new goal

Well, it's time to turn over a new month. I like to give these bad boys a goal. Like this past month I have been letting my nails grow. People, I succeeded. I have talons. I am going to cut them all off tomorrow morning with a sense of curiosity-fulfilled relief. So this next month. I'm getting pretty tired of self-sabotage and selling myself short. I have spent far too much time apologizing for my failings and stating for the record explicitly how much I think I suck. It's ridiculous. Why on earth should I be actively trying to prove the validity of my own self-deprecation? I should at least try to leave one of us with doubts. My goal for May is to make it to the other side with a minimum of announcements of and apologies for all my various peccadilloes. I'm gonna turn the volume down.

common

I have loved loved loved (and teared up over) all the pomp and outsized hats this morning, but on the whole, I'm pretty relieved that S is not a prince. Though I'd totally wear a tiara on loan from the Queen if she offers.

less than perfect

I am being stalked by Pink's Less Than Perfect. It's always on the radio when I turn it on. If I had enough confidence in fate I'd say I'm meant to take this to heart. But I'm not. I can tell by the way I keep glaring at the face in the mirror and hissing 'fatass.' And I suppose the biggest problem with my self-esteem lapses is that I am absolutely USELESS as a partner these days. S is struggling and I am all lying stock still and flooding with angst and nagging when I should be the opposite of all these things. I should be saying to him, 'Oh pretty pretty please don't you ever feel like you're less than perfect. You are perfect to me.'

all but the last one

What I want is hummus, lots of hummus, and my knee propped up on a pillow (I twisted it. I'm a dumbass. Don't ask). And while I'm at it, I also want universal love, speedy recoveries, and perseverance. For you, not me.
(I am always going to have all but the last one.)

why they pay me

I'm helping a law firm research the complexity of mouse tastebuds (no, I don't know why) and sometimes I think, 'is this worth it?' and this morning I'm pretty sure the answer is yes.

YOU SHALL ABOVE ALL THINGS...

you shall above all things be glad and young.
For if you’re young, whatever life you wear
it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love
whose any mystery makes every man’s
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time
that you should ever think, may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies, the foetal grave
called progress, and negations dead undoom.
I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

~e.e. cummings

too much or less

I have too much and not enough: chocolate eggs, bonfires, rose cookies, crochet hooks, sweaty armpits, oversleeping, ripping buttons, soco and lime, rain storms, budget holes, shitty teeth, wrinkled corduroys, sore eyes, wake-up texts, 90° rotations, ghost music, jammed printers, shirked duties, buns in the shape of rabbits, building plans. I just want a vacation. Let's go to the beach.

sometimes I wish I was an actual nerd

I am splitting with a grin right now because of the achingly endearing nerd couple sitting at the table outside my office discussing--oh so earnestly--the heresy of having Frodo Baggins as a character in the upcoming Hobbit movie. She's adamantly opposed; he can see how it might possibly work. I like the way they are sitting at angles, just avoiding eye contact, and I like the way the boy one is gesturing wildly with his hands while the girl one is quickly glancing toward him and then back away with her fingers twisting through her hair. Bless their little spectacled heads. May the weight of their oversized backpacks never bow them down.

distracted and sharp

I was dancing in the evening, but then I ended the night in tears. I thought the tears were the exception, but now I'm pretty sure it was the dancing that was the anomaly. It was that sort of day. I spent it attracting displeasure and dragging my mind through mud puddles. The break to have dinner with my parents and delightfully dig into a dusty box of 1000 puzzle pieces--that was the exception to the rest of my day. I was dancing in the driver's seat on the way home and then I was... reverting, I guess, back to the state I'd been in at the start of the day. Falling into the norms of being distracted and sharp. I guess I can break hearts that way. I guess I'm never going to be ____.

un-fret

No, that does not count as a hardship. I refuse to grant hardship status to anything that is starting and ending in my own head. Coffee from my leaky thermos, please.