Growing up.

I am snug in my new apartment. I have planted flower boxes and strung patio lanterns. I have a squirrel that eats my strawberries. He picks one, takes a bite of the tip, throws the rest away. Greedy squirrel!

The inside of the apartment is less organized than the patio, but you gotta start somewhere. Most of the kitchen stuff is unpacked, since there wasn't that much to begin with, but the clothes and sundries remain flung about, half in bins, hanging on the back of the chaise, shoved aside to make a clear path from the front door, through the kitchen, to the patio. Priorities. Doing a little bit each day, but am on hold for the completion of unpacking kitchen and bathroom due to plumbers trooping in here each weekday at 8am. They are repiping the whole building. I'll be quite pleased when it's all done and the shower works like a shower and nothing leaks and everything is shiny and all my things can go in their drawers and on their shelves and under their sinks.

I love it here. Love it, love it, love it. I have been waiting for this for a long, long time. I mean, I have been wanting it, but maybe not working towards it as vigorously as I have been since the winter. Further to that, the whole winter business, you should know that I am just coming along tickety boo. Adulthood and I are having a nice time getting to know each other. We think it'll last. I've not experienced this before, a consistent good mood, waking looking forward to going to work, very little anxiety, if any. I am, I think, a bit relentlessly cheerful. I'm fucking thrilled to be inside it, but it does consume me at the moment in a way not unlike depression did. I am filled with wonder at how it is to just feel good. I am swimming in it. I am pretty much only interested in doing things that keep that train on track. The good mood train. I think it must be what it's like to have laser eye surgery. I bet you don't get tired of waking up and being able to see. I'm not getting tired of waking up pleased, of being able to see a different way of doing things.

I am going out now to get some coffee and maybe a pastry, and possibly a newspaper. I might get a newspaper and read it while I drink my coffee. Heaven! I can do whatever I want in whatever order I want. Cause I live alone, and it's all paid for, and I have a job, and.....!! Sweet. I am giddy, giddy, giddy.

I even like my thighs. Things must be going well.

xo
r.

Give me my face time!

I'm sorry. Facebook has been taking me away from you. I'm trying to cut down, honestly.

Sexy, sexy French.

It is hot enough to have all the windows in the house open and early enough in the season so as to still smell sweet out there. Lovely smells, from my neighbours' cooking notwithstanding, shinny in my window. Sweet sounds, the neighbours' children notwithstanding, do vibratto duty just at ear level. Hover there. Some sort of power tool. A child practicing the recorder. Another child shrieks, one wails, two argue. Mother's whispered conversations, "I don't think you should keep your story to yourself, Mel, I think you have to share your story with everyone." "Well, yes, I suppose I should." Strangest snippets make themselves clear above all other noise.

Anyway, it is hot, and I am in a fishbowl. New apartment, July 1st.

Hey, cleared the way to recover from some old mistakes today. Got something off my shoulders that was really bugging me. Am taking care of it and it feels very, very good.

Have noticeably stopped advising people of my every mood change or even the hint of a change, but now I think I am hardly talking to anyone. I talk to so many people at work every day, I am talked out when I leave that place. Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk.

There is suddenly the sound of an accordian coming from somewhere. Why is it that whenever I hear an accordian or fiddles I automatically think, "Those are my kind of people"? The circus.

The music is very sweet, wherever it's coming from, and it's making me a bit nostalgiac, and in need of a good country weekend. Er...a good weekend in the country. I have to practice being French, riding around in cotton frocks, a baguette and some fresh flowers in the basket of my bicycle. "Ring, ring!" goes the bell on my squeaky, red bike. I laugh and my laugh is made of coffee, croissants and cigarettes, and is unselfconcious.

I love the French.

You want cryptic? My pleasure.

There is so much to tell, and so much I can not say. The spring is feverish.

Currently there is a woman cooing at what I hope is her dog, out for a late night once round the courtyard. She is coaxing it in high pitched tones into relieving itself, no doubt for the greater good, otherwise known as her carpet. I love sleeping with the windows open, for the movement of blossom scented air around me, and a cool pillow, but the sounds of a lady and her cockapoo puppy I could do without.

Really, it is harder and harder to write as certain stories unfold in my universe, for until the tales are unravelled, there is too much to lose. Great things are at stake, and in limbo, including my very heart, and my patience and good will, my compassion and rationality are being tested. There are many decisions to be made, but all things in order and in good time.

In the mean time, I have procured art supplies, to keep my fingers busy, books for my thoughts to be pushed aside, and a bicycle and helmet that I might keep this heart pumping and strong while waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

You will know, soon enough, and most of you know something of it already. The stars and planets, they are aligning.

Me, I just work and write jokes. More jokes. Dark jokes. Dirty jokes. I am getting ready to take on the world.

Good night, my dears.

xo
r.

A mind that wanders. And wades.

Sleep does not come easily these days, though mood swings abound, and the wolves they howl all night long. In and out of dreams, not lucid dreaming exactly, but near enough. Not controlled but vividly remembered and relived throughout the day.

The show. The show was good. Saturday night. Restored my faith, though rocked me for the week leading up. The nerves were raw, and my temper flared with frequency, though of late I am thinking that perhaps the coffee intake and not enough water coupled with unpredictable weather patterns and a love life that refuses to be simple may also be spurring the demons on. I have been snappish with workmates from time to time, though try to mostly bite my tongue. But the show. The new joke I wrote, which is what got me all excited in the first place, went over very well, and I told a joke I wrote last year but which I have not told that often, and I nailed it, and tagged it differently, and better.

Where is this all going.

There is certainly more to tell. I try, I try. I fall. I get up. I ride out the hard days, hours, minutes, know that things will not always be thus, in fact may change on a dime. And they do. Change. Yesterday so full of anger and sadness. Took to my bed after work and cried and tossed and turned, today was full of sunshine and I rode my bike to work then all around town, ringing the bell and feeling general good will. The back of my thighs are making the odd under breath complaint, as are my shoulders, but am looking forward to a better sleep.

Two nights ago I dreamed a novel, or a film, or at least the bones of one. It is very dark, and I am certainly mulling it over, brewing it. My roommate is away this weekend and I am going to spend some quiet time writing. Riding bike, drinking decaf, ringing bell, and writing novels. Sounds good. Possibly work some necking in there and call it a great two days off.

Take care of selves, do right things.

xo
r.