It gets clearer.

You know when you're writing and everything that comes into your head is shoddy and trite, and you write and write, and try to find something, anything, that glimmers in that pile of shit that is your emotional register.

Anyway, on Monday I start that cleaning job. I look forward to being resposnible for something other than feeding myself, doing things I won't enjoy, and getting paid. When I was younger I would never have felt this way. I had such a sense of entitlement, not knowing that income is fragile and I'm not.

Be still my heart;

Hello, new week.

Here is to the rest of this summery Monday afternoon.

Also, it would be nice to be young and have Astrid Smart for a friend.

Lately I have had a growing feeling that nearly every part of my life is slightly substandard.

I have decided, arbitrarily, that it is alright as long as the following things do not reach the substandard point: coffee, tv-watching, amount of time spent on various activities that I count as "writing," love.

The Model Agency.

Thursday evening is the best evening of the week. In its honour I've made scones and bought apricot marmelade. Why it's the best? The Model Agency. That show makes me want to be a model agent, and I say this sincerely, that's how good it is.

Small trials.

Reality: "How old are you? Right. Kids? No? Well, there's time. Boyfriend? Yeah, how is it working out? Mind if I smoke? Sorry, have to get this."

My mind:

All you need is a plan.

My friend says all you need is a plan. I have this wood that I don't know what to make of that has been standing around for two months.

It's funny.

You go to school and get a degree. You go to gradschool and get another degree. Briefly, you have a job with your own office, a comfy chair and all the free notebooks you need. Then you're unemployed for a while but think that's alright, you'll find a new job, and if you don't you were planning to be a writer anyway. Then you get this PhD position in England, which you're proud and excited about until you realise you can't afford it. You get an interview for a cleaning job, and as you're really hoping to be a cleaner, somebody asks if you are available to do the job with the office again. It's not for sure because there are new bosses now who decide things differently. Yet you feel hopeful and think that between the two jobs you might be able to save up enough money to start the PhD after all, only a year later, but you also think that fuck knows what will really happen in the future. Maybe you'll be a cleaner for life, like your mum.

Hi.

I want to work in a shop and wear tailored clothes and be happy.

Bullfinch.

A nice moment was when I rang my boyfriend who was in the other room and said that I would love a cup of coffee and he whispered quietly that he would fix it right away, then I heard the coffee maker in the kitchen and the next minute he came and put that silly Moomin cup on my desk and left without a word, and soon my phone beeped and there was a text that said would you like a re-up?