So I'm thinking if this writing thing doesn't work out I could try professional mourning. I'm becoming quite skillful at misery on demand, or at the very least, in an instant. I know I'm not supposed to feel sorry for myself, am meant to keep my chin up and my aim high, but this bow is getting awfully heavy and I'm riddled with holes. The lengths I've gone to to keep my manuscript from such a plot-fuck do not seem to matter. What I want isn't wanted, and when I think, not yet, I feel like I'm only delaying the inevitable.

Which is to say, a black fringed head scarf.

There are crazier things I could do, and won't. You know the sorts of things, the human-stupid things we have the power to do but have learned better: driving on the wrong side of the road, willfully, madly, touching hot iron or tasting boiling water, cheating on our husbands. Thinking of these things reminds me, at least, of what my hands and heart can do and never will, and keeps me from numbering seemingly impossible dreams among them.