Sprain

It is definitely March 1st. March is one of those months that teases you into expecting an instantaneous end to a long season but never really delivers. It always promises green grass and green beer and white shoes but usually just barely coughs out the sun and even when it manages that, it usually hides behind a phlegmy gray sky. April is usually where it's at. I always forget that. Considering it is unbearably cold today, as it has been nearly every single day this entire winter, it is business as usual. I am trying to get past it all by reading ee cummings, working (just what in the hell else is new) and thinking about soup.

In true uncharacteristic fashion, I've outlined my budget for the next three months. It was like being inside a bouncy house. Correction: it was like ME at 10 years old, being inside a bouncy house: nauseated and with the full expectation that I'd sprain my ankle at some point. In terms of my budget, ankle sprain=going broke. But if my calculations are correct, I'll be ok until the end of June. By the end of May, rumor has it that my full time job will let everyone know if they can expect to be employed in the coming fiscal year. So, I'm not saying that is a looming doom that hangs over the heads of everyone in employment but... I personally have been envisioning all the book shelves toppling over one by one each time I walk through the library. So there's that.

I'm reaching back to the small corners in my memory for information to compile a status report on the first two months of 2014 and all I can come up with is how cold I've been. I can't remember not being cold. Even when I'm snuggled up in my bed under layers of clothes, two cats and three blankets, including a down comforter, I feel cold. Yet things did happen this year so far. After five and a half years, I left a part time job with little to no fanfare.  My director did not even acknowledge I was leaving. So, GREAT use of five years of my life there. I don't like to burn bridges, much less in a public blog, but there was only a fraction of ounce of love lost on my side of things. I'll miss a few people but honestly, I am so glad to be out of there. I already feel lighter and happier and, if not optimistic, then not totally negative. And all despite the fact that I am making a lot less money now.

And I started a new job, too. And things here are 180 degrees away from where I left and so far I love the absence of pessimism. It does feel like I imagine a second marriage to feel: you're still excited and hopeful, but it is tempered. I feel very even here. Feeling even is a welcome respite from my natural state of feeling slightly Tower of Pisa (so please, be kind if I'm a mess) and I'm grateful for a port in the storm.

As usual, I feel full of ideas at the moment. This is the 11am me. I would like to get into the habit this month of being the 11am me at 6pm, but only because my free moments usually land around then. Also, for the past few years, when the sun goes down, my body and brain transition automatically into "useless" mode after dinner. Considering I'm not getting younger, even with my projected death date being sixty one years away (give or take an hour), I feel the need to take each moment and use the crap out of it.

And on that eloquent note, it is lunch time. Happy March.