Fat-o-gram

I feel that, in the interest of people taking responsibility for their actions, we should be able to ship pounds of fat to the people responsible for helping us gain. Certainly, I am largely (pun intended) responsible for my, um, girth. However, doesn't my horrible former boss get SOME of the blame for the stress and terrible schedule he had me on?

I just think that we should be able to ship pounds of fat to all the frenemies, ex-boyfriends, ex-bosses, grouchy office managers who made our lives a smorgasboard of misery and Dominos pizza. One day, a box of lard shows up in their mail. No note. No explanation.

They know what they did.

Now, if there were also a way to have it instantly and magically transported to their bottoms...

The second the earth stool still

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28392450/

So, for reasons that are far too technical for me to explain, there will be an extra second inserted between 2008 and 2009. There are those who probably don't want 2008 to linger for another second. And the jury hasn't even been selected yet for 2009.

I will consider it the second that belongs to no year.

A tiny fraction of time where there is no time.

We're all being given, in a way, an extra second.

And my first response to this news? Yes! An extra second to kiss my boyfriend at midnight!

I guess we know where my priorities are at.

Apparently, the earth is starting to turn more slowly.

That's funny. I feel like it's spinning out of control half the time...

Time in the cocoon.

Maybe because I still dream of writing a novel, I tend to look at life as a series of chapters. A thread of the story begins, climaxes, and ends. Meanwhile, some larger plot full of theme and sassy character building pushes onward.

I should be so lucky. Turns out that the old adage is true: Truth is stranger than fiction.

Fiction has to make sense. Every character is there for a purpose. Every word and phrase and texture is there for a reason. Life rarely seems to work out so neatly.

My life would make a very sloppy novel. Some editor would have to toil for a long time to make sense of it, and there would be a plethora of characters who just wouldn't make the final cut.

So, I've made a promise to myself to cast off this poor analogy, and try another on for size. My life is too much a work in progress, scribbles, sentence fragments, a thousand chapters started and left unfinished. There are many places where the eraser has worn away at the paper.

There are holes. And not all of them are reparable. They don't have to be.

Instead, we have the chrysalis.

We are constantly works in progress. Remodeling, doing-over, shoring up, tearing down, rebuilding, refurbishing, adding fresh coats of paint, editing, reworking. At least, that's how I'm finding my life to be. I used to think of myself as in transition, but transition is no longer transitory. It's here to stay.

The chrysalis. You go in one way, and come out another. You hope that the glamourous existnace of the butterfly will be more rewarding than crawling on your belly and chewing through leaves.

But the truth is that the real magic is in the transformation, in what happens inside the chrysalis.

I suppose that sometimes I will miss how much easier, in retrospect, everything was when I excelled at pullig myself along the (proverbial) bark and expertly eating leaves. I could spend a great deal of time yearning for that moment when I break out of this shell, all pretty painted wings and zigzaggy flight paths.

But what I'm going to try to do, is recognize that the cocoon is where I belong for now. I will attempt to appreciate this time. The time when the changes are chosen and made.

The magic time.