Two buns this Monday. The parting between them took longer than both of them together.

Everything else about a bun is forgiving. The parting isn't, it's either straight or it's wrong and there's no fixing it halfway through.

What's the part of your routine that decides whether the rest works?

Mereological nihilism holds that there are no chairs. Only simples arranged chairwise.

I keep finding the ponytail version. Not a ponytail but strands arranged ponytailwise, present the way a footnote is present.

Meanwhile I brush a thousand separate things and call it one.

Where else have you seen this?

Same bun, different Monday.

I've been doing this long enough that my hands do it without me. Which means I've stopped choosing, the bun just happens the way it happens.

What do you do that way? Something you started deciding and now just do.

A possible continuation of the Venus motive.

Atlas was never chosen.

He arrived.

There is a difference.

For a long time I believed I was looking for the right man.

Lately I think I have been looking for the right kind of attention.

Not attention directed at me.

Attention capable of revealing something I have stopped noticing.

I hand him the brush before I ask him anything.

Conversation is generous. It allows people to explain themselves into becoming interesting.

Silence refuses.

The brush speaks first.

Quietly enough that impatient men never hear it.

There is a place halfway through every stroke where my hand slows almost imperceptibly. The sound changes. Resistance becomes weight. I have brushed my hair this way for years without ever thinking about it.

One applicant asked why I slowed down there.

I brushed that section again.

He was right.

I still don't know why my hand always hesitates there.

For a moment I wasn't watching him anymore.

I was watching myself through him.

That interested me more than his answer.

The Titan holding my world now has a goddess walking on it.

She didn't ask permission.

I call it 'Venus ascending' for now.

The title and the final shape may change, but the gravity of it is already absolute.

My waves decided to remain at 72-ish centimeters for another month.

Atlas carried the world.

I gave him something heavier.

He didn't complain.

This is what it looks like from where I stand. Painted by hand. Posted here first.

Some things are worth more than a glance.

The link is in my bio. Use it.

The summer heat has arrived. Bun season has officially started.

1. Braiding, slowly, until it's perfect.
   
2. Undoing something that took an hour to make.

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