turning up the legitimacy

Right now, when you type "lovealwaysclara.com" into your url-box-thing, nothing happens.

In twenty four hours (or however long GoDaddy takes), that will no longer be the case.

This is big news!

I've had an interesting weekend and it has led me to several conclusions, one of which being that there's a certain degree of frivolity in my life that I'm not pleased with.

I do like frivolity. In some situations it's phenomenal. I decided to give myself a pink streak in my hair today. That was somewhat frivolous. There is indubitably a time and place for frivolity.

That said, I haven't been taking myself with the legitimacy that I'm realizing I do in fact possess.

I'm a real person!

That shouldn't be big news.

Allow me to explain myself and hopefully sound less like a crazy person (I am aware in advance that this may backfire). Everyone has an internal monologue, but most of the time I forget about that and assume that I'm the only one, because I can only hear my own. So sometimes I think, "I'm the only real person because I'm the only one with thoughts that I can hear," and other times I think, "Everyone else is real and I'm crazy because wow look at this internal monologue."

Both of these things are somewhat insane. And they lead me to believe that I'm somehow fundamentally different from other people most of the time, because I'm me and everyone else is other people and it's almost like I'm within a TV show -- everyone else just says their lines and goes about their business and I generally do not know how to handle this feeling that I'm the narrator of the Clara's-Life Show.

This is a narcissistic thought and one that I'm trying to dispel. Because the fact of it is that I'm real and you reading this are real and your father is real and the guy working at Starbucks is real and all of these people have thoughts in their heads and get insomnia once in a while and have a favorite flavor of gum. The reality of this strikes me every once in a while when I'm reading a good book or paying too much attention to other people's conversations in public. It's like that Kate Nash song (I use mouthwash, sometimes I floss, I've got a family and I drink cups of tea).

Think of it this way: I've found that when I first meet someone, I form a pretty simple idea of them in my head (that guy who wears plaid, my neighbor with the guitar, the girl at the gym all the time) and for most intents and purposes that works fine, but when I get to know those people it suddenly becomes apparent that they have all of these other levels. It shouldn't surprise me, and it generally doesn't, but I think (hope) everyone can identify with that feeling that you've just discovered that someone is a real person.

Where I've arrived from all of this is a feeling that I need to quit taking myself unseriously. I deserve certain treatment and I deserve not to sell myself short and if I want something I'm the only person who can make that happen. So I bought myself a domain name.

Love always,

Clara