"I can, however, say that I don't look forward to the inevitable screeds on how parents today suck or on how childless people suck for not being more understanding..."

Really? B/c that seems to be the only purpose of a story like this. Salon, methinks you love the click-throughs a little too much.

Not that it will do any good, or if any good is to be done with will come from the man formerly known as Durian Joe (sorry B&G, I still like your old name)...

I am the cheapest under-40-year-old you will ever meet, although I prefer "thrifty," as in, will-never-buy-$5-berries-unless-I-have-a-head-injury thrifty, and I am a vegetarian, and it is not expensive to eat without meat. And I eat a much bigger diet than cabbage and lentils, for gods sake. I love cooking and I love food and I love making interesting things.

Someone who doesn't like to cook probably wouldn't eat as well as I do for as little, that's true. But don't tell me it's not cheap, because the $9 I just spent buying vegetables and fruit for the next week tells me otherwise. (I live in a big, overpriced city, so I'm not lucking out that way.)

I am so excited to see this movie because I have known people just like Precious, only 10 or 20 years down the line, and these people are not attractive movie protagonists. They have been hurt, and once a little older, have hurt others, abominably. For people who think the situation set up for Precious is overdone or "too much," all I can say is you're lucky.

I have a lot of sympathy for you, LW, but not for your desire to pass on your unhappiness to children (with a man who you think doesn't love you, no less). I hope you find some measure of happiness yourself, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen by going along doing what you've been doing, and it's certainly not going to happen by having children. What is it about life that you hate so much that you think is worth creating children to experience? If you took pressure off yourself to have kids, a lot of other pressures might suddenly ease. And if you must, must, must have kids one day, you can always adopt.

But it's probably not--sorry, LW, there is absolutely nothing unique about your situation. That should comfort you a little.

A couple of thoughts:

1) Why would you think that art doesn't contribute anything to the world. Aren't you moved, in part, to write because others have moved you? Even if your talent is not "good enough" to join that company, it is a worthy endeavor to even try--why wouldn't it be?

2) If you are troubled by your soulless serving job, the life of an artist may not be the life for you. You might be happier in a decent-enough, semi-interesting 9-5. And if you are, there's no need to go into paroxysms of grief about it. Happier is happier.

Is that something that's okay to do now?