it's 10:27 pm and i'm just finishing breakfast. a huge salad with mixed greens and carrots and roasted potatoes and 'crack' dressing, a few bites of microwave macaroni and cheese and now a pacific rose apple with almond butter. spicy, a little tabby that i currently live with, is rolling around on my teal comforter, tugging and pulling at a tiny blue hairband of ashley's that she found in the living room. ginger, the other little feline who shares my space, is lying with her furry little head on her paws, looking forlorn, on the chair she has claimed for her own in the room next door. my housemates are both gone and i just ended a seven hour marathon of cooking in preparation for a gig we have tomorrow afternoon. before i go to sleep, i'll pull out my clipboard and make a list of all the things i still need to do in the morning, all the things i have to remember to pack before leaving the house and a list of tasks that need to be knocked out upon arriving at our commercial kitchen and before leaving for the city at 1:30 pm. i already laid out all the dishware and platters i need to bring as well as the vases and tablecloths and chalkboards and pie stands and baskets and flowers and our business card holder; i ironed the accent tablecloths and my apron; i made a huge mess in and then fully cleaned the kitchen in the process of making polenta rounds, caramelized mushrooms with thyme, yucatecean pumpkin seed dip, curried egg salad, chocolate beet cupcakes, fuchsia beet buttercream, candied ginger carrot cupcakes and carrot maple cream cheese frosting...

a few times today when i felt overwhelm welling up inside and when i was reminded of the meager paycheck (without medical or dental benefits, without paid time off, without retirement matching, without holidays) that comes from working these long and physically taxing hours, i stopped all that i was doing and i told myself: you chose this, keri...this is what you want to be doing. and a warmth spilled over me. i am happy with my work...for the first time in a very long time, maybe ever...i am happy with the work i am doing.

ever since i was a little one, i've had this idea in my head of a dynamic triangle...an ever-adjusting triangle where one of the ends is always dipping or rising above the others. i've always understood that the triangle was seeking balance, and perhaps for short spurts of time it did balance out, but never for too long. i've understood this triangle to be three distinct vertices of my life that command a lot of my energy and emotion: my professional life, my social life and my romantic life.

i'd never quite felt that the professional vertex was at a healthy and stable level, but i do now. and the social vertex is doing well, too...i have plenty of friends (and great ones at that) including my loving and healthy family. but as it goes, the romantic vertex has dipped quite low and it's pulling the other two out of alignment.

i can't help but to feel glum a lot of the time that i don't have someone intimate to share my joy with. i am so grateful to my friends for the sharing they are able to do with me, but there is something wholly distinct about the way life can be shared with a romantic partner, and i long for that way of being deeply and frequently.