• Wearing: Vintage tweed pants with the highest, smallest (I have to nearly turn myself inside out just getting them on) waist & the sweetest pleats. On top of that, I’ve layered a mustard sweater & painted a thick cat eye of liner. Today I’m pretending it’s the 60s.
• Listening to: A Fine Frenzy.
• Drinking: Chai lattes. By the bucket.

Hello, cheri.

Finally, the snow has settled, & all that was once calm & quiet from my warm & narrow view out of the living room window is now back to bustling. Slushy footprints fill the once-flawless sidewalks & streets. My rubbers crunch, squeak, & slip across the sludge. As it so often happens, things were a lot less ideal once I found myself in the ice than they seemed from my cozy nook behind closed doors.

I think I look at a lot of life that way, idealizing from the outside looking in. Peering at this job, perhaps if I were able to land it that would lead to so-and-so & life would fall into place. From my view in front of the computer screen, it’s easy to believe the solution to my every wardrobe quandary would be a pair of lace-up boots & just a few more basic cardigans. Then, maybe, I’d be satisfied. (Disclaimer: I have a problem with online shopping. Don’t get sucked in!) (Okay, yes, I have a problem with over-shopping in general. If you hadn’t already noticed.) Or, like today, I dreamed of all that I would accomplish & the way it would go. Knowing classes were canceled once more, I made an ambitious list the night before & crawled into bed, satisfied with my preconceived notions of the way the day would play out. With no obligations, surely I would finish the simple list of tasks I’d laid out on the desk I had hoped I’d clean off. Now, going on midnight, I’ve scratched off only three of my to-dos & am well on my way to a late night before a resumed morning of lecture-listening & note-taking tomorrow.

So here I am, giving myself a mental slap on the wrist.

In most areas of my life, I’m a realist. Optimistic isn’t a word that would come to many people’s minds when asked to describe my outlook on life. But every so often, I catch myself romanticizing. I call these my Amelie moments, because when I’m not sticking to my practical nature I’m way off on the other spectrum of things, daydreaming away in the fashion of Audrey Tautou via the greatest French film that ever has been (or so I like to think).

I guess it’s good, though, not to be limited to just one way of looking at things. Because some things really are ideal, aren’t they? A fabulous time spent with friends. Moments that shape & change you; conversations that move you. Love. God. These are the things that are without flaw.

{photo credit: 1. & 4. Me by Josh Garcia, http://goldfishonwheat.wordpress.com/, 2. & 3. Josh Garcia by me}