I have so few memories these days. It's almost like someone has come through the shelves of my mind and thrown boxes of the the past hour, the past week, years, out... never to be retrieved again. I wonder if this is how senility sets in. Last in, First out... does the purging of our most recent memories follow the accounting convention LIFO?

I obviously have way too much time on my hands to be contemplating how I can't remember what I did the other day. Maybe it's because I did nothing memorable. But, it's more than that... I can feel the slipping away of time in small ways. I can feel my own and my friends' lives changing. I sense how these life changes are causing us to lose each other sometimes... my grip on our relationships slowly releases to allow new relationships, activities, and friends to enter.

This happens sometimes where you're on the threshold of leaving one period and entering a new stage. Yet despite some changes in my life over the past year, I still feel like I'm waiting in the wings... waiting for the curtains to open and for the next act to begin.

Trying not to complain is hard. It's really really hard when you're an inveterate complainer; a world class whiner who finds something always to nitpick at and despair. It's going to be difficult to break myself of this lifelong habit. But I think I just got some nice news... which really makes me want to try. It is a little blessing. And for that, I'm grateful.

The past weekend was a tough one. Got some bad news that threw me off on a crying jag for 24 hours and cast all my normal daily grievances and complaints in sharp relief. We all do it - complain about the small irritations ad nauseum, without thinking. It's become reflexive for me. But then something really bad happens and you realize just how lucky you were before to be annoyed by petty things. I need to remember that if I'm whining, I'm probably being either lazy or ungrateful. Thats the lesson of the week.

It's really really really cold in L.A. Have I mentioned that it's cold? I can't remember the last time that I felt like L.A. was TOO cold to live!! I am wearing longjohns, sweatpants, a wool sweater and a jacket and have the heat cranked up to 72 degrees. Sorry conservationists, but I'm still freezing my ass off!

I wonder if this is how people in other parts of the country feel when it's winter. It's only mid-January and I can't wait for February to get here so that L.A. can get back to its normal winter weather of 70 degrees in the daytime.

I'm not sure if it's the cold weather or it's just Me, but today I decided that my Happy Plan is not working. I know I could meditate or reflect on what it is I need to do either internally or externally to change my situation or to make myself happier.

Well I have reflected a lot. And, I've decided that I may need in fact to throw some drinks into the mix. If the drinking doesn't work, then I'll have to consider drugs.

Well, off to find another layer of clothing....

The ugly mood has passed but some residual after-effects are an extra 4 lbs from lots of nachos and chocolate to pacify myself.

I wish I could find a drug to cure myself of feeling my emotions. Yeah I guess it's called Prozac. But, I didn't really mean drug. I meant, I wish I could find a non-drug way to get out of a funk. A non-drug way that doesn't rely on other unhealthy and fattening addictions.

Avoidance is another issue that I am trying to deal with. In avoiding one issue, I usually come upon other issues. Then, its a question of which issue I want to avoid more- and I usually will obsess about the perceived easier issue...

Today for example, I came across an old note from an ex boyfriend that made me nostalgic. I started thinking about ex again and remembering the good and bad times. I started to question whether what bothered me about our relationship was really that important. I remembered how he used to do small things, like bring me home ice cream when I was feeling upset, and how he used to watch me fall asleep. I miss those things.

Ultimately, I'd forgotten that I was going to be more future-focused and optimistic this year. I'd also forgotten the reasons that I broke up with ex in the first place. So much easier to look back than to face the hard questions. What do I want out of life and how am I going to get it?

Anger and resentment are funny emotions. They lay beneath the surface, swimming placidly below the lake like the crocodile (or is it the alligator) and suddenly leap up out of nowhere and BITE, they have your ass before you know it. You could be walking along humming a little tune like a bee, but then someone says something, and SNAP, the jaws of anger have you in its grip and you can't struggle free.

This happened today. It's definitely not part of the Optimism program 2007. Anger is an emotion that can corrode away your heart so I want to keep it to a minimum.

Although it's not the type of anger that is white-hot and causes me to lose control of my words or my thoughts, it's scary too because it's the cold anger that is harder to let go of. It feels like cold coffee: murky, cold, and just too bitter to drink.

HNY

So it's the new year and I've resolved that I need to be more positive. It's the one thing I resolve every year and like, losing weight, it still ends up being something I need to resolve again every Jan. 1.

Anyway this year I resolve to be positive and happy and psyched that I'm turning a year older!!! Yeah!!! It will be great!!!!!!!

I hope that this enthusiasm lasts through the year.

If not, I can always resort to plain old scroogey bah-humbug feelings by December.

Alchemy

The other day someone texted me by mistake, and said: U shd read the Alchemist. It was a wrong number text but it felt like a sign.

I'd read the book a while ago, but I did a search on it because I'd read it a long time ago. Why dig out the book when I can get on Amazon to look for a review/summary of the book.

It's about a young shepherd boy from Spain who is on a mission to find gold and believes that he needs to go to Egypt to find it. And after going through many adventures and landing in Egypt, he discovers that the gold was in the small town where he left it. When I first read it, I thought, geez, does this story mean that you don't have to travel long and hard to find your treasure? Does this mean that one shouldn't travel at all? Does it mean that you should start digging in your own backyard? And then someone explained to me that it is about the journey we take to discover our personal mission or treasure - and that this journey is really about getting to know ourselves, and that everything we need is within....

I'd read this book about 5 years ago. At the time, I think I thought, hmmm that's kind of interesting. But, I puzzled over its meaning and then forgot about it as I went on about my daily mindless way, going out with friends getting drunk figuring out what I was going to wear the next day.

I think I need to read the book again. I'm 36 going on 13. I dont find my job satisfying; I could use more friends; I haven't had a boyfriend in at least two years. Is this what they call a midlife crisis and is it the crisis of confidence that you have in the middle of the journey - where you don't know if you're going in the right direction and if you need to turn back or where you're not sure where next? Or, is this the beginning of a journey to discover myself? I wish I knew.

I am SO bored! It's the holiday season and I have a party to go to tonight - it's at the firm partner's house and he and his wife are throwing it in their post-modern monstrosity in the hills. I mean isn't it enough that I work for these people all week long and now they want me to reserve a weekend night for them too?? I wouldn't go except that it's usually pretty good food. Plus, how often do you get to go and get drunk and sick and throw up in their bathroom! Well, I haven't done that, but someone I know did last year. And the year before, one of the poor associates who got drunk decided that she would do a little strip tease. I was drunk too and egged her on. That wasn't such a good idea. In retrospect.

I don't know what to wear and don't want to wear anything holiday-ish. I'll probably wear all black - my goth outfit. If I had time to go shopping today, that would have been a good idea but I don't and I just feel in a funk and am sitting here, looking outside my apartment window and thinking BLAH. The holidays are the worst form of misery there is.

when you have a raging headache, it's all you can do not to lie flat on your back and think, ok God, you win. squash me now. please giant tsunami ride over my house and pull me into the ocean. anything would be better than this pain. even when it's not a raging headache but just a slightly uncomfortable dinging in the back of neck and brain, it's enough to make you reconsider this whole living-in-a-body thing.

ch ch changes...

it occurs to me in waves sometimes that everything is changing... my friends are changing or leaving. people are having children or getting married or both. i'm getting wrinkles. now i see the gray hairs framing my bangs in ways that don't look cute or odd or really that unusual for my face anymore. changes abound and not all of them are pleasant.

yet on the big points, some things remain the same. i still haven't quite found my niche in life. i still don't know who i want to be when i grow up. i still haven't met the right person at a point in my life when most people have been married at least a decade.

on the upside, some things remain the same... i have my health. i have my sanity for the most part. my parents are healthy. i guess i'll stop while i'm ahead.