never fully-clothed or intentionally misinforming

-- I remember spinning a top when I was a kid. I would watch it, in awe of its smooth, silent, and almost flawless twirling.  When I close my eyes, I can visualize it - how it almost appeared to my child mind to be entirely motionless. When it's balanced like that, even though it's spinning, it's silent and still. And every part of itself is designed for this very behavior.  A beautiful, flawless spin like this is its entire purpose. I can remember a time when, with my eyes focused intently on my spinning top, I witnessed the fraction of a second in which it lost balance. I didn't see why. Maybe it was a simple grain of sand on the floor. But the top, it waivered. And that grain of sand had ended things.  It was only a fraction of a second - a moment of contact between the sand and the top. But I can remember how it flew wildly and erratically in all directions. And now our top is knocking and hitting and spinning. It will likely stop any secon

I tried something new today. Detra invited me to try a Barre class with her. It was intense, but so much fun. I confirmed I do not know how to dance, but the room was full of delightfully uncoordinated women, so I fit right in. I look at myself in the mirror sometimes and I really don't like what I see. Especially in the area between my boobs and my butt. I'm so big in the middle. It's not what I want. Maybe having Detra coaxing me out of my safety zone will help me discover new and adventurous ways of trimming down. Who knows.

It's raining. It has been most of the weekend. It's one of those effects you don't expect - for the rain to make you sad after the loss of a loved one. It makes perfect sense in hindsight. I love the rain. But now, for now, it makes me kind of sulky. I'm staying inside today. Thinking about Susan and about the plans we might have made on a weekend like this. Yesterday I made the impromptu decision to take Dominic to the antique shop because I knew Jeff was helping Mom and Dad. While there, Jeff mentioned a vinyl store in Ocala called Vinyl Oasis that was having a massive overstock sale - CDs, cassettes, and vinyl for $0.50. He had never been there before and obviously neither had I. I helped Jeff wrap up with Mom and Dad, and they offered to keep Dominic for awhile, so Jeff and I could check out the sale. We were sitting on the floor of the store, doing the hunt for treasures when it occurred to me - this isn't something I've ever done with Jeff. This is s

Today I had a really rough time. Last night I couldn't sleep. Because I made the mistake (it's not reallly a mistake) of reading my Instagram DM chat with Susan and reading my Facebook DM chat with her too. Goddamn I miss her. I ended up sleeping in until 10 AM while Dominic watched cartoons in my room. We got up, I made him a weekend breakfast, did some around-the-house projects, and then packed a lunch and headed to Green Lantern Antiques for the afternoon. There Mom, Dad, and I talked about Susan a lot. And we all three cried. It's so hard to comprehend that she's not just someplace else right now - like we're not just waiting for her to get back from somewhere. Goddamn I miss her so much. We went home from the shop around 5 PM. Mom and Dad headed home too. And from that point, my heart was just so tremendously heavy. I made Dominic some dinner, we showered and bathed relatively early so we could snuggle up and relax for the rest of the night. As we wer