You know when you’re a kid and you play that superpower game, the one where you try to figure out which power you’d like to have? I wanted to be able to overhear conversations from afar so that I could know what the boys were saying about me (because lord knows they weren’t saying anything good to my face). Looking back, I was never really committed to that power, and sort of defaulted it the way some women autopilot Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt/George Clooney as the Epitome of Man Sexy. If I could have a “super power” today I think it would be to make people love me. Sure, I know what you’re thinking but seriously, imagine it. Think of all the energy you’d save if you could just make men fall in love with you. No more short skirts, self-doubt, mind games, awkward first conversations. No more analyzing the most obvious of statements. To be one hundred percent sure that “We should get something to eat” is neither his attempt at facetious nor an invitation for marriage, and does in fact only mean that he’s hungry and wants to get something to eat and would really like it if you could maybe join him.

A lot has happened in the year since I've written here. I went on vacation alone. I changed employers thrice and now find myself in a circle I never knew had an entrance. I went from "powerful" and "chunky" to "tall and thin". I discovered good music (Seriously, I wish more people would ask me what I'm listening to so I could share). I finally fell out of love with someone I now realize barely even liked me. I helped someone get married. I got to know myself better and love myself more. I've become more obnoxious (as evidenced by this entry).

The year treated me well. I've been happy.

I need to remember that.

My last post was about not being happy, but now I am happy, but I don't want to share why I'm happy because somewhere in the definition of Stupid resides my thought process and while I both know and have proof of this, you don't. And I would very much rather it stay that way.

Sometimes I wonder how different my life might be if I were the kind of girl who bought coffee for others with her own change and said hello to everyone in the office as she passed, instead of the girl who laughs at the woman with the sticker on her behind and regularly formulates the demise of others.

People ask how the new job is going and I respond 'It's not wretched'. It isn't wretched. Sometimes it's even really nice. Still, it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, which is good since it means I still have an iota of ambition that university failed to kill. But I am so lost. I don't know what I want to do. Or rather, what I can do. I know what I want to do. I want to wake up at noon every day and fall asleep to the sound of Paul Walker's voice reading me bedtime stories.

So, as I am wont to do when we're on the phone and have exhausted all the major topics, yet no one is quite prepared to hang up, I'm going to sigh, 'I don't know, I don't know' into the silence, and hope that somehow a new idea starts from there.

For as long as I have been cognitively aware of her presence, my maternal grandmother has had the ability to predict precipitation by slapping twice at her weak left knee. Still, snazzy geriatric tricks aside, arthritis is close to being the bane of my grandmother’s existence, much as I’m realizing now that my stomach is mine. Oh, for a while it had me convinced that it was all in my head, a mere coincidence that I was struck by a twenty-four hour stomach flu during two consecutive Christmases. And who can forget back in ninth grade when I lost my ability to hold down anything heavier than orange juice for breakfast? Mind over matter, my mother told me. But then two years ago, when an ulcer had me carrying around economy 4-packs of TUMS and avoiding spicy foods and coffee like an overworked 55 year old mid-level accountant, I finally accepted that my stomach probably calls me ‘stupid mother-fucker’ behind my back. Because both people and bodily organs that consistently bring the hurt while you make excuses for them are calling you ‘stupid mother-fucker’ behind your back, trust me.

I woke up at around eight this morning and immediately started rocking back and forth cursing my dreaded stomach for today’s newest malady. It feels like someone stabbed me in the stomach with a precise instrument while I was asleep, and now I’m bleeding to death internally. I could tell myself that my stomach is reacting badly to the meat I ate last night, but seriously? My stomach reacts badly to Aunt Jemima Pancake Syrup.

I already had a green Popple, but I dearly wanted a 'girl' Popple (preferably the fat pink Popple, but no dice). My mother wouldn't buy me another one, so I purchased this in secret from the Bazaar hosted by my after-school day care program. I don't remember what my seven-year-old self told my mother, but I doubt it was the truth, because playing with used stuffed animals was just about up there with eating pizza from the neighbour's garbage.

I named her Stacey, after my cousin. She lived on the corner of my bureau until a few years ago when the most obvious remnants of my youth were shoved into my closet. Unfortunately, in the last eight months or so Going to Work has also included Buying Clothes I Don't Really Need, so Stacey had to give up her spot in my closet.

Most recently she and her plastic bagged brethren serve as a prop for the giant gift box I received for my birthday in March [cropped out of photo].

It's 2:30AM and my LATE essay is only half finished and it's due today by 3:00PM or else I lose an entire grade and I don't think I'm going to get to sleep for even a minute tonight, and OH MY GOD how ironic is it that my final paper EVER is going to require my first real all-nighter? And WHY is my computer making those chomping noises right now? What's wrong with TYPING IN ALL CAPS? Who invented Internet etiquette? WHY AM I STILL HERE AND NOT FINISHING MY LAST PAPER EVER? Was Boyz II Men right, is it really so hard to say goodbye?

How did I let it get to this? Too bad there isn't a sobbing key button.

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