On a more exciting note, my tenure at this particular job has been extended by a month, relieving me of a great deal of financially-oriented stress. You know how it is said that people spend a total of a year of their lives standing in lines, or this many years asleep or that many years eating? I shudder to think of how much of my life has been devoted to pointless worrying over money -- time that I could have spent much more profitably pursuing other interests, such as boys. (ha ha.)

Speaking of boys. A confession. I do not know how to "play it cool." I cannot help but wear my heart on my sleeve. I worry that I say too much. I worry that I compliment too often, that my very enthusiasm damps the enthusiasm of others. It is the basic nature of fledgling romance that upsets me -- their thoughts are obscured, their attitudes relaxed (falsely or no), because they do not want you to think that perhaps they are secretly as excited as you are. I am sad when others are not as willing as I to throw themselves upon the pyre. It leaves me reduced to mystical augury: I find myself reading horoscopes (insert gasp of feigned surprise here) for clues into my romantic future; I tie knots in straw-wrappers and pull, using the status of the knot as an indicator of whether or not the boy is thinking of me.

All I know to do is to keep on as I have been; I am incapable of changing my modus operandi at this point, and to be honest, I would not want to. I do not wish to be opaque, hidden; I will not play games and pretend to be laid-back when I am just the opposite. All I can hope is that someone is willing to take what I say at face value, to accept that I can be good for them and they can be good for me; that someone is willing to lose themselves in a kiss, to paint the town a blazing red, to laugh and not worry about what they sound like when they sing.