Oh, what I wouldn’t give for psychic abilities. I don’t have to read minds. I don’t have to predict natural disasters (though that could sure help). I’d just like a little hint of what’s to come in the future, like a hot potato game with time. I could be leaning in one direction and my psychic hot potato abilities would whisper through my mind: Cold. So I’d lean the other way. I’d be about to try for something but I’m scared and I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do and in my mind I’d hear: Hot. Then I’d know for sure I was headed in the right direction.

That’s all I’m asking for, some minor psychic assistance.

Do you realize how helpful this could be to me? I would save money on fellowship applications, for sure—no point applying if I get a hint that it’s “cold.”

And I’d know exactly what I should be putting my energy into… among all the very many possibilities, the promising, i.e., the “hot” one, would be blazing bright and I’d head straight for it.

It just occurred to me that the game where you play treasure hunt and hear clues like “hot” and “hotter” and “you’re on fire!” is not in fact the same game as hot potato. There are absolutely no potatoes involved. This is just what I mean. Shouldn’t I have had some signal that my analogy was off? Some psychic twinge?

Like, in my real life, there are some things I would have said no to, if I had been clear on what they really were. But I said yes and I don’t think I can back out now. If I had been even a teeny-tiny bit psychic this may not have happened! I’m floating here, headless, and I know absolutely nothing. I really don’t know what to do.

But there’s no going back now. Time is cruel that way. So… In the meantime… I will do what I do best:

Distract myself.

This weekend’s distraction is a project I loooooove so much I could eat it—no sureties in sight, no way of knowing what will happen when I finish, but it’s all I want to work on right now. It feels so hot, it’s sizzling.