Killing time.

I am sitting in my favorite coffeeshop right now wondering who here might be hacking into my computer via wifi--thanks very much local tv "investigative reporters"!

Ooh. A slightly attractive dude in the corner just eyed me as if he were reading. . . .

Focus, M. Focus.

After having been snowed in for three days, and in coming to terms with this beautiful bleakness that is winter, I've found that I tend to revert to the kind of coping that has gotten me through much of my life. I daydream. Fatasize. Plot and scheme. And buy things.

Daydream/fantasy:
What if I took a cheap little flight from Paris to Dublin for just a night to suck down a few proper pints, dance in my old haunts and carouse with some of the people I love best in this world? Wouldn't that make my weekend getaway totally complete in its perfection?

Plot/Scheme:
How can I get someone to fund a longer, extended trip to Ireland for me to research the part of my book that takes place there? I want to retrace my steps of summer 1995--wind through the West of Ireland, sit on a cliff overlooking the sea until the salt air stiffens my hair. Then I want to go back to the Edinburgh Festival and take in as many performances as are humanly possible. This time I'd prefer to stay somewhere posher than some drunken Irishman's tent in a field outside the city. Or maybe not. . . .

Buying things:
So it's probably a good rule of thumb not to purchase accessories and/or cosmetics at the grocery store if at all possible. But I just couldn't help myself last night. I was in a janked-up, crashed-out, post-workout, late-night daze. I needed bandaids, which took me off my normally tread path on the periphery of the food isles. I bought a shimmery, apricot Revlon lipstick, some gold headbands (Wonder Woman, anyone?) to keep my short hairs off my face as I spin into oblivion, boxes and boxes of bandaids--none of which are able to help the gash on the tip of my right thumb grow back together, another 18 pound bag of Ruby Red grapefruits (God bless Texas), and a whole bunch of other shit I didn't really need as I aimlessly wandered around eating clementines from the box I dropped in my cart. Two days ago I ate five grapefruits. What is it with citrus and winter? Or maybe it's just me. As my mama said, "You must be awfully alkaline." I'm not sure how to take that.

How do you get through bleak times without self-destructing?