19/31 Minty goodness

In an effort to stop making useless purchases, I've added a "Uselsss Purchase" tag to my Mint account. Mint can't (yet) accurately analyze online purchases via Amazon or Paypal, so it lumps them into the bland, meaningless category "Shopping". I then have to review my receipts and re-categorize these purchases into morally unassailable columns like "books" and "groceries" (well, okay, coffee beans), or more puritanically-dubious columns like "shoes and accessories" and "entertainment".

But whichever column my online impulse buys wind up in, some of them deserve the tag "Useless Purchases," and I review those from time to time, hoping to learn something which, at the age of 57, I really should have learned much sooner in life.

Here's what's currently tagged Useless Purchase, along with my reminder notes:

• Red leather jacket, custom made and non-returnable. Color not like shown in photograph, arrived poorly packaged and wrinkled, wrinkles haven't hung out in five months, keep hoping the color will work for me but it doesn't, too big for H, too expensive to give away
• Magenta belt
• Sherlock S1 and S2 DVD sets to take to the beach, but we didn't have time to watch them and I could get them on Netflix Streaming so here I am...
• New clothes for Dressing Your Truth. A bunch of t-shirts that turned out to be not quite right that I've since given away
• Black "Hale Pack" hoodie *eyeroll*
• On Fire (TW tie-in novel, too bad to read)
• Writing with Clarity and Style (for JFM's writing class). Ended up paying to give it away (mailed to student in Toronto)
• Grammatically Correct (for JFM's class) I KNEW I DIDN'T NEED THIS STUPID BOOK
• Dumbass "writing course" by Joshua Fields Millburn. The only takeaway was "Sit In The Chair." Not sure that was worth four hundred bucks

The moral of the story is...try not to make useless purchases, I guess.

20/31 Vanishing

Do you ever feel like you're just...disappearing?

I have the oddest sensation lately that I barely exist. I'm sure my imminent retirement has something to do with it--one of my lifelong mooring lines is about to be cast off. I've never been very engaged with my work or my coworkers, and now I'm even less so.

I don't think that's the whole story, though. I can't figure out how to describe it. But, as we say in EFT, "if you did know how to describe it, what do you think you'd say?"

It's...hollow. Quiet. Becalmed. In a fog. When I home in on it, there's fear at the center that I don't want to look at. It's probably not a monster--more like a Dweller on the Threshold. (...there come cycles wherein the Dweller on the Threshold appears and confronts the aspirant, challenging his purpose and progress and blocking the door which leads to expanded life and liberation. The Dweller challenges the freedom of the human soul.¹)

If I get the nerve to confront it, I'll let myself know. Meanwhile, have a pretty picture from my morning commute:

21/31 Person of Interest

I'm impressed with how this show has started foregrounding all its kickass women and girls, and the two ostensibly leading males have become supporting characters.

( Cut for slight spoilers )

I've enjoyed PoI all along, but I was riveted on tonight's ep.