Meanwhile

I've been thinking about happiness, what is/isn't, if it can be defined at all, taking naps, sleeping off headaches, and avoiding most social contact. I've kind of made myself an island. A napping island. I've been reading a lot of cracked.com and laughing, been daydreaming about real good things turning into bad things and real bad things turning into good things. I even read this article on happiness and felt like I at least had company and that company was presumably making a living writing (about her unhappiness no less--winning!).

The weather has been great and if it weren't for the pollen, I'd be loving life, but there is pollen so I'm not. The upside is my favorite tree is blooming. It's magical to me in a way that few things are once you're a bonafide grownup. This is a picture of it:

When most of the trees are still bare, this tree seems to burst out of the tangle of mangled branches with little magenta buds. It's really a random tree, not usually elegant and statuesque, able to make do in the messy undergrowth of the taller trees on the margins of parkways and unrecognizable once the leaves come in. But for those weeks when it's one of the few trees with any clothes on, it's just so darn pretty. It makes my heart glad even though everything that grows on this wretched planet hates me, especially in spring.

I've also decided that admitting you have a problem isn't even a 1/4 of the battle. Deciding to do something about a problem is half the battle and doing that thing you decided is the other half. I think I will feel compelled to share that little gem with the next person who says knowing is half the battle. I will think they are an idiot, they will think I'm insufferable and we'll both be kind of right.