A friend of mine once hypothesized that everything I touch turns to cute. There is even a sound effect: ding!, like a cheerful toaster oven.

Sometimes I find it disgusting.

My landline phone is officially dead and I've decided that I want to get a rotary phone from Ebay. Mostly I am really excited about it, but sometimes I think about how it will look sitting on my desk, so adorable and old-fashioned, and I just want to vomit. I want to escape my own taste in things, get something completely un-Anjali, like an ugly beige phone from 1991. Or one shaped like a football. Or Betty Boop. Something that won't call attention to how fucking cute it is.

But I won't. If given the choice between an average vacuum cleaner and one shaped like Hello Kitty's head, I will always always choose the Hello Kitty one.

It is a blessing and a curse. Ding!

In the last month, I've turned my life upside down. I was scared at first, walking across the floor that used to be the ceiling, wondering if I would suddenly succumb to gravity and smash myself against the world of right side up. But I didn't.

I like the sweet smell of my new room, which arose inexplicably one day not long after I moved in. (The girl who owns the house says, "Your stuff must smell good. The room used to smell like boy before.") I like the huge kitchen, with its teeny-tiny cupboards and powerful old stove. I like my new step-cats, especially since I know that Ginger is happy. I like my new commute past MacArthur Park, particularly when I drive past the money-wiring/check-cashing place called Bony Express Corp. And I like waking up every day, alone in my yellow-green room, just breathing and thinking and feeling my heart beat beat beat.

I like the view up here. I think I'll stay.