Visual Input

This is a saying from the Ivory Coast: "One cannot live without such beautiful things."

Good Afternoon!*

(Aren't these pretty?)

Hello, folks.

I'm not entirely sure this is in fact, a good afternoon...but I am determined to make it positive and not just productive (yes, it is a quarter past three European Central Time and I am FINISHED with my planning for the week. Normally I think about STARTING at this time. Ole!). So productive I have been.

Just not so positive. Despite a prettypretty princess bath and a chat with my Dearest. Perhaps it's the weather. Friday was so lovely and then Saturday and Sunday were so nondescript. Not warm, not cold, not sunny, not entirely cloudy...just terribly bland.

Perhaps it is also bland in regard to the last few days. I've been flitting all over tarnation, discovering delicious whatnots like Piadine (combines börek--a sort of turkish crepe usually filled with spinach and cheese or a ground meat mixutre only crispy and with FRESH italian fillings--procutto, arugula, fantastic cheeses) neat little shops full of neat little things, catching up with friends and just generally enjoying my lovely little pants off. I suppose that a Just Work Sunday is a bit of a let down.

Good, so now I've figured out where my general funk is coming from.

What about the other great mysteries of my life?

For example, why is there so much subtle residual glitter around here? I don't strike myself as the glittery type (unless of course there's a glitter epidemic at work. These things do happen. There will be a period of a few weeks where everything MUST GLITTER. Then of course, I'm covered in the damn stuff and it doesn't scrub off well, I can tell you.). For some reason, however, the back of my relatively new phone has a distinctly glittery sheen to it and when I washed the mattress pads and duvets, the next things to come out of my washing machine also had a sublte glittery sheen. Do I sweat glitter? I know I have a rouge that sort of shimmers...but I apply that to my FACE and not my ENTIRE APARTMENT. My lotions do not glitter and I have one body powder that does. Which I don't often use, due to the fact that body powder is kind of tricky to apply. The bathmat usually winds up looking like some kind of glittery drug explosion just happened...

So this is my question to you, folks. Where doth this glitter come from? And why?

This is what I think about instead of plotting my next career move. Or dreading my next career move. I don't dread going back to school. I'm all for it. It was my idea. I feel baldy for the people I'm going to be hurting/leaving behind. Which then leads me to contemplate the idea of living your life for other people. I think there's a difference between being selfless and loving and really basing every major decision in your life on someone else. I know, I've been doing one and attempting the other. I'll leave it to you, fair readers, to figure out which is what. Be that as it may, I know I have to move on and do Something Else with my Life. I even have an idea as to what that Something Else could be. At least a vague one. At the moment, it's a question of bureaucracy and finances. Two great loves of mine. Just kidding. You'd be hard pressed to find two things I dislike more. I also know it's time for me to (wo)man up and take care of the uncomfortable business in my life myself. Without diversions or excuses.

Ugh.

It's just that I hate uncomfortable business. We're talking about people who have trusted in me, given me responsibility and money and who are counting on me. And I don't think they're going to see it coming. I just want to do the Right Thing...that is of course, without having to work there for the rest of my professional life.

Anyway. Enough of that.

I feel like I've been so productive today that I MUST be forgetting something. It's just not possible that all of my planning and printing is already done, school work included. I keep thinking of other things I might maybe have to do...and I can't come up with anything, other than to call my parents (but not until 6pm CET) and clean the apartment--and if there's anything else to be done, I'd rather do that first.

*think think*

*think think*

I can't think of a thing.

However, I did have a perfect Eiskaffee yesterday (coffee with vanilla ice cream and in this case, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and sprinkles) and my friend Carina had the perfect little strawberry ice cream mini sundae. And there are pictures.

*I am almost certain that I've already shared the anecdote of my maternal grandfather always saying "GOOD AFTERNOON!" in a resounding voice whenever we woke up after spending the night there. He was always up first, even when we were little and treated 8am as if it were 2pm. Whenever someone says "Good Afternoon" to me in a pleasant, normal voice, I think of my grandfather trumpeting this greeting throughout the entire house.

In that same spirit,

GOOD AFTERNOON!

Enjoy the last vestiges of weekend, lovelies.