Goals

I have always been fascinated by the concept of self-improvement. Its glittery promises beckon like a snake-oil barker at a country fair. Possibilities are limitless. The world is your oyster. What you want is within your grasp; you just have to reach out and take it. There's something about the concept of potential that I've always found dreamy and mesmerizing and, somehow, safe. It's a place in my head where everything is perfect and new and sparkly and clean and I haven't done anything to screw it up yet. Potential is as soothing, and addictive, as an opiate.


While I won't stoop to actually buying books on self-improvement, I check them out from the library in large numbers. Overcome with shame at my basic inability to get my shit together, I read them as surruptitiously as one might puruse a porno mag on a crowded bus. I dread the thought of someone asking me, "What are you reading?" And the hellish thing is, someone always asks me this question when I'm reading a book on self-improvement. It never fails. Noel Coward? Franz Kafka? Albert Camus? I'm left to my own devices. No one ever asks me if, say, Crime and Punishment is any good. But when you hold a book whose cover consists of large gold letters, lots of exclamation points, and a squirrely-looking guy in a too-tight suit pointing an accusatory index finger in your direction, suddenly it's Q&A time and you're doing a book review for the stranger sitting next to you in the little waiting room at the podiatrist's office. (Don't people understand that I read in order to avoid human contact? But that's a post for another day.)

So what do I want to accomplish in this blog? What do I want to improve? Heady thoughts to ponder. Let's put that off for another day (lol) and address it in tomorrow's post.