The Vagabond

Be happy. It's one way of being wise. - Colette

I can be a little destructive. Like a kid when the Legos are about to be taken away. It manifests mostly in my personal life, and is the cause of most of my sleepless nights.

Having said something like that, in good conscience, can I just keep moving forward like it's business as usual?

Then again: do I have a choice?

Faced with times like these. Reckoning times. I either crawl into a shell and meditate or I keep pushing. Frankly, I cannot afford to shell myself up. That's a luxury. So I can only hope I'm getting more graceful, even as I'm making my mistakes. Even as I am having a blast.

I'm in retrograde.




Is there anything more dispiriting than a going out of business sale? Maybe when it's your favorite bookstore, and you walked there from your house all jazzed to shop for new books in this huge and labyrinthine place, you know. And you show up, and there's just one beautiful emo kid working there anymore. There's not even a proper checkout area. There is just this sad folding table and a scale, where they are weighing the books you pick out and charging you 99 cents a pound. There is only one room left of books, in your favorite bookstore.

Yes, that's a little more dispiriting. I found myself standing there in a store that'd shrunken by like two thirds, this shell of a store. And shopped like I always did. I went to the general area I was looking for and then looked at every book on the shelf, one by one. I was looking for Colette, and indeed found a scrapbook filled with pictures and stories of her life. A find. 99 cents. I got a book called "Bitches Ride Alone" simply for the title of it. 99 cents. I got "Molly Dear" which is written from the point of view of a female android who suddenly finds herself able to think about who she is. 2 bucks, because it's thick.

And so on. I was sad I'd walked, but glad as well. I could only get so much. I bought 5 books and carried them home under my arm self-consciously, and by the time I got to my apartment both my wrists ached.




Today I went riding with John and we had lunch at Beach Chalet and realized like halfway through it that the restaurant kinda sucks. The food isn't good, it's not very clean and the service is just so-so. All of this time we've been going there, entranced by the twenty dollar sandwiches into thinking it was a classy experience. It takes the 2 of us there at once to figure out that no, it's not all of that at all.

But the view is lovely. And they serve triple-layer cocktails, too.





Now I'm reading again, avoiding sports on television and preparing for work tomorrow. I swear there is not one area of my life right now where I am not being called to task. Not to be all like, oh my life is so hard. But to illustrate, somewhat at least, my state of mind lately. I feel like all of a sudden I have a lot of decisions to make.

And that makes me really nervous, but really excited too. I think this is where we separate the women from the girls.

Almost everything changes over time. Situations and people and alliances and standards and resources. But there is always a constant viewpoint. Right behind that seems to be the only sure thing, the only thing you can lay any sort of claim to.

If you have faith in that you can make your boldest choices fearlessly.

And if you're really good at it you can be happy, as well.

At least that's how I feel about it today. I'll keep you posted.