My hands smell like roses. Really.

This morning we went to the Santa Monica farmer's market, as we do every Wednesday morning. If there are good looking flowers there (and many weeks, annoyingly, there aren't) I usually will buy some for the apartment. Today I got a big bundle of very pale pink spray roses that smell delicious. The flower lady wrapped them in brown kraft paper. Then we stopped by the newsstand after we finished buying all our vegetables, which is another part of the weekly ritual (and not G.'s favorite part - in fact, his LEAST favorite part). And lo, there were three shiny, glossy new magazines for me to buy.

So off we went back to the car with me carrying pretty pink magazines in one hand (the new Vanity Fair cover is gorgeous) and pretty pink roses in the other. G. looked at me and said "And now we get to go get a fountain Diet Coke from McDonalds!" And that was when I exploded with happiness all over the sidewalk.

In thinking more and more about hopefully having a baby in the not too distant future, I realize that I have an underlying fear of never again feeling girlish after I become a mother. On one hand, there is nothing I want to do more. But on the other hand (Hmmm... which hand is it that holds all the bad stuff? And shouldn't the phrase "heavy handed" be about that hand?), I am terrified of it immediately rendering me old and marmish (probably not a word, but so what).

I find myself literally having dreams about high school (which were generally nightmarish years) and I think those are based in some desire to feel like I'm not so far from that place. But - sheesh - I *am* so far from that place.