I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused

"My life is very monotonous," he said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."

This little passage from The Little Prince has always meant a lot to me. The problem, of course, is that I have always fought off the idea of being tamed. For, as wonderful as it may be, it's also quite uncomfortable.

So here I find myself dancing with the whole idea, a tentative step towards, a nervous step back. I'm pulled to the idea of being tamed. I fight it because there is an expiration date on things these days. I am happy and I do not entirely see the point of disturbing that equilibrium.

And yet, I am perhaps not as cynical as I sound. Even in the back and forth, the conflict that leads to paralysis, the doubts and fears, in all of that there has to be some element of hope, or the scales would have been tipped towards my usual content state of status quo. I suppose what is left is figuring out what it is I'm hoping for.

In other news, it is finally starting to get warm here these days. Which means soon it will be time to embark on ice cream making. In preparation, I spent all of yesterday scrubbing my kitchen down (there is something silly about the idea of cleaning something up just so you can make it dirty again- I'm sure there is some meaning to this habit of mine, but I don't have the wherewithal to figure it out just now). This is much aided by an iPod tucked in your pocket. Preferably with cheeseball Bollywood songs, a healthy helping of 80s silliness like XTC and Duran Duran, and then closing it out with some Jay-Z. It sounds odd, but it is surprisingly effective.