Proof

I am so relieved. Seriously, I am so, so, so relieved.

Ever since I got my library card renewed (it’s a major change in my life, this library card renewal business, brought on a serious existential crisis), I’ve been desperately worrying that I am Not Cut Out to be a writer, and that I’ve been sort of nailing my colors to the mast all this time when really I am just doomed to be miserable no matter what I do, and being a writer won’t make me happy. But I am pleased to report that my experiment from yesterday worked perfectly.

I read two books yesterday. I love reading. And you know what makes reading even better? I will tell you what makes reading even better: feeling like you are achieving work while you are reading. Actually, this makes everything better. This is why I like cross-stitching, and covering books in contact paper, while I watch movies or Merlin or whatever. If I have an end product, I feel like the time I spent watching Merlin wasn’t wasted, because look! I accomplished something! I protected my books for the rest of forever! Anyway, so yesterday I read two books, and when I finished them, I was like, YES! I HAVE LEARNED! WITH EACH BOOK I READ I BECOME MIGHTIER IN KNOWLEDGE. NOW I MUST GO FORTH AND CREATE! And then I laughed an evil scientist laugh and put a few more bolts into the head of my monster and set him loose on the populace.

And then I worked on this one story until three, and by then I was tired, so I put on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I haven’t watched the fourth season in forever – it’s sad when they all split apart and don’t love each other!) and watched that while revising another story, and that was very satisfactory, and then in the evening I ate an unhealthy dinner and washed my hair and went to bed early. Which I expect is about what I would do if I were for reals a full-time writer.

And today? Today I am in SUCH A GOOD MOOD. Holy crap. I have such love for humanity right now. This morning after I got dressed, I was like, Hey, Buffy’s hair looked so pretty when she tied the front bits in the back. I’m going to try that with my hair. I get these ideas a lot in the morning, and normally it goes like this:

(JENNY tries to make HAIR do what she wants.)
HAIR: Fuck you. I would prefer to be in a braid.
JENNY: NO. THIS IS WHAT I WANT.
HAIR: I refuse to obey you.
(HAIR gets into a hopeless snarl and JENNY is reduced to tears at how unmanageable HAIR is, but after two tries she recognizes that it’s never going to work, so she just puts stupid HAIR in a braid.)

If you see me, and my hair’s in a braid, then it’s not terribly unlikely that the above scene played out that morning. But today, it went like this.

(JENNY tries to make hair do what she wants.)
HAIR: Fuck you. I would prefer to be in a braid.
(HAIR gets into a hopeless snarl.)
JENNY: Oh, Hair darling, if you only knew how much I loved you!
(JENNY untangles HAIR gently and lovingly, and gives it another go and succeeds brilliantly and looks pretty and thereafter has to keep checking herself out in a mirror because she loves her hair ever so much and never gets to see it all long and nice because ordinarily when it’s down it gets in her eyes until she hates it and puts it back in a braid.)

So, good. I am not doomed to misery. My hair looks pretty today, and writing is definitely what I’m supposed to be doing. End library card renewal existential crisis.