monday

Today I had supper at 1:14am, and it was a large Diet Coke and fries from McDonald's.

I paid with tip money from my closing shift at the coffee shop where I work.

I asked my mom to borrow $200 so that I could pay for some parking tickets that rolled over to my student accounts, which resulted in a hold on said account, meaning I couldn't verify my course registration for the fall.

I emailed an old professor about the William Faulkner chapter that, in its entirety, reads "My mother is a fish." because I was feeling nostalgic about reading Faulkner novels in a remarkably beautiful old building and beneath sprawling oak trees when I was 22 and the whole world felt big and tiny at once.

(He told me that he was happy to hear from me his new book is coming out and to stay tuned. I'm sure it's an excellent book.)

I realized I had been living in Colorado for exactly one year today, thanks to social media, and tried really hard to think about what I've learned here. Because I do think that's the point of doing whatever you do, really, is to learn something. Right? Maybe?

I let myself get worked up because apparently Libras are often tone, mood, and emotion sensitive to others and are hyperaware when things shift. I don't know if it's true for everyone, but I think it fits me well, and so at least I have an explanation/excuse.

I reread some of my journal, and I had apparently been quite frustrated that people I'm physically attracted to have referred to me as "cute." And then I wondered for a while about what makes a person "pretty" or "beautiful "or "cute" anyway. And then I realized it really doesn't matter because apparently when I've described someone in words, I say things like "S/he is fascinating and lovely" so maybe it's fine.

I remembered how excited I was last year about moving here and feel so far away from the incoming first-year graduate students because so much has happened since I was where they are now.

I thought about how much I love the new sheets I bought ("cute" is a nice adjective for things like sheets) and tried to rekindle my relationship with my bed. Really hit reset and remember how its sole purpose, aside from making my bedroom be just that, is to give me and both of my cats a place to rest. I don't have to be kind to it; it's littered with books, and it's unmade, but it loves me anyway. At least it hasn't left. And so, I should probably show it a little appreciation. Cheers, bed.

Now I'm wondering why the commemoration of my bed had the lengthiest section in this post, but it's fine.

I was going to do laundry, but I did something like 78% of it two days ago, so it wasn't ever a real necessity that needed to get done today.

I took a 20 minute nap in between researching and coffee shopping and dreamed about an intense conversation that never happened and preoccupied myself during my drive trying to understand why we dream what we do and what it means. But then I remembered that there are people who study those things, and I'm not one of them.

I could have married my shower because I finally bought new shampoo and soap and things that you use in the shower, and it was fantastic. I wanted to stay longer, but I thought if I overstayed my welcome, it might be less gratifying when I shower tomorrow, so I kept it short.

I really, really love surprises and so I was thinking about fun surprises I could do, for people I love, for when classes start back in the fall, and then I remembered I'm a graduate student who works at a coffee shop and I'm somewhat limited on what I can actually do.

And then I felt shitty because I knew with near certainty that no one I was thinking about was thinking about surprising me, and that's a crazy feeling. So I quit thinking about surprises for a while and wondered how Harper Lee's new book will be when I get around to reading it.

That was Monday.

And that was okay.