i would like a time travel machine, please, and for it to be september now.  i love summer.  adore it.  so for me to say i would gladly give up 2 months of the glorious season just for it to be two months in the future - you know i mean it.

“I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the
thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty… you fall half
in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.”

--h. caulfield

i like being a girl.

although, i don't really think i'm THAT girl, the type of girl who inspires fictional characters to spring epithets like that.  it reminds me of when kj told me the story of how her youth pastor sat her down and called her a temptress or seductress or something like that (if my memory serves me correctly), and how that was meant to be an admonishment, but kristin laughed and thought of how ridiculously untrue that was, but somehow complimentary. 

we may not have the devastating secret girl powers like THOSE girls - the ones who could pull an orange out of their pocket and everyone thinks it's a miraculous artistic talent (you know who i'm talking about), but perhaps we carry our power in our magic bracelets, like wonder woman.

i have no idea why i'm thinking these things right now.

so, i have no job as of august 25th.  my boss, code name flamingo, said they did not have the money to keep me part-time and hire my replacement.

i'm pretty mixed about the decision, which i can best describe in one word: shortsighted.  however, i only have my side of the vision on this, so i'm just going to let that one go.

part of me feels very sad to leave my favorite coworkers, who i adore, and even the ones who are odd, as they give me entertainment and plenty of fuel for my internal scorn furnace.  i'm nervous to leave the stability of being at the same place, in a job i know and have seniority, where i have spent the last four years.  i loathe the idea of looking for a new job, a part-time job, and trying to navigate this.  i'm excited about the idea of new possibilities, and being able to focus more on my education.

i'm one of those people who really actually wants to learn, and be a really good educator.  i hope that can happen. 

emerson said "we are always getting ready to live, but never living."

that's the best way to sum up a little how i feel.  nothing like god shaking your whole world up like a snow globe that pushes you out of your mind.  figuratively, and literally.

"per capita, minneapolis produces more rock critics than any city on earth.  if you meet a rock critic who isn't from new york, there's a 33 percent chance they were raised (or once worked) in the twin cities."

-- killing yourself to live, chuck klosterman

why do we think this is true? 

"pina colada weekend" was a very good idea.

nearly every morning that i wake up, i hit an almost palpable wave of despair.  i mean, like when you open the front door of a house in a humid southern state in mid-july, this despair feels like a heart attack.

this has gone on for years.

i don't remember when it started.  i'm used to it now, in the fact that it doesn't make me crawl back in bed or fail to move on about my day and walk it off like a charlie horse received in gym class.  it usually disappears completely, on good days, or at least dissipates into a melancholy or an angerball, on bad days. 

if i'm up late enough, it creeps back at night, in time to crawl in bed with me.

*  *  *  *

i'm not sure what this means, if anything.  i'm not sure what to do about it, if a solution exists.  if it's not really a problem, does it have a solution?  i have this nagging sense that there must be an alternative to feeling bricks on your chest each morning.   

the boy's pastor experiences the opposite.  he feels amazing first thing in the morning, and it slowly wears off during the day.  his son, an atheist, is more alike to me.  despair for breakfast, and perhaps happiness or contentment as an afternoon snack.

it's bothersome to me.  actually, to say it's bothersome is just the detatched general "i'm sharing this with people i haven't seen in person for years" way to discuss it.  sometimes the worry is that one day this storm is going to take me under -- or, perhaps worse, just drain the color in my life until it looks like television in the fifties.  and not in the good nostalgic way.

any thoughts on this?  anyone feel the same way - i mean, for years?  despite absolute feelings of joy, and triumph, and being a very hopeful, optimistic and lively person? 

it feels like this anchor to my boat that i have to reel up every morning.  that's all i'm saying. 

that, and i seem to have a dearth of boat metaphors in my life lately.

perhaps i am thinking about my FABULOUSLY awesome watch that the valedictorian of boyfriends got for me.   this, yes this is the fabled watch from such posts as "i have a decision making disorder" and "pre-purchase buyer's remorse."

and it, in case you haven't gathered, is totally boss.