March 29, 2002

Things are looking up! Even when it's kind of gray and humid and overly still like today, I just love this time of year.

Yesterday was excruciatingly glorious, blue blue blue skies and cool breeze and everything in Technicolor, sassy pink peach blossoms and lurid yellow jasmine and microscopic purple-tinted white flowers up and down the thyme and whispery-thin periwinkle ones up and down the rosemary and petaly soft dark red new rose leaves. Yesterday I had one of those days that just kind of came together in a smallishly satisfying way that makes you wake up feeling content. Yesterday I did everything on my list, from dethatching and mowing to making Brian's mac & gouda and buttermilk pie (his reward for being my hero last Saturday & wriggling into the crawl space to retrieve the raccoon Herman mangled so it wouldn't spend the summer rotting and stinking up my house) to bathing the dogs and walking them twice.

I suspect I'm becoming an adult. I had people over last night & barbecued--and yet my house was clean this morning. Adults clean up before they go to sleep, even if they are drunk, and so adults get to wake up to a clean house. I did these things. I picked up and washed the dishes and put away the leftovers and still had enough energy to dance around like a complete spaz to an entire Pixies record. I don't know if it was the clean house or the dancing or both, but I sure did feel good when I woke up.

A few days ago, I decided to attack that irritating dissatisfaction that was making me peevish and whiny. I made a list of all my loose ends and now I'm doing my best to tie them up before starting anything new--or even finishing other stuff that isn't loose endy. [Loose ends differ from unfinished business in that they're those oppressive things you want to pack up and cross off your big lingering list forever, the things that weigh you down instead of making you excited.] I have a natural tendency to leave many loose ends in my life, maybe as a means of producing a low grade pressure that keeps me from doing what I actually should be doing but I'm too chickenshit to figure out. I'm not a true master of self-sabotage, but I'm not above it, either.

Anyway, I'm very excited about the tying up and/or cutting off all those loose ends. My life needs a good trim.

Here is a list of things I'm happy about right now:

1. My house is clean.
2. My dogs are clean.
3. My friends are pretty darn solid.
4. I have short hair.
5. I'm finally releasing SAAN.
6. My yard, though scraggly, is shaping up.
7. I get to see my folks & go to IKEA this weekend.
8. I've done a respectable job with my budget so far this month.
9. I'm learning to shut the fuck up.
10. That ball I got at Costco is terrific.
11. Diet Coke is on sale at HEB for $1.88 a case.
12. My dinky little tomato plant (the only vegetable I'm allowed until I get my yard fixed up) started flowering today.
13. Rebecca & I are getting margaritas next Tuesday.
14. I'm going to yoga in a couple of hours.

All's right with the world.

03.15.02