levon helm died and tom petty kicked off his tour yesterday. i also listened to tom petty’s buried treasure radio show yesterday for the first time, and it was so happy and cheesy and great. levon, levon, levon. i saw him play just once, and i was utterly charmed by him. i knew he was on his way, but it didn’t make it easier to read the news. breaking news: levon helm dead at 71. breaking news: blackhawk helicopter crashes in afghanistan. a good thing goes away and a bad thing keeps right on thriving. i guess this is the burden of living, of learning, of feeling.

this is the burden of a poet. my eyeballs are tiny hearts.

i can’t be perfect. this is one of the only things i know for sure about my life. i can’t live up to the standard i think i should be able to live up to. only grammatically correct. see, i’m doing it again.

i was working on a treatise about why sewing is good for a perfectionist (because there is a RIGHT way to do it), but really, it doesn’t have to be perfect, so there I go again. i am so eager to box things up and draw broad lines and move items from column A to column B. but sewing can flow. you can adjust from mistakes on the fly. i am changing a pattern to make it work with the print of my fabric. there are things to be mindful of, but at the end of the day, it’s just like everything else: does it look good enough? what are you willing to leave and what wakes you up at 5 am thinking about how you can fix it? what do you care about so much that you are willing to say “we did it all for the glory of love” about how much you are willing to perfect it? because that is a commitment.

i want to weigh a healthy weight but i don’t want to live on celery and chicken breast and i don’t want to ever, ever, ever give up pizza, pancakes, and lounging about.

i want to have a job i love but i don’t want to be hemmed in by industrial greys on every side.

instead of being perfect, maybe i could just be the best i can be on whatever day i find myself rambling through. tonight i was sulking on the couch, skipping my workout AGAIN, wishing i had some friends here. i decided not to force myself to workout, but to do something positive for myself. write something, anything. something real, which is hard for me to do on this blog. but you know what?

this is all there is to know about me today.