LINDSAY. THIS WEEK. FOR REAL:

- Write something every day.

- Don't eat like an asshole. Water is not just for washing your hair.

- WASH YOUR HAIR.

- Go to the gym. Planet Fitness is doing just fine without your monthly donations.

- Call/text/smoke signal back all of the people. You're the worst person anyone's ever met. Knock it off.

- Practice farting on command so that the next time you're walking down 116th and a man says, "MM, no makeup on and you're still beautiful" even though you have a full face of makeup on and then when you don't say anything because you are puzzled and also because you can't be bothered to teach manners to every last human you encounter he says "YOU'RE WELCOME," you can fart super, super loud. Seriously. Practice. Because next week we learn explosive diarrhea on command. 

- Stop writing fart things on your blog. 

- Make lists of things you are happy about three times a day, every day, because someone in a book told you it was a smart way to trick your brain into being less wretched and stop it from projecting your wahh stuff onto everyone around you (except for the men shouting at you on the street, because if you've been paying attention, you'll know that we'll be projecting bodily functions at them) and maybe turn down the "High Alert, Everything Is A Threat!" part of it. This is an important thing, Lindsay, so please - if you don't do any of the other things, at least do this one. Or else you'll end up like these people:

These are comments on a button that you push that causes a man to arrive at your door with the thing that you've run out of. A MAGIC BUTTON. The second comment is the reward you get for reading the whole first comment without pressing a "BLOW EVERYBODY UP BECAUSE NOTHING MEANS ANYTHING" button. 

- Okay, how about, for every ten posts you write you can write one with farts in it.

- Remove the bags of clothes that you spring-cleaned today from your living space. That's it. That should be an easy one, okay? An entire week to take two bags of clothes down one street. Even you can handle that one. 

Okay Monday. Oh. Kay.

TWO SECONDS LATER EDIT (I FORGOT ONE THING):

Right at this moment there is a middle-aged woman of indeterminate (to me) Hispanic descent banging on the door of the apartment next door. There's a kid with her, and they've been at it for a good fifteen minutes. By "been at it" I mean the banging. Oh. That clarification made it worse. You're gross. This is your fault. Anyway I'm not sure whether to Google translate, "OBVIOUSLY NO ONE IS HOME BYE" and go read it to them or to be a kind person and offer to help if that's what they need. The problem is that I suspect that "helping" might mean babysitting the kid until whoever is obviously not home shows up and I have no way of knowing when that might be and I'm pretty sure the kid is the same one I caught peeking in the window a few months ago. I'm trying to stay away from dark thoughts about dead neighbors on the other side of my wall but it's really, really difficult.

The other thing that's been difficult for the last couple of months has been Every thing. Or, not difficult, but just. Meh. Like, I was going to do a face mask earlier and I thought: "Ugh, though. I have to put it on. And then I have to take it off." So I didn't do a face mask, I played a knockoff Pokemon game for three hours instead. And that's pretty much been the theme of Being Lindsay lately, and it sucks. Sometimes I just suck. 

But I did get the laundry done, and also I colored my hair. So I guess that's been the theme of Being Lindsay lately, long periods of demotivation sprinkled with some good things. Like, for example, my new job is pretty great. I like it. And I finally bought and built a shelf, so now the enormous pile of life debris that used to live in the corner is... um, on a shelf. So that's good. But I feel like tiny little baby steps such as finally getting rid of the two bags of clothes I decided to donate weeks ago shouldn't be the main things I'm accomplishing. I feel like those things should be a given. And then the Real things I have to do have somehow all lumped themselves together into one giant thing that I can't bring myself to touch. 

I'm so annoyed at how it sounds to try and articulate my blah, because I'm so lucky. Every time I walk down the street with bags of groceries I feel incredibly privileged, you know? I have the means to nourish myself. And actually, just as I wrote that I decided that will be my mantra as I attempt to break apart the giant scary lump and deal with things one at a time: I have the means to nourish myself. 

In other news, the weird weather graced us with another beautiful weekend and we thoroughly enjoyed it while suppressing nervous thoughts about sweaty polar bears. After work on Friday I did some aimless wandering around several retail establishments, none of which made any money off of me. When Diego got out of work we ate falafel at a place that was new to me and then went and saw "Room," which was excellent and I highly recommend. It did take me twenty minutes to place the actress who played Jack's mom (the daughter from United States of Tara) because I can almost never remember actresses or which bands sing what songs and am generally uncool about most things, so it's possible that the plot took some wild turn while I was distracted but otherwise the filmmakers followed the book and it was really, really well done. On Saturday we went to the park, and got legitimately hot while we were there. We looked at the new sculptures, I pretended to try to interpret them, and then we looked at the water for a long time. THEN we went for sangria and tapas at an adorable tiny Spanish place by the train whose one bad review on Yelp said "Worst Mexican food I ever ate."

Guys, sorry, I'm just nervously typing because the people are still out there banging. I think I heard my landlord's voice, though, and Diego's on his way home. So don't worry, there are actual adults involved just in case something is going on that requires such people. You know, people who don't consider having clean clothes and hair that is a different color than it was when she woke up to be a fully productive day because if she thinks about the Actual Things she has to do she thinks she might throw up.

Monday Confession because I didn't write Sunday Confessions yesterday: On Saturday we had brunch with a friend of Diego's that I've never met before and I said, quote, even though I don't need to write "quote" because you'll already know that it's something I said because 1) I just wrote "I said," and 2) You are not blind (I don't think) and will be able to clearly see the quotation marks I'm going to put around the thing that I said - here, I have to interrupt myself interrupting myself to say that I went all the way back to the beginning of this sentence and read it all the way back to that last part where I said, "to put around the thing that I said," and I realized that you might be confused and think that all of this is what I said. It isn't. I got carried away because I really just wanted you to know that the thing I'm about to tell you I said is exactly what I said, word for word. I suppose I could delete all of this and just use the word "verbatim" instead. But that isn't very much fun. 

This is what I said (and also, just to remind you in case you forgot because it's been a while since we started, this is the confession part of this Monday Confession): "I'm not HUNGOVER. I'm just sick because I drank too much yesterday." Which I'm sure a very many people have said in like, a funny joking sort of way? You know? But I said it as like, a real argument. And I said it in the voice of a petulant child. An irritated, hungover child. 

Hm. That sort of makes it sound like I was an unhappy camper at brunch, and I wasn't. It was quite nice, I had eggs on a biscuit. I'll show you a picture sometime. 

Today I started my new job and everybody is very nice. Also, I got to read a lot of interesting things and I'm going to share one of my favorite ones here because while I'd really like to write down some of the more poem-y things inside my head I just don't have the brainergy (brain energy) at this very moment in time. Or for the last long bunch of moments in time, yes, I know, it's on my list of things to Be Better About. Also I have to make grilled cheese sandwiches in a few minutes because when you let me pick dinner I pick grilled cheese EVERY TIME. Almost every time. Sometimes I pick pierogies. SPELLCHECK, LEARN POLISH. You're a disappointment to your father. 

Anyway here is the thing (photos link back to their sources): 

Google "The Deep Dark, Garrett and Brown" and read about it because I'm out of those things that you use to describe other things with. 

when my father found out what we did that night

Today I listened to Fleet Foxes and Iron & Wine, I wrote in my journal and I ate Velveeta for lunch. The only thing I did that was remotely productive was cram seven pounds of pork shoulder into our little crock pot. (Yesterday I thought, Oh I'll be thrifty and adultish and get meat delivered in bulk to save money/cook dinners ahead of time. Turns out I have no fucking idea how much fourteen pounds of pork shoulder actually is. Or twenty pounds of chicken, or nine pounds of ground beef. Also I keep on telling myself I should cut meat out entirely anyway, so not sure why I spent over a hundred dollars on an entire farm's worth of dead animals from Costco.) Anyway, these are the days I took to myself before I start my new job on Monday and have to go back to earning an income and otherwise engaging in the market. I had every intention of walking along the water in something billowy and romantic and having cups of coffee in trendy places, but all I've actually done with this short time off is regress to teenagerhood. 

I can't think of anything else to say because I'm mesmerized by the major pancake arm happening in the second picture. There was a time when that shit would have mortified me, but I didn't even notice it until just now. I guess the tiny wrinkles around my eyes are marks of wisdom, or indicators that I've run out of shits to give about things like fat upper arms. I've tried so many exercises (two and half, to be exact, and I already gave up because I don't care that much so don't bother suggesting any or you will go to jail for literally boring me to death) and I forgot where I was going with this sentence, to be perfectly honest. To be even more perfectly honest, I am supposed to be getting ready to leave the house right now. But the idea of dragging my chubby, chubby arms to St. Mark's is kind of grossing me out. However. I have a date. So. I suppose I'll paint some heart eyes on and get going.

I am sifting through resumes, trying to replace myself. On Pandora, Donovan starts singing "Catch the Wind" and I cry a little.

No one else is here so I'm going to turn it up and indulge myself a little longer.

and if you say hide, we'll hide

Spouting Violets is private right now, because I'm halfheartedly looking for a new job and realized that if you google my email address it eventually brings you here. If you just google my name, the only things that come up are pictures of a blonde girl who is not me and that dumb blog post I wrote twenty-nine years ago for that nonprofit that shall remain nameless. (Yep, still mad about the typos. Not mad enough to ask them, again, to take it down - but, still pretty bitter. Stiiiill stewing.) "Why would they google your email address, Lindsay?" Because that's what I do when we're interviewing at the place where I currently work - you'd be VERY surprised at the types of discussion boards Google turns up when you google the email address on some people's resumes. You'll sure feel a lot of feelings. I know I do.

So anyway, it's private right now, but it won't be forever. Only for a little while. I know this, but you don't yet. Secrets, and ship lights. We'll meet in the morning.

I don't have many words right now, anyway. I'm working on making writing a priority again, because it's an important part of how I make myself be a real human, but I'm feeling a bit burrow-y of late. December feels ten days shorter every time it comes around, and the things I have and want to do at the end of each year seem to keep multiplying. My birthday is on Thursday, and by the next week I hope to have made a few decisions and perhaps have an answer or two.

In the meantime - David Bowie, huh? I think it's weird that I spent the night before he died playing vintage arcade games in the village and then going uptown to listen to "Let's Dance" and its ilk under a glowing Rubiks cube. And I know I am not alone in that some of the first sexual feelings I can remember having were for Bowie in The Labyrinth. Don't lie, broads. Don't lie. (Him, and the cartoon wolf from the Three Little Pigs Silly Symphony. OH HEY.) 

(And Eric from The Little Mermaid but duh.) 

I have a carrier pigeon and a box of pencils. Well the pigeon isn't technically mine but my friend said I could borrow it whenever.

I feel like my brain is taking this week off from caring about stuff. I don't even feel that ever-present nervous feeling under my ribcage, the absence of which is actually making me a little nervous but besides that - totally fine. My sights are laser-focused on this weekend, which is Christmas Tree Weekend in Connecticut, and yes, t-shirts are available for sale. And anything else is just... like, when birds fly really fast into a window and fall down. I'm the window. And everything else is a bird. If you're a bird... I'm a window, this week.