Getting Out

Many might say that at 34 years of age (in July), I should have internet service in my home. I'm sure they would also say I should have a washer and dryer (which I don't on account of something about septic systems and flood plains). Sometimes I think I should have these things too. But yesterday on a laundry and email mission to Phoenixville I realized that my life is structured perfectly! Living alone I can get a little cabin fever from time to time, but instead of eating bonbons in my pajamas and buying inspirational figurines for a bargain on ebay while my clothes whirl away in their suds, I put on a little lip gloss and head out into the world to interact with other people while I tend to life's less glamorous tasks.

Clarifications and Updates

Here ends the tale of Mr. Handsome (although if I ever write a novel, I will definitely work him into it somehow). My mother finally did some digging and found out that he is in a relationship, which we suspected anyway. This may also clear up any misunderstandings about the aforementioned fling; it was not with Mr. Handsome.
This rain, while fantastic for the plants (I have to keep reminding myself), is taking its toll on my spirits! It is hard to feel bouyant when everything is soggy. Nonetheless, I cleaned my house this morning. I really do that quite rarely, usually only when company is coming (sometimes not even then) and it is a nice treat to have a clean house just for me!
Gotta go back to the laundromat and put a load in the dryer!

In Circles

I came to this cafe, sweaty and flip-flopped, right from yoga, to check email. My email is seriously uninteresting. But I have a whole ceramic mug of tea to get through and "I Love You More Today Than Yesterday" on the Hammond organ is playing (hilarious). I feel a lot like the days back at the cafe in Grass Valley, craving news, connection, excitement, but pretty entertained by my own current circumstances in its absence.
Some of you will know of my aspiration at one time to shave my head. I think right now it could be my only option. I got a haircut yesterday, which I'm sure was the best $15 could buy, but I look like one of those chickens that have a volcano of feathers coming out of the top of their heads. It's too short to put up. It's just crazy! At least at work I get to wear a bandana!
Ok, the tea is just about kicked.
Jason Mraz's new album came out yesterday - buy it.

Overheard

I am eavesdropping on a woman who has been talking a blue streak about the men she's been out with. She doesn't have much good to say about any of them. The woman with her occasionally confirms or asks a quiet clarifying question. Am I this woman? Do I see the glass half empty? Do I converse or do I orate? I hope very much I am not. I am going to try not to be.

The Upside of Traffic

On Saturday afternoon I was headed for my sister's house along with everybody and their brother (well, the rest of the expressway drivers didn't actually make it to the door, so maybe they were going somewhere nearby). I am pretty tolerant of traffic after the immense amount of time I spent in my car over the past couple of years, usually biding my time singing along with the radio or chatting on the phone. But on this day I saw the opportunity for about an hour of fairly uninterrupted time to focus on myself and do battle with the helplessness that has been plaguing me of late. In any circumstance in life the only thing you have control over is how it makes you feel. I am not of the school that interprets this truth by closing their eyes and humming whenever anything unpleasant happens. I like to feel good and rotten for a while, but I'd had enough. I sat in the relative silence of my couch-on-wheels and had a little self therapy. I tried to name the feelings that were keeping me down and each time I identified one I concentrated on how it would feel not to feel that way. As soon as I was rid of powerless, excluded came to the front of the line, followed soon after by fat (how did fat become a feeling and why is it connected to every other bad feeling?). By the time I got the South Street I didn't care that I'm the only single person I know, nor was I consumed by strategies for desperately cornering the 3 or 4 single men that must exist somewhere on earth. It was a beautiful evening and I was going to see some of my favorite people. And the feeling has persisted. I've had a glorious day doing pleasant errands at a leisurely pace. And I'm not saying it means anything, but I ran into Mr. Handsome twice today, and it just makes me smile 'cause he's so darn pretty!

More is possible...

It is a strange time we are living in. There is as much evidence that we are headed for hell in a handbasket as there is that more amazing things are possible now than ever before. I feel my life to be just about perfect and yet the small percentage that is not is so not that if it were an arm I would knaw it off with my bare teeth to be free of it.
I was recently reading a novel set in ancient India and almost every chapter somebody was placing a curse on somebody else. Is that what's going on with me? In some far away lifetime did I so injure someone that they cried out in rage "the thing you most long for will elude you and there will be nothing you can do about it and it will make no sense to you or anyone else." Seriously, I am pretty - people have told me this all my life, maybe even when they should have said I was smart or kind or brave. I am likeable - I have friends all over the globe! I have no more insecurities or issues than anybody else I know. I intend, I affirm, I visualize! Why am I still single? Wait - don't answer that! I am sick to death of hearing "everything is in divine order", "you are in the perfect place for you right now", or the more plebian "men are stupid" (because I know that they are not!). Its a rhetorical question unless you have a really practical answer that I can do something with.
I recently had what i'm going to call a fling, for want of a better word, and I am a little stunned a)that it happened at all and b)that I was so utterly convinced that it was the start of something real. I wasn't the only one either; the idea occured to a number of people before I ever said a word. And yet in retrospect, there is no way it could have become what I really want.

I was just checking my email, staring at the screen feeling I had so much to say and yet I couldn't figure out who I was looking for in my address book. I was looking for you. Not you personally, but the crowd of the unknown whom I imagine when I write this blog; the ones I think must know exactly what I mean. This blog was once about speaking the thoughts swirling around in my head and letting them breathe, get organized or be carried off on the wind. I hope this post begins a return to that practice.