangers that she can't even put her toe in the in the water to talk about. she feels she will deal with it on sept 2nd her first day of school. i'm afraid she will freak out and loose it the night before or 5 minutes before school starts. how can i help her? she won't even let me drive by her new school to practice familiarity. she has deep wounds from her last school and believes that people can be very mean.

she is over weight due to a thyroid condition called hashimotos. her thyroid goes up and down and we have been trying to deal with it for a year now, trial and error. the girls in her class picked on her, told her things like "you can't shop at the stores we shop at." this feels like a whip on my back and i can't image what is going on inside her littl soul. i hope some boy or girl will see what a great friend she could be. her wish by moving to portland, is that she will find a neighborhood best friend. come to think of it i really didn't find a best friend till 7th grade and then she dumped me in high school for dorothy and diane dana (the twins). that is a whole other door i'm not looking forward to. hey but it could be fabulous. like my husband experienced, the best school years of his life. most men that i know know felt that way especially if you were in sports like my husband was, you had a team of friends automatically. except my gay friends, they hated high school for the obvious reasons. growing up in the 70's in high school gay was still a secret for most.

8 more days till school for severin. i have to buck up and take this portland ride on. how can i be a good teacher for severin if i can't even put my big toe in either. the people here seem friendly enough.