Everybody’s got that picture in their mind, the one of how they think their life is supposed to be. It just makes you wonder if I should hold out for my picture a little longer.

The thing about the picture is: how do you look in it? It’s not about who you’re standing next to, or what’s in the background. It’s: are you smiling? Are you good with the choices that you’ve made? Because if you are, it doesn’t matter where you’re standing or who you’re standing next to. It’s a good picture.

I miss Everwood. tear.

Tonight is one of those nights when everything but what I should be doing is capturing my full attention; I watched tv and played with Facebook. But tv can be so educational sometimes, I convinced myself.

Like Ugly Betty. It's got to be popular because everyone must feel like the Ugliest Betty in the world sometimes. I watch the show and feel myself being in a place of invisibility, where people don't really notice you exist because your hair is dull, your face speckled, your chest flat, and your clothes yesterday. I remember those days, and almost feeling warmly, longingly, attached to them. Those formative days when I didn't even bother trying to look nice because I knew it wouldn't make a difference; it couldn't offset the three pounds of "featherweight" glass balanced on the bridge of my nose, or the awkward way I carried my back-breaking backpack, or the unflattering way my oversized t-shirts fell straight down to the middle of my jean shorts, or the poofed-out scrunchies taming my long hair. Would it all still be ok, would I still be so well-adjusted if I hadn't grown out of it, if I hadn't started to see the light at the end of the tunnel illuminating puberty and friends willing to frame me with new fashion and the possibility that the opposite sex *might* be willing to like me? Would it?

I'm glad I don't know, even I still have all the same insecurities of a fifteen-year-old, knobby-knee'd, perennially awkward girl. (Though I never actually had knobby knees. I was blessed with good knees my whole life. I don't think I could have handled that extra blight to bear, knobby knees.) But old age and willing emotion-talkers have comforted me with the commonality of all these frets.

Anyway, I'm smiling in my current picture of life, even if the background is a little blurry from scenes from the whole world being rushed by and the people I'm standing next to are all at varying distances away (it's a panoramic picture). Ok, I'm really only half-smiling, but I don't want to seem ungrateful. I think I need to write to PM again, because he clearly hasn't written back yet, and I'm tired of waiting.

But PM, if you're reading, I'd like to add something while we're at it: you must visit google at least once a day. You must have at least heard of google mail. (It's ubiqioutous! I'm not asking alot here!)

I still need to post my Nigeria thoughts, which are currently stashed safely all over my bedroom floor, small scraps of receipt backs and unused napkins bunched up on horizontal storage spaces.

Goodnight, world!