Performance

On the other hand, things can get a bit carried away. 

I told a friend of mine whose online journal is getting to be very popular that his entries were beginning to seem less sincere.  They were starting to look more engineered for the audience rather than the means for some self-examination and cathartic venting.  God bless him, he didn't get angry at me, but pointed out that his journal was really helping him explore and discover himself, to analyze just what's been going on with him at the deepest levels.  I owe him an apology. 

Maybe I was quick to see what appeared to be a transformation in his chronicle because I am bothered by the idea of it happening in mine.  Out of curiosity I installed a counter on my Warehouse main page, just to see if anyone is looking.  A lot more people than I thought would be looking are looking.  Sure, it's a low number compared to most of the net, but it's a huge number compared to my expectations. 

I'll probably take the counter off. 

I knew at the beginning that I'd be seen by at least a few, and of course that means that to some degree a performance mode is ok.  Expected.  However I do NOT want to become a show.  Trying to top myself every day to get a bigger audience and entertain the ones who do look.  It would feel kinda traitorous.  The main point of the journal was to work out things that need working out with me, and to share what I find, or at least the questions I am asking, and to gripe about stuff. 

I'm in love. 

It's infusing everything.  I am normally a person who notices the beautiful in what's around, especially nature, but lately it's going on all the time.  ALL the time.  The reflection of candlelight on skin.  The particular glow of the sky that tells you that your are near the ocean.  The roiling swirl of cool cream into hot coffee.  The sparkle of hazel eyes.  The gradation of color of a single dog hair, from white at the root to dark brown at the tip.  The aroma of autumn foliage.  The sound of a howling canine.  The sudden warmth I am feeling in my left ear.  Heh, is someone talking about me? 

This is stuff I am inclined to notice anyway, but not continuously. 

Feelings and desires and memories are wrapped about me all the time.  I am a lot mellower than usual.  The longing is strong, and the separation painful, but the security is soothing.  The love is warm.  There is new strength and new determination not to live a life of hell and stress and agony, but to make things as peaceful as possible now, and to plan and work and hope for a true and abiding peace in the future. 

Kvetch.  I love this word. 

A. As a verb: 
  1. To squeeze, pinch, eke out. "Don't kvetch the peaches."  "He manages to kvetch out a living."  "He'll kvetch the deal out to the last decimal point."  "No one knows how someone else's shoe kvetches."
  2. To fuss around, to be ineffectual. "She kvetches all day long."
  3. To fret, complain, gripe, grunt, sigh.  "What's she kvetching about now?"
  4. To delay, stall, show reluctance.  "He's still kvetching around."
  5. To shrug.  "He kvetches his shoulders."

B. As a reflexive verb:
  Kvetchen zich.
  To exert or push oneself. 

C.  As a noun:
  Kvetch, kvetcher, or kvetcherkeh describes:
  1.  Anyone, male or female, who complains, frets, gripes.  A "sad sack" who magnifies aches and pains.  A chronic complainer.  "What a congential kvetcher!"
  2.  One who works slowly, inefficiently, or pedantically.  "It will take forever, he's such a  kvetch."
  3.  One who constantly alibis for poor or lazy performance.  "That kvetch comes up with a different excuse every Monday and Thursday."
  4.  A "wet blanket," one who diminishes the pleasures of others.  "Don't invite them to the party; he's a kvetch."

--Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish

"Oh God," sighed the wife one morning,  "I'm convinced my mind is almost completely gone!"
Her husband looked up from the newspaper and commented,  "I'm not surprised: You've been giving me a piece of it every day for twenty years!"