8,760 Little Hours

A film came out a while back, I’m not sure how long ago, entitled Things We Lost in the Fire.
I never saw it, I think I may have seen a preview, but I’m not sure.
In any case, I have the impression the film is about more than the material goods that burned.
It deals with the “everything now is different” experience. Life was X it is now Y and it is Y because of Z; the fire in this case being Z and providing a line of demarcation between X and Y.

I am, given my general personality, inclined to view lines of demarcation in a negative way. Before I got sick. After my grandmother died. After I crashed my car. Rarely do I highlight the positive changes. After I moved to London. After I redid my apartment.

This summer was, of course, filled with change. For that matter, so has this year. It’s puerile, I think, to mark this change as “new job” or “family death.” It doesn’t capture exactly how different my life feels in now from before, the exciting and (mostly) positive ways in which it is different. Today though, I think I stumbled upon it.

It’s Thursday. The Thursday before pay day. I asked my assistant if she was going out for lunch and rolled her eyes and said, “nope, brought.” Then it dawned on me. Of COURSE she brought her lunch. Tomorrow’s payday who has lunch money today?

So that’s it. I’m now living AFTER I stopped worrying about having enough money to buy lunch.

This feels good.

Extemporanious

In 4th grade my mother gave me a book of poetry by Judith Voirst (she of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day fame). If I Were in Charge of the World was the title and my mother inscribed it with the message, "Don't you wish you were!"

What can I say? I like to hear myself talk. I also like to tell people what to do. That I am the eldest daughter of 4 children is not unrelated. But, I digress.

I especially like to hold court as it were (ed., perhaps that's why I have a blog). Give me a drink or two and well, my usually loose lips come unhinged.

Fortunately for me, my roommate adores these ramblings and calls them my “Dr. Seuss’s Guides.” As in “Doctor Seuss’s Guide to Having an Affair and Managing a Business,” the title of one of my more recent monologues (ed., I am neither having an affair nor running a business). I make pronouncements, give advice and make commentary on a variety of subjects. Monday’s subject was, predictably, relationships. The details of these lectures are always fuzzy for me, but apparently the phrase “corn-fed thighs” came up, several times.


Corn fed thighs. Just the phrase makes me laugh.