Mark the date: On January 28 2026, I began having conversations in my head that match the opening of Uptown Girls verbatim. Well, it's nothing good!
Before all that, though--yesterday morning I ate an apple and my nose was sticky until noon. It was a nice reminder, we're just little creatures in want of sweet things. I don't eat apples very often because they're such an ordeal, but last week Juan said something like, "you guys know you can eat the apples in the break room, right?" and I felt sort of bad, and anyway I haven't been going to the grocery store so I'm snackless and needed something, and the apples are less suspect than the oranges. I've been having one every morning, and I always forget how nice they are when you get the right ones. Like, I know the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was actually some other thing entirely (quince?), but I get why the depiction Became an apple, because there's something so incredibly decadent and ageless about them. Ye Olde Holden would be getting reprimanded for eating like nine apples in a day and then just laying down in the sun and groaning about it.
Anyway, acknowledging that we are all just Little Creatures In Want Of Sweet Things, today I spent all twenty five minutes of my drive home rubbing the smile out of my cheeks. What I was thinking was, wow, Gavin really was all in my head, because, you know--there were a few months there where he'd ask me out every couple of weeks, and I always did say no even after I ran out of excuses. And here I've already got plans with Cortes next month (so long as our schedules align!) So yeah, that wasn't denial--I was worried it was--but no, I know exactly what I'd really like to do and deal with. This is a place where I can trust myself.
I know this is mostly in my head too, but there's something there that's an old familiar kind of Oh Shit! and Thank Fuck! which I haven't felt since 2022 or 2018 or never, depending. The real stuff, the bits where I'm not just telling myself a story, are all just "nice," and knowing that nice is still kicking around in there is more than enough. not so much the Molly Gunn stuff, but that's fun, too, and I'm outta here in three months, so it's not like there are strings to worry about.
I didn't really calm down about it until we sat down for family dinner--family dinner! That's the other thing: I completely forgot about him while we were eating. I'm not so lonely that I have to make things up to get excited about. Good!Ness!Gra!Cious! It's a nice feeling, is all.
Even on my greatest weeks I have awful awful milliseconds, and during one of the trillion of them that came yesterday my brain snagged like a sweater on a treebanch against an almost embarrassingly traditional phrase: "I wish I was good." This time instead of self-injury as cure, though, I had a pause, because it's a bit of a nonsensical thought, and while I was working to replace it I landed on, "I wish I will be good," which really made me laugh. Obviously, the less disparaging statement is I Wish To Be Good, but I'm really caught on this one. I think it's just the verb series that entices me, like you're correcting yourself halfway through. And because it reminds me of the nursery rhyme: I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. I wish, I will. What's the difference between setting a goal and seeing the future? I wish and I will!