Days When I Couldn't Live My Life Without You

I've been reading back over a lot of my old stuff lately, the blogs I wrote and the short stories, the comments on other blogs and Facebook. A little digitally-assisted trip down memory lane if you will. It's always good to look back through the old words and rediscover yourself, like recognizing an old friend that you haven't seen in years. A little sad, too. For all that I try every day to be a better and more ideal person I really haven't changed much. Sometimes I wonder if anybody really does change their own essential personality sheerly through force of will... Or if, as that cheesy vampire novelist said somewhere, we're are like flowers unfolding: ever more truly and completely ourselves. Every change actually just a further realization of who we really are and always will be. Forgive me if I find that both distressing and soothing at the same time, will you? It would be nice to think that my lack of change is not only not my fault but out of my hands completely...

Just as it completely sucks to think that somebody you love can't change for the better and if you really love them you'd better just fucking choke down all the parts you don't like because they're permanent.

Giveth and taketh away, right?

Right now there is snow on the ground outside my window.

I know it's just temporary: a few days ago we were in the forest looking at the tender new shoots the melting snow had uncovered, and we were wearing only shirtsleeves and jeans. The temperature has dropped exactly fourteen degrees since then and will surely rebound even higher within the week. March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, that's what they taught me in kindergarten. After much abstinence and an unbelievable number of miles racked up on my pedometer I am STILL packing around 20 pounds of winter gut between my ribs and hips. I lift free weights, I climb three flights of stairs four times a day and still my metabolism won't let me catch a break. Now that clean living and a reasonable diet have failed me after just a few months I'm going to turn to steroids and artificial thyroid hormones. Screw it - better living through chemistry, right?

Anyway, I didn't sit down here to write anything in particular and once again I've more or less succeeded at that. As one final reflection, you can try to do your very best without making it even once but if you actually try to fail you'll at least come reasonably close each and every time. Clearly, it's all about adjusting your goals - if you succeed at failing then aren't you still a success?

Have a wonderful time. Do all that you can to be happy because I still believe that it's all that really counts. Until I post again here, all of my best to all of you.

Title lyric from "Days Go By" by Dirty Vegas.