My attendant-services file says I'm a creative, highly intelligent young woman. In addition to the embarrassments inherent in having an attendant file, I'm feeling relegated to life's kids' table by that remark, although I suppose it was nice for the last worker to write in it to leave things on a decent note. And I'm not an old woman, for sure, but at 35 years in this body that wasn't even supposed to leave the hospital, ain't I a woman? Full stop? I ache like a woman, I want things like a woman, I 've got debt collectors mispronouncing my name like a woman. Can we let "young lady," take her seat on the graveside of my personal history along with channels ceasing programming at midnight,3 1/2 floppies, and my regrets about not winning all those slamming MTV "Let A Rockband Take Over Your House" contests from back when?(I suspect if I had won, it would have created a huge PR challenge, though. Everybody wanting to trade places with the crippled girl. OMG.)

I haven't written about economic conditions yet here because I feel that it's beyond me(I'm no Paul Krugman although his Conscience of A Liberal changed my life.) I'm just a citizen of a nation who seems to have never been fully sure that I existed, and I have spent my life, from early childhood in the Reagan years, and been reminded of this fact. Mom used to drag me to school board meetings. I missed completely what some people seem to view as some golden age of Clinton prosperity, but I don't really write this out of personal bitterness(although college might have been different if I had known that Uncle Sam would wave the cookie plate in front of my face and jerk it away before I'd selected my own personal nummy treat)