Bonafide

Today was a bonafide Trish day: sweatpants and a shirt, curled up next to a faint greenish light, switching between "The Country Wife" by Wycherly and, of course, Kissing in Manhattan. The Velvet Underground, Bic Runga and Wilco have been doing their rounds, and if I see Never Been Kissed on USA one more time...

... I was looking up information on cosmetology. If you must know, I am interested in getting a cosmetology license because, let's face it, I'll probably make more money cutting hair than writing, publishing then actually selling a book. In a perfect world, I would be the next C.D. Payne, but I know where I stand for right now. I had this brief, rather depression vision of myself, living in an apartment in a nameless town. Sure, my hours would be flexible and I'd get to play with people's hair. But that's not what I saw myself doing ten years ago. Ten years ago I was eleven and thought the black beret my dad got me was The height of fashion. I wore it to those drama workshops my mom signed me up for, taught by Monica Wilson (she played the title role in the Broadway show Miss Saigon after Lea Salonga). Ten years from now, I thought that I would be doing something similar, maybe even teaching a few workshops myself.

Instead, I find myself drifting towards mediocrity. Aside from that backpacking trip three years ago, I haven't really challenged myself. It's not that I think my life is at a stand-still: I am, most assuredly, enjoying the hell out of it now more than ever. Sometimes, though, I catch myself in between those states of self-assurance and complacence, and I wonder about myself. It's like one of those moments in a movie when the character looks in the mirror and his reflection talks back to him. Whatever happened to writing and illustrating your own books? I am my own worst critic, and it takes a while before I can look myself squarely in the eye and have a response that would appease me for the moment. I can be the best motivator for myself, but sometimes even I can smell my own bullshit .

I am looking over the requirements for the cosmetology license, and it looks like it will take a chunk out of my time. The one that I am looking at will take approximately 43 weeks to complete. But now, I've grown exhausted from thinking about all of this. I'm delving back into the covers.