fortune cookies

here are some things recently brought to my attention by certain severe mercies:

running is great because it makes you exhausted at the day's end, as if you've been cutting down trees all day long. sometimes you might be fortunate enough to fall into a deep sleep in the middle of the afternoon, waking up after the sun has gone down with an unwonted sense of secret brilliance. also, running gives you blisters, and if you can wait a couple of days until they have deflated, blisters can be a lot of fun.

being sick is great because you feel so good when you wake up, and it's over.

if you don't stir the sugar when you put it in, the tea is bitter but the last sip is so good.

a month without a haircut is like a month in a hairshirt, constantly irritating. but two months or more without a haircut is like taking a vow of silence. besides looking forward to the day when you will at last display the sartorial expression of your personal aesthetic, you find in the meantime the true self of your hair, which you were before always curbing and exaggerating. it may subtly alter the direction of your goals.

lack of success may indicate that your destined avenue for success lies outside the bounds of your imagination. perhaps it is best to devote a period of time to incubation of your talents and passions, without even examining them, so that when the period is over, you can find out which ones are tapping at the glass, most insistent for exercise. some of the things you thought you were might have died out for lack of persistent feeding, and new growths might have emerged that you never suspected could be within your constitution. be brave enough to allow the natural self.