Pure and Clean and All I Want

It feels like a new year. It feels like a page was turned on life and it was blank without any doodles or scribbles and I have a whole year to fill it up however I want. I wore amber at midnight on January 1st; I had a hunch that it might have some kind of good luck associations, and while I'm not usually superstitious, I thought it couldn't hurt. Besides, my cousin gave me the necklace, and starting a new year with a gift from my cousin has to be good karma. I wore my Luckenbooth on New Years Day. Midnight with family, the first day with love.

Apparently there's an unspoken rule that nothing can ever be perfectly calm, but it seems like 2011 is trying its best. Or maybe I'm just trying my best. All I want from this year is smooth-sailing. Things don't have to be outstandingly great, just... calm and respectful.

So, after the first week, the year has been good, mostly. Kay got engaged, Kacey turned 23 in Richmond (great Thai food followed by a low-key Irish pub), and Sphinx the cat moved in with me. Perhaps the biggest news: I (almost) finished the text of my thesis!!! I thought it was done, minus the changes my committee will suggest, but then I decided to add an epilogue. I also need to finish my bibliography and correct my footnotes. Perhaps another day or two of work-- but really, that's nothing compared to the past year and a half of stress and sweat, research and panic attacks.

But now, of course, I'm sick with a cold. And this Saturday feels like the perfect time to snuggle under the covers with a cup of hot tea and Salinger's Franny and Zooey.


(Photo of Laura Marling found here; the title is a song lyric of hers and in this picture she looks a bit like how I picture Franny.)