(Sunday)

Lately, I have had too much to do and I have spent too much time standing on dark subway platforms praying, after 28 minutes of pacing and being hit on by the young jocks in flat brims and trying to read but getting distracted by the smells and the young women and middle-aged men staring at me and the young jocks talking loudly and trying to impress me, for a train to bring me home.

More than that though I am concerned with how much of my life revolves around me these days. In the past I volunteered multiple times a week and took classes to expand my mind and sought out new activities and kickboxed and was in a writing group and attended Taize every week and went hiking in the woods by myself every weekend (where I met with squirrels and birds and, on one frightening afternoon, three wild dogs) and sang every Sunday with a choir.

These days I don't do much of any of those things. I could blame people or situations or, most likely, deride myself. But mostly I think it's because I'm tired. I'm doing so many new things again and I've already done so many things-- in the past I volunteered and took classes and sought out new activities and kickboxed and was in a writing group and attended Taize and went hiking in the woods and sang with a choir, and I moved once every four months for nearly three years. These days I don't have it in me-- at least not all of it at the same time. Right now perhaps what I need is to not do any of those things, even though a large part of me feels very anxious about the fact that I am not doing enough with my life and I am certainly not doing enough for other people.

If I were talking to someone else I would tell them, "before you can help other people you have to get yourself to a place where you have the physical and emotional energy with which to do so. otherwise, it's not sustainable, and it's not good for you-- and, speaking of doing good for people, aren't you a person too?

But when I feed this advice to myself all I get back is sass and criticism. What kind of friend am I!

(Saturday)

I have considered it and I have concluded that I accept the both the word "overexaggerate" and the concept behind it. I believe this because as we all know it is possible to exaggerate and furthermore I think it is possible to exaggerate upon an exaggeration, an easier way to describe this being "overexaggeration". At the same time I have decided that I am fully opposed to the word that I was hating earlier, though I am currently unable to remember both the word and my reasons for loathing it.

Fighting brings me back to barricading myself in the bedroom in defense against my mother, crying because I felt helpless against her attacks from the other side of the door.

I want to have a dog named Leo, whose ears will be softer even than the lamb's ear growing beneath my parents' mailbox in whatever season lamb's ear reaches its prime. Leo and I will go everywhere together, and when we don't feel like going anywhere we will lounge about in a king size bed and he will wag his tail at all my bad jokes and I will tell him my feelings and rub his silken ears.

I want too much and too often fail to notice all of those ways in which life brims with abundance. I admit this despite being acutely aware that this establishes me as both a cultural trope and an American stereotype, and with additional awareness of the fact that the phrase "acutely aware" is common and perhaps over-used. Yes, but accurate.

I am getting slightly better at omitting the additional clause or the fragmented sentence at the end of a paragraph. I am getting slightly better at letting the space between have its space.