gonna write you a letter; gonna write you a book

I’m enjoying a rare moment of feeling calm. I’m doing some good things today, such as:

• Cooling it on the caffeine and getting some water in my system. Aside from my morning Diet Pepsi and some caffeine-zapped aspirin at lunch, I’ve had none.
• Listening to some really good music while I work.
• Vowing to leave at 5:00 today, even if I feel like I should stay later.
• Working on returning some emails and calls I’ve been neglecting in the past few weeks.

I’m constantly being distracted by the construction going on outside my window. It’s fascinating, and the noise doesn’t bother me as much as I feared it would when I moved to this office.

I’m going to finally mount some of my Chicago photos on the wall in here. I’m going to make it look like my office and not a temporary resting place. I’m going to straighten up some of the papers on my desk. I’m going to clean out my email inbox.

I’m going to try to stop stressing about money. I’m going to remind myself every single day that I’m suffering now so I can move in a few months. I’m going to daydream about an apartment with a claw-footed bathtub and big windows and walls I can paint.

I’m going to go home tonight and take a bath and watch television. I only watch TV on Thursday nights so I don’t have any guilt issues whatsoever about this. I’m going to eat a good dinner that includes some green vegetables. I’m going to change my sheets. I’m going to go to bed before midnight.

You know, the other day I was talking to my friend Allie and she mentioned what a hard time she’d had getting in touch with me. I told her about the cell phone being messed up (it’s fixed now, by the way) and turning off the ringer on my office phone, and then went on to talk about something I’d written here. She commented that it was pretty funny that I didn’t have time to talk to anyone or respond to emails or IMs, yet I’m still writing here daily. And I thought about that. And the answer is that now that I’ve made writing a habit again, I cannot possibly stop. Even if I’m writing crap. Even if it’s 90% bitching and whining about my stress and my job. At least I’m still writing, and if I keep writing, eventually I’m going to write something really wonderful. I just know it.