hapathy:

Emu requested an original post today, but today has been mainly about walking around and reading books and ending up at the beach with pho and more walking. It’s been veddy nice. I’ll work on something now. Until then, there is this:

The above picture I found on the back bumper of a truck.

Reading:

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailckas

“I am aware that somewhere along the line, I’ve subconsciously turned down the pitch of my speech, like a silencer of a gun that softens the sound of its firing. Now, even when I yell, I don’t feel like I am using my full voice.”

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

“I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”

…

“I think that something similar happens with our psychic muscles. They cramp around our wounds - the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood, the humiliations suffered in both - to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, to keep foreign substances out. Perfectionism is one way our muscles cramp. In some cases, we don’t even know that the wounds and the cramping are there, but both limit us. They keep us moving and writing in tight, worried ways. They keep us standing back or backing away from life, keep us from experiencing life in a naked and immediate way. “