a letter from a few days ago, sweethearts

It's 4:00 on a Sunday. Only 20 more minutes before I can light up and have my own sacrament, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. Ugh. Caps lock. So stressful. Ugh. Life. So stressful. I wish I did have some special sacrament all rolled up in a nice joint which I could smoke expertly out of my bathroom window. If only my bathroom had a window. If only I knew how to do anything expertly. "Hey! There's Expert Meg!" they'd say. "Hey! There's Expert Meg, who happens to have some really neat bathroom windows." they'd say. They'd say a lot of things and a lot of those things would be true. I'd be an expert and I would have windows and maybe the only false thing would be my name. It would no longer be Meg. It might be something like Sage or Raven or Willow Smith. Ouch ouch ouch -- brain freeze. I am chewing ice like a mad/horny woman/womyn right now because, I dunno. Because anxiety? Because anemia? Definitely not sexual frustration. I'm most likely asexual. Now I'm cold. Let me put away this cup of ice before my body temperature dips down into the negatives.

I have been doing quite well lately at not being so negative. That's not to say that I am a Sunshine Sally. Puh-lease! But maybe I kind of am. Like, I've been listening to and genuinely enjoying reggae music lately. And I'm into positive affirmations on occasion. I just figure that I've given my Sylvia Plath side enough attention and nurturing for the past decade or so. Now seems like a good time to experiment with being generally positive and lighthearted. Maybe it will snowball into me becoming a best-selling self-help guru? I'll hold seminars in Best Western ballrooms. I'll charge middle-aged housewives hundreds of dollars to let me tell them with compassion and conviction that they have been doing everything wrong so far. But wait! There's more! Turn your life around this weekend, sweet pea. Turn your life into a ray of freaking sunshine, sunshine. Your aura and your chakra and your astrological sign all say this and this and this and isn't this grand? Now pay me a grand and I'll be on my way. I have a book signing in Des Moines I need to be at in less than 24 hours. I have to be at the local Barnes and Noble at 4:20 on the dot. My followers expect me to be punctual! So outta my way. Good day!

Okay, so that's what I might do with the rest of my life. I might also tip toe up into the mountains and never return. That does sound a little Plath-ish, but I don't mean it to. I want it to be more Gary Snyder-ish. More monk-ish. More I-changed-my-name-to-Sage-Raven-Willow-and-now-I-make-reggae-music-and-smoke-out-of-yurt-windows-ish. That's still escaping, though, isn't it? Is it bad to escape? Do I really have to face absolutely everything? I don't know. I don't even know what I'm going to eat for dinner. I never know. I think I'll make a tinfoil dinner and sit on the back deck and pretend like I am around a campfire with a couple of lovers and loyal dogs. Old dogs. Old, arthritic dogs I adopted from some sanctuary in the desert. Look at me. Look at how good, good, good I can be. Oh, don't worry. I'll feed my vegan dinner scraps to some hungry crows and canyon ghosts. I will send smoke signals to lonely souls, keeping them warm for at least one night.