it's not friday yet.

I don’t have any pictures to post and I don’t have anything good to say. But if I do one more Friday post with nothing in between, I'm pulling the plug on this blog.

So here. This is what’s on my mind.


Katie said, “you’re not even the same person.”

She was looking at pictures that Allie took. I could imagine her at her flat-screen monitor, looking at the same pictures I was seeing on my flat-screen monitor. All I could see were small hands and feet. She said she saw now that somewhere between Corning and Portland and Corning and Buffalo and Nashville I turned new.

I know what she means, generally. I cleaned up my act. I cleaned up my mouth. I cleaned up my style, my hair, my makeup. I’ve gone through a lot of sandpaper and drill bits trying to make me like this. I can’t usually make the changes I’m hoping for.

I’m better at holding on tight when the wind blows and working with what’s left after the storm. That's me today, the me that Katie saw. There’s no way to make less or more of it, it just is.

edit to add katie's take. I send her a copy of everything I post here, and this was her comment, insightful as ever.

"There’s more to it than that. You haven’t ceased to be You, but you’re the best You I’ve ever known.

It’s like you used to be a hollow shell of You with dark cold eyes, but then God breathed into you and now, You’re warm and funny, and wise and good. And I trust this You. And quitting Us, with this You, isn’t even an option anymore, (although it used to be at a couple points in time along the way) and I’d say it’s a non-issue now.

I don’t know, but I think that’s really something.

It’s definitely more than just the You that cleaned up her act.

You’re real now. You’re like Pinocchio ~ sans wood."

I mean, it's not every day that your Best Friend calls you Pinoccchio.

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