feelings

thoughts raining from the clouds

i always burn my tongue whenever i’m eating pizza or soup. always. you’d think i’d learn. today is a soup day, though, all soggy and dreary and chilly bones. two days of a tender, burned tongue is a fair trade for warmth and coziness amidst a gray day.

a friend is coming to visit this weekend which means joy, excitement, fun, and before that, all the cleaning. i’d call myself a tidy person, but not necessarily a neat person. dusting is truly annoying and vacuuming pointless. dishes, however, i never let sit. they’re a pain to wash meal in and meal out, and so letting them sit is the worst offense of all because then the food, crumbs, and stains grow into the plates and pots and pans and that’s no match for a sponge. dishes get done immediately in my household.

we’re nearing the workshop portion of my class and the fears i’d thought i’d set aside are blinking themselves awake.

and yet, i’m also considering submitting a piece to an online journal. my teacher said we should aim for rejection so if you get something else, it’s a pleasant surprise and if you don’t, you’ve reached your goal. the only time my writing’s ever received a yes was when i applied to the MFA program.

feelings

weekdays

tuesdays that are mondays and mondays that are tuesdays and trying to get all the work done in every direction. filling in the gaps during a coworker’s absence makes every day feel strange. what day of the week is it? does it matter? as long as the work gets done.

“S’MORES!” came the call down the hallway. i love s’mores as consistently and deeply as i hate pineapple. “Outside!” they said and i joined the parade of my coworkers from surrounding offices. a mini fire pit on the new patio plus two coworkers with proper tastebuds and generous hearts multiplied by one coworker who’s never had a s’more divided by all those of us who have equals smokey memories old and new.

some marshmallows were golden. most were charred. just like every monday. or was it tuesday?

feelings

over-caffeinated

my soft voice + my inability to enunciate (read: i mumble) (yes, still) are getting me into trouble. case in point: yesterday, i ordered a grande iced americano. what came out was a grande iced americano with 4 shots of espresso. 4 SHOTS OF ESPRESSO. that’s terrifying. and unnecessary.

warning: may cause earthquakes in your fingertips.

warning: insomnia. and so, the lack of sleep last night means i need all the coffee today. vicious cycle.

deep thoughts from twitter:

“when you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” @mepicwomen

“i never have so much pure, white hot rage than i do when my alarm goes off.” @margotwood

“there’s a chance i may love pizza more than people.” @rachaelenglish

“to all the people who think books for teen girls are, by definition, lesser: a teen girl just won the nobel freaking peace prize.” @officiallyally

“just learned a glorious german word. Kummerspeck: weight gain from emotional overeating. literal translation is grief bacon. GRIEF BACON.” @meganmccafferty

“i either need more hours or more me’s.” @veschwab

feelings

halloween

two sundays ago, i discovered baby mac had reached the age where hiding from my weekly sunday FaceTime was more fun than actually talking to me. WHAT IS THIS, i thought. SHE’S ONLY 4. i’m supposed to be a fun aunt until, well, hell, until always. aunts are always the fun ones. it’s the moms that bear the full brunt of the teenage hormones (sorry, sister J) (and S-I-L M). she and bubba mac continued their game of hide and stay hidden, so sister J and i caught up instead. it was a rare treat talking like adults instead of filling in the blanks of the mad libs kids’ conversation.

last sunday, i came prepared. if baby mac was going to act like a teenager, i was going to get teenage advice from her. she danced around the room, a tiny ballerina on my phone screen. she plopped down next to her brother. she tore through the kitchen asking for something sweet. “hey, K,” i shouted. i waited until her face filled the view and then i unleashed the secret weapon, “what should i be for halloween?” she froze. her eyes grew pumpkin sized. her grin, a jack-o-lantern.

“i don’t know,” came tumbling through her teeth. her usual response. she looked towards her mom.

sister J prodded her, guided her, mothered her.

“a witch,” K said and looked right at me.

this sunday, i’m going to show her my costume.

feelings

terrible

in class last night, my mind wandered and my hand wrote in cursive. the only time i write in cursive is to sign my name. looking at the paper, my cursive resembles a third grader’s. it looks i’m writing in another language. pig latin and cursive. i don’t remember when i stopped writing in cursive and returned to printing.

cursive is supposed to be fluid and therefore easier to write, but when have i ever taken the easy route?

our homework this week is to write a terrible story.