EXTRACT FOR
Fortune's Diary
(Giselle Renarde)

My mother is driving me crazy.

I sound like a teenager, talking about my mother that way, but it's true.  I'm thirty going on thirteen and I'm mad at my mom. How stupid is that?  Most women my age are out there doing something with their lives. They're getting married and having babies. They're taking the world by storm.  They're conquering business. They're building empires.

What am I doing all day?

Watching my mother throw money at online tarot readers.

No, that's not strictly true.  I get out once in a while.  When Mother lets me.  

See?  I sound like a teenager again.  Not even a teenager.  A preteen.  A thirteen-year-old, just like I said.  Here I am, three decades of life under my belt, and I'm still living under my mother's thumb.

It wasn't always this way.  I left for a while, but she drew me back. Not that I can blame her, considering the situation she was in. But, I swear to God, it's like she's got an invisible fishhook in the back of my neck, and guilt is the line she uses to reel me in. 

I should have stayed gone.

I wish I'd stayed gone.

But I came back, and here I am in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by posters I put up fifteen years ago, Beanie Babies my mother bought because she was sure they'd rise in value, white lacquer bedstead with matching night tables, desk covered in skateboard stickers from back in the day when Roxy was everything. 

It's like living in the past. 

Living in the past and seeing no future.

All my mother seems to care about is the future??"her future, that is.  She has no regard for me.  She can't fathom that I might like to leave this place one day.  Get on with my life.  Live like a normal person.  Maybe she thinks I don't want normal-people things.  Maybe she thinks lesbians aren't normal people.  I get the sense she's mystified by anyone who isn't exactly like her.  

Not that we talk about these things. 

We don't really talk about any things. 

Thank God I'm getting out of the house tonight. I saw a notice online about lesbian speed-dating in the city. I'll take the train later this afternoon, and probably ride the train home after, unless I get lucky.  

I told my mom I'm going to a book club.  

Maybe I should have told her the truth, because she keeps asking why I need to go all the way to Toronto to talk about books.  I don't think she'd have asked why I need to leave the house to hook up with random chicks. 

Not that I plan on hooking up with random chicks.

Well... we'll see.