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anne: there's nothing better than being halfway naked, except being completely naked.

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life is good. i forget this sometimes. it's easy to talk myself out of living. sometimes it takes me almost a full afternoon to walk myself back under god's arm. longer if it's a tuesday.

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there's a scaly voice with armpit breath who only speaks one sentence, all the time. she has no originality, but i have to give her points for cutting to the heart of it all. she says, hey, you. who are you kidding.

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i hear her when i look up wilderness EMT classes or wonder if i want to try living in washington state for a while. i hear her when i'm registering for a welding class or planning my garden at the farm. i hear her when i notice my split ends or forget to put on deodorant or when my vase collapses on the wheel in ceramics, dissolving into a puddly mess in my fingers. she whispers, hey, you. yeah, you.

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but you know what? i'm going to do it all anyway. if armpit breath has a problem with that, she can crawl back to hell. may the rest of her existence be one long repeating first day of junior high. life is good and mysterious and god's palms are on my shoulders.

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time to garden.