digging a bit

Things that are good today:

• my lips
• the orange in my desk drawer

red

I have the hardest time remembering what the word 'sanguine' means.

that's it

Oh yikes I think Monday was the highlight of my week and it's been nosediving since. I have been easily maddened this week, by nothing for lunch and by unjustified patience and by my body not behaving the way a 28 year old woman's body should and by not hearing back from the latest doctor I'm begging for help. The malaise has been strong this week because/in spite of the fact that I've been amping up my physical activity. Because I HAVE to. I am not built to be still. So I have been dragging around on short runs and doing exercise dvds and stretching out all my bunched muscles. I honestly don't know the roots of my sickness so I honestly don't know whether or not I'm pulling a trigger by pushing my body to sweat a little. But I'm kind of up against a wall because I am so goddamn tired of feeling sick. And this week I haven't even had a break of weightlessness and optimism. I'M PROBABLY MAKING MYSELF WORSE. I CAN'T WIN. It's been a week wherein the acting like I'm the good kind of April during the day/in public has totally emptied out all of my reserves and when I'm with S in the evenings I have only wanted to be unconscious or to flail at him with my fists because I'm so mad. Because he ate the last of the quiche I was saving for lunch today even though he didn't know that but I'm mad anyway because he's too nice to me and that's IT.

please rince out the sink

Many reasons to love working in a library, chief among them how quickly the rince/rinse debacle in the staff lounge was resolved.

recovering

I am paying for/not paying for a series of excesses, in my arms, in my forehead, elsewhere. But I think I'm getting my mojo back. I think my bounding into the room is getting more reliable. This weekend we bought a new blender and tan corduroy pants, and we may or may not have been speaking German.

every week

The parts that happen over and over again I really start to relish. I plan ahead all week to Friday after work, with a list in my pocket and a pile of canvas bags on my passenger seat. I listen to the week's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast in the car on the way to the food co-op for the first half of the list, and the bigger store a block from home for the rest. I take a heady amount of satisfaction in my ability to stock the kitchen with the right amounts of things, to not forget the foods I know S wants, to always have a spare bottle of dish soap when the one on the sink runs out. I have this part of growing up under control. I carry all the bags into the apartment in one trip even if it's impractical and I unpack and sit at the table sipping kombucha as the podcast winds down. It always ends with the what's-making-us-happy segment and I fit right in.
Saturday morning is another one. S leaves for work at 7:30 and I'm up, too, sipping the coffee he made for me and eating eggs wrapped in a tortilla with almost-too-much hot sauce. This morning, as it has been for a few weeks now, I'm reading a charming Debora Geary book thanks to my sister's generous kindle, and listening to Delta Rae (you wouldn't regret it if you bought their album, or borrowed it from me).
I've always been someone who relishes in the little, the present, the simple. I am capable of flash and exuberance and on the good days, adventures, but my default way to find joy is in a gentle-ish routine and a piling up of the little satisfactions and the little victories into a sweet stew of whole souls and deep breaths. 

loved

I say this a lot and I mean this a lot: I am very loved. My husband is a jackpot. He is brave and assertive and honest and kind and sexy and above all willing to choose to love me and choose to work at our marriage everyday. He is the type of man to give me a sweet card just because it's a Wednesday, or to cook a romantic dinner just because he feels like it. Valentine's Day is NOT the pinnacle of loveyness in our home. It was off the charts yesterday, with mixed veggies and kielbasa and chocolate souffles and pink roses and whiskey and Sherlock on Netflix (OMG), but the thing is we are off the charts pretty often. When we get to spend an evening together, it's always a clinging, joyful thing and there's so much meat to our relationship (heh). I am incredibly lucky to be married to someone who is so full of depth and heart and who sees and magnifies my own depth and heart. We're really, really well suited to each other. I'm bragging. I can't help it. Have you met him?!

self

My boobs look good today and my eyes are green, and I'm pleased on both counts.

paint thinner

S has been perma-gone this week, and I won't see him today/tomorrow until at least 2:00am. I am awfully dependent on that wall of warm steel. I did get an hour of his time yesterday, and that was well placed, because I haven't been knocking on wood often enough, I guess, and I had a bad body day, just after starting to say things about doing better than last month. I didn't even recognize myself in the mirror for a heartbeat, and that's a sure way to tell how bad it is. On my good days I have a lot of spark in me and on the rough ones I'm pretty shellacked over. At the moment we're working under the assumption that I have a chronic bacterial infection, and if that is the case... it's still there. I can't quit, though. We're pretty stuck together, my body and me. Not to say that I haven't been happy, though, even in the face of alleged bacteria and a too busy husband. I have been. I've been listening to loud music in the car and taking long, curative baths, and I've been charmed by and deeply appreciative of some of the lovely people I work with, and have been reading books about witches, and as I mentioned, I had a lot of tacos this week, and Jimmy John's for lunch yesterday. I'm really not miserable. I'm actually really enjoying the things I can enjoy, and reveling in the good days. Oh god, the character growth. I think I'd be a whole lot more grateful for it if I were on the other side and not still in the middle.

of all the foods

I've definitely eaten tacos four days in a row. I definitely don't have a problem with that.

big bertha

My good news is that the depressing dream I had about having to study for finals isn't true, and that I came into work this morning to find this on my book cart:

and that I'm pretty sure I'm always going to love being in the same room as my siblings two evenings in a row, and that my husband does yoga.