prize

I buy nearly all of my clothes at thrift stores. I used to leave that out of my self-definition, but oh, it's in now. Anyway, last week I found a big white t-shirt with a picture of a cow on it that says 'I LIKE GRASS' and it was worth a buck and a half even though it's too big to be anything but sleepwear. I can't wait until I've worn it and washed it enough that it gets soft and thin.

and I remembered to say thanks

There are days when the highlight can be the morning in bed with a book and the afternoon testing out the new hiking sandals and the evening of ice cream at the outside tables of the fast food place down the street and watching a sparrow try three times before on the fourth try achieving lift-off with the french fry in its beak.

left

You know the minute before the minute you lose your cool? Three times in three days I got stuck right there. And that's fine, that's fine, because while I'm stuck I can see both ends of the hallway and one end will inevitably make more sense than the other. Even if I don't chose the right one, it's a choice, not a reflex.

individual

I spent all of today more or less alone in public, and I'm upset with myself when I catch myself trying to defend, trying to offer up excuses for why this is ok. OF COURSE this is ok. I am not now nor will ever be the type of girl who needs to be on someone's arm, or is reluctant to eat out alone or treat myself to a movie, just me. Damnit.

stop! go back!

I've decided that the only way to salvage today is to wash my feet and put fresh sheets on my bed.

earning it

One of the best parts about life is a Saturday morning when you wake up at 6:00 and it's already sunny, so you open the window and fall back asleep for another two or three hours, because.

logophile

Am liking the word moribund today.

lopside

Did I tell you I diagnosed my fatal flaw? One has time to think when chasing magazines up and down cramped stairways and keeping one hand in a back pocket, just in case. Perhaps fatal flaw is too pejorative. Roadblock. I've been in the business of whittling down lately, like the wardrobe full of sweaters I'll never wear. And whittling down my appetite, and the extent of my scheming about (A) but not (B). But what I'm getting at is, I'm whittling down my pile of failings to the heart of the thing: I think, humbly, that I'm not stupid. I'm quick. But here's the rub—although my mind belongs in the category of (at least a little) above average, my MEMORY certainly does not. I might not be wholly anchorless, totally unaffected by what I knew and do know and see and hear, but my ability to anchor—my ability to retain and organize the things I learn—is the ability of someone below average intellect. If I had a memory to match my raw brain, I'd be someone else entirely. Probably, I'd be my brother. My mind gets a B and my memory gets a D, and what the hell, why would I be made like this? Wouldn't I be happier if they met in the middle and I was two Cs? I have time to think about such things, and I'm learning to write my discoveries down, because if I don't, in a month, I'll be heading in a direction quite the opposite.

tightrope

I'm not sure if I'll be able to strike the right balance of none and enough before I collapse. Or of now and in time.

I lied about the 'forward!'

--sort of. Admitting there is a problem is the first step to solving it? Well, what I have here is admittance.
There are voices under my feet again. A few minutes ago it was 10:00 and I sat down at the piano without stopping to think of it being 10:00 and made it through half a song before I realized I can't DO that anymore. I remember the way in high school I used to crave the piano so badly late at night, and then later, when I had an electric keyboard and headphones and could give in to those cravings, it wasn't what I wanted anymore. So it's ok that I'm not playing right now because if I could I probably wouldn't be.
Last weekend I was in an unfamiliar city meeting people who seemed already familiar, even though they were not. Tomorrow I will be meeting Confederate soldiers and a 8 month old kid named Louie, who, based on the pictures I've seen, has a grinning, drooling beach ball for a head.