Pillow Book/Talk

"To love makes one solitary, she thought" -V. Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, 33.

Words thrumming through my head this morning.
• Solitary.
• Solace.
• Solipsism.
• Solemnity.

Distasteful things on which I'd rather not dwell.
• This country's so-called leadership.
• The conflation of women with their wombs. (story, courtesy Rabbit)
• How little I've written this year.
• The cat hair lurking beneath my keypad.

Discoveries made astonishingly late in life.
• They ain’t studying you.
• To shrug off the role of the academic acolyte, first reject it yourself.
• Inevitably, successful people are—in some regard—selfish.
• There’s a reason people drink caffeine in the morning.
(How did I get through 23 years of schooling without knowing this?)

Reasons to start loving your work, right now.
• You did once delight in this topic.
• Certain people's opinions aside, the Ph.D. is not a waste.
• You choke on the prospect of eternal trailing-spouse-dom/spouse-dumb.
• This is one of those things you can do only by yourself. You only can do.

Lucky girl.