Laurel Marshall:  

I started this mini autobiograhy yesterday but my finger hit the wrong key after about 1 1/2 hours of typing it and the whole thing disappeared. So what? Big effing Deal, you may say to yourself. The tremors in my hands really bothered me after a bad accident on my bike in 1968. While at Lothlorien, I started to notice that when I came home, after drinking at parties and when I tried to draw or write, my handwriting or drawing was a lot less shakey. Wow. Heavy Duty, man. You see, after my accident, I ONLY wanted to WRITE & Draw again. I was an Artist & Musician up to the age of 14. I had gone to so many darn neurologists (hoping they would/could HELP ME, but No, Not So Fast. It just was Not So.) I wanted to try to find out what the deal was with these gawdawful tremors when I would try to do something with a pencil. The doctors with their Degrees that I saw just gave me their standard A.M.A. tests of balancing with my eyes closed, touching my index finger to the doc's finger then to my nose, trying to balance walking in a straight line heel to-toe, turning my right hand palm-down, palm-up rapidly over and over again on the top of my left hand. Then they told me they didn't know what was wrong. WTF. One of them who had white hair and was balding even sat behind his enormous wood desk while he smoked a cigarette and suggested to me that it must be "psychosomatic" or something. Aha. Now I knew; no I didn't... "They" didn't KNOW. At the time I thought that psychosomatic meant that I was doing it to myself. At the time, Ididn't really know what psychosomatic meant-but thought I remembered hearing that it was some kind of psychological trip you were doing to yourself. Eeew. I reasoned, "if They (The American Medical Association) think that I am doing this (making my hands have tremors) to myself; then THEY must think I'm CRAZY. And if they think I'm crazy, then they must have 'written me off'". This helped me decide to 'experiment' on myself--in fact, it gave me 'permission' to be my own Guinea pig. So I EXPERIMENTED on myself. I didn't think I was in any danger of becoming a "drug addict" or "alcoholic". Often, I would smoke dope (now; my kids would say, "Mom!! It's POT! NOT DOPE! Dope is SOMETHING ELSE!!") OK, ok, ok already. Just FORGET it. Geesh. Back when I drank alcohol, I felt like I fit in better. I discovered I could also physically WRITE better! I really knew I was weird but I didn't like myself at all when I was sober. I didn't like my mom (except when we went shopping for something for ME)and I didn't like my sister. I could escape into books. I was afraid that I was stupid. Lothlorien gave me the opportunity to learn at my own pace & read as many books as I wanted to in a community of students and teachers who I thought and felt were intelligent and gifted. I liked that. I wanted their brilliance to "rub off" on me. i WANTED TO FIT IN. Secretly, I was afraid I didn't measure up. I knew I didn't really measure up. I can't finish this all right now & I should go to bed. It's been many days since I wrote the above paragraphs. I've added & subtracted too. Who cares. The wireless router on our house was on the fritz. My husband just bought & installed a new one. My husband Rob is handy with computers. I that's a stupid way of saying that, but you probably know what I mean. Maybe. I like laughing these days. Or not. I can Feel my feelings these days. Maybe people who read this will feel threatened. I don't know. I've done a lot of work on ME. It's nothing to brag about though. Back to my story: I worked 10 + years at "Entry-Level", "Dead-End" jobs, (BEFORE I got sober). I got clean & sober 23+ years ago. I "hit bottom" while nursing my 5 1/2 month-old daughter (who is now 23 and who graduated from UCSC in March with an art degree). I've learned a lot about myself since that time. I've gone to De Anza College in Cupertino for many, many years. I got an A.A. in Humanities at Foothill College, back when I was still "Partying" (usually by myself, in my apartment). I took a LOT of classes at De Anza College and I 'qualify' for a Certificate in Enviromental Studies from De Anza but I guess I'm just too lazy right now to jump through the final hoop to 'get' this piece of paper. It's only the lowest certificate, for god's sake; it'...Expand for more