Yesterday

Little thoughts came to me yesterday (actually, it's today, but I'm not going to post it until tomorrow, so that makes today yesterday). Anyway, here are some of those thoughts:

--OW! On Monday, I went to my first "real" workout class in ages (real meaning there were actual weights and lunges and squats and even push-ups?!?! involved). And each day since then I've been moving more and more like a pregnant cowboy (though maybe that should be cowgirl) (man, do I love parentheses or what?). I can't seem to get up off our low-slung couch or up out of my itty-bitty Honda without bracing myself and sort of pushing my hips up with my butt, so that I don't actually have to engage my aching quads, which feel as if someone has beat them to a pulp with a bag of oranges. So there's the pregnant part. And then when I try to walk, I sort of swing my legs out to the side, instead of bending at the knees, to once again avoid using my poor, poor quads. Thus the cowboy. Add this to my swollen cold sore lip, and I am one hot about-to-be-40-year-old. Watch out world!

--It is now today, which yesterday would have been tomorrow. I had other little thoughts, but never got around to writing about them. So I'll just say that Today is here, and I am 40, and I feel no older than I did yesterday. However, it seems that I suddenly know everything, or so I profess to Mr. J, as I expounded on all things philosophical and psychological and political over breakfast. After listening to NPR and solving the world's problem with one pithy statement, I proclaimed, "I know everything!" After analyzing our sister-in-law and discerning the reasons for her lack of child-rearing skills, I knew I was right about it all, because "I know everything." Mr. J's reply after each of my oh-so-modest proclamations was, "And you didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn Express." GIGGLE! And now I'm off to enjoy my day, which I know will be splendiforous, because I obviously know everything.

When You're Smiling

The only reasons for today's title are (1) I could not come up with anything clever or witty, and (2) I'm listening to Pandora, and right now it's Louis Armstrong singing/playing what seems like a very melancholy version of that song. And this sort of suits me right now. I'm in a good mood all in all, and I want to smile. But yesterday, for the first time in a very long time, I was afflicted with the mother of all cold sores. Came out of nowhere and has now given me a big ol' fat lip, with all of the grossness of a cold sore and none of the sexiness of big puffy lips. Joy. So, not only does it make me grumpy, but it also hurts to smile. Boo. And tomorrow is the big 4-0 for me. I have anticipated this milestone for years. When I hit 33 or so, I finally understood Meg Ryan's lament in When Harry Met Sally: "I'm gonna be forty.... Someday!!" (I honestly did not understand that line when I first saw the movie in my 20s). And that someday is here. And of all the horrors I imagined (none of which have come true, by the way; no horrors--just sore knees, an achy lower back, and slowly deteriorating eyesight), I did not imagine entering my fourth decade with a whopping cold sore (the affliction of my teen years; the infliction that kept me from joining high school band, because you can't play the flute when you get a cold sore every other month). Anyway, what's next? A zit on my nose? Horrible teenage mood swings? What the heck, let's go for broke. Give me some braces, a thick pair of glasses, and ratty hair. It'll be like no time has passed. Apparently 40 is the new 16!