Perfect Days

It's been a while since I sat down like I am now on my virgin-white sofa on a day like today. (I was too cheap to get a color other than white.) It's beautiful outside. I felt full and fed from church, and I thought company would make today the perfect day. When I couldn't find it, true to my pathetic, self-pitying form, I completely forgot about my fullness and happiness and grew angry instead.

The truth is there have been many things that would've made many perfect days. If I just got that grade, if I just had a job, if I just knew what I was doing, if I had someone I felt free to talk to, if I just had ____. When did God stop being enough?

I've known it for a while now, but writing things down and out is always the hardest for me. It makes things concrete, real, and then I have to deal with that ish. I pushed God off the stage and made myself the center of my universe. Clothes, fun for fun's sake, writing, getting published, accomplishment, fame, recognition -- when I am dead and gone, what are these good for? For my children to remember my name? They will die, too. For this world to know of my delusions of glory? Only to feed their ignorance until it's too late. This world is temporal.

God is more than my conception of "more than enough."
God is my God.
God is good.
You are all that is good.

Two in the Morning

I rarely stay up this late, and I remember I don't do that because I start to look up things like

A Sur la Table Mini Doughnut Pan is not a luxury. It's a necessity.

This is why I am 'Girl in the Afternoon.'

La Parisienne

C'est parfait. Je voudrais etudier le francais a nouveau...

P.S. How do you do accents on blogger?

(photo via Style Essentials)

In Black and White Print

I turned something into the NYT Modern Love contest yesterday. I turned it in at exactly 11:58 p.m. eastern time. The deadline was 11:59 p.m. And unfortunately, my chances aren't lookin' too hot. True, I only found out about the contest two days before the deadline, but I've cranked out personal essays with less time before, ones that I ended up loving. And this was supposed to be an essay on modern love, for crying out loud! I had a whole blog devoted to the topic! I should've been trotting all over that damn park.

I don't even know if I can call it a funk? Because I've had those -- where it's just a really ugly road block, one that's only there to make you take the longest possible detour, to your convenience, of course. But at least you got there. I wrote two completely different essays, settled on a third, and hated all of them. I would read them out loud to Norman (reading out loud is essential for me), and I wouldn't even finish before I said, "Is this boring? This is boring, isn't it? Ohmygod, it's boring and you know me."

I would write them, and yes, there would be moments of pretty prose, but at the end of it, I would just stop and say out loud, "What am I doing?" I had no idea what I was trying to say. What am I trying to say? What's the point? The "so what"?

It's something that's been really bothering me lately. My professor said writers should always have a point of view. It's best to know what you're trying to say before, but you should definitely be somewhere at the end of it. But what if I don't have anything to say at all? What if I'm a creamless cannoli?

I don't expect anything. (That's a lie: I expect the NYT editors to scratch their scalps with their valuable fingers. That's a lie, too. I want this. I want(ed) this badly because for the first time I felt like I really had a shot at it. Maybe I wanted it too much. Is that wrong? To want it too much? April is going to be a long month.) I did it for the sake of the opportunity because that's what I've learned I have to do, and if I'm better because of it, that's all I can ask for. (Okay, yes, another lie. I'm in a fragile state, and I just need some validation that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.) Now, does anyone have any Funk-B-Gone?

(photos via pinterest, vi.sualize.us, a glamorous little side project)

In case you haven't heard

I can't believe I've lived long enough to see a major trend come full circle. I officially feel old.

P.S. I want

a french press. I saw an ad outside of Peet's as I was passing by, and I'm planning on stopping in later this week.

Yup. I want one bad.

On Cowardice

I have a problem.

I'm scared of the blank page of MS Word, that large, white, relentless expanse that evaporates my words into dilapidation. And while this is a pretty common fear, it poses a particular problem when my entire college career (and future one, I hope) is dependent on writing.

You see, regardless of how I come off, I'm actually a huge coward. I'm scared of my own freaking shadow. And I think the reason I avoid the wordless .doc like the plague, more than anything, is that I'm afraid of what I'll end up with, or more specifically, that what I'll end up with won't be good enough or worse, good at all. If I don't try at all, then I can't be bad. Unfortunately, I can't be good either. I would be nothing at all.

I'm scared of the judgment. Your writing is a little convoluted, Esther. Your writing could do without that paragraph. You could do without that paragraph. You sound contrived. You sound archaic. You are unoriginal. You are just not good enough.

Where do I get my value from?


Time to buck up and write that essay.

(photos via pinterest)