30

I didn't get enough sleep last night and so wanted to go straight to bed after my last appointment today, which ended at 6.00, but I stayed awake through 6.42 (in fact it is seven minutes shy of four in the morning as I type this) just to be sure, chatting inanely on the phone with a friend. And I looked up and it was 6.44. I made it. I am now, I suppose, on my own recognizance. I have to say, however, that in spite of not dying before this birthday, my twenties were every bit as dire as I feared. I don't resent them, not at all, but I am very happy to see the back end of them, and from a safe distance.

Much on my mind at the moment (I'm kind of irritated that life and thinking do not pause for one's birthday) is Grandma and the fact that I will be helping her move next week. Underlying all structures labelled "Grandma" is the question of whether or not it is worth it to continue to have any kind of relationship with her at all; I feel as though I achieve the impossible through an act of sheer will every time I get through any kind of interaction with her, lunch or a phone call or not strangling her in her sleep on any given night. Helping her move is not a problem per se (I do just that for other friends on a semi-regular basis and in a more involved, furniture-hefting way); it's that helping her move makes me feel as though I have given absolutely everything I should and can and a bit more, even, in order to forge and maintain this fragile relationship . . . thing . . . only to be informed that the requirements have changed and I must now contribute even more. Trust me when I say that she is already unpleasant enough without the shitcrazy moving causes.

Purchases in mind for soon: hero coat (found it: dark dove grey in a Victorian tuxedo-jacket cut with a long, handkerchief-hem skirt), dancing-man tattoo, bras (extant examples crumbling), green glass goblets, foam rolls for lumbar and cervical curvature correction, coveted white square pillows (a pipe dream at the moment), spider ring to replace the one lost. Need an eye exam, but that's probably still a few months out. Maybe December.

Recent improvements: lovely keyboarded mobile phone, ability to text, discovery that exercise feels fucking amazing, fabulous chair, bowl and plate in houndstooth check, several Seventies saucers, five Corelle bowls and a few plates, blue toenails (9.25 of them), dark purple fingernails, decent haircut (for birthday), underpants (up to seven pair total, from previous quantity two; alas, no superhero print, but one can't have everything), seven completed audioerotica to listen to while exercising, the ability to have orgasms any time I want, the ability to want orgasms, presence in life of sleeping pills and Benadryl, finished reading A Study in Scarlet, have appointment for Yoshimi to be looked at Thursday, check for concealed-handgun permit cleared, new job starting 1 October, which means more money. Also I am 30, and I find that the fact makes me like my face a great deal better when I see it in the mirror than I did when looking at it at 29. The View is right: being 30 is being fully formed, which is much easier to deal with than not knowing and trying to make something out of personality pastry-dough. If I had a daemon, today would be the day it settled, I think. I wonder what it would be. (I note no one in Pullman's trilogy ever had pet allergies.)

Dissatisfactions: pants; jeans; weight (the former two not related to the latter, which I realize is against what statistics would suggest); horrid allergies due to housesitting with animals and eating terribly; depression and lethargy resulting from the preceding and in turn leading to avoidance of exercise and circadian arrhythmia; resultant loss of control over schedule and lack of efficiency/effectiveness in completing schoolwork. I want the first course done by next Wednesday, brain, do you hear? -$170 in checking account, of which $100 is overdraft fees, goddammit; Thank God for abovementioned paycheck.

Recently rediscovered how incredibly sexy the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is, and Frankenstein (the book, I mean). Reading The Sign of the Four for the first time,and it is awesome. "'Now, Watson,' said Holmes, rubbing his hands, 'we have half an hour to ourselves. Let us make good use of it.'" Indeed. Life is not bad. Not bad at all.