Not Such a Bad Day After All

The highlights reel:

- alarm at 9:30 feels like vacation
- rolling down the windows
- being pleasantly surprised
- wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt all.day.long.
- kids and books
- more kids, yelling barely intelligible but hilarious insults at professional athletes
- asking dumb questions and being made fun of...but getting answers
- winning 2-1 in the 9th
- enough warm clothes to be just the right amount of cozy
- "He sounds cute."
- a walk in the night air (without getting mugged)
- ridiculous, awesome friends

**(People might think blogs are written for the readers, but that is perhaps a lie.)

Wishful Thinking

I wish I could make the mail arrive faster.
I wish I could rearrange geography.
I wish I could fix the things that upset my friends. I wish I could do more to help.
I wish I could see the future, just for a second.
I wish I would get a check in the mail for a million dollars, tax free.
I wish I could park my car for more than fifteen minutes, anywhere, without worrying about getting ticketed or towed.
I wish I didn't hate how I spend half my waking hours.
I wish I could worry less about everything and everyone.
I wish people could and would just say things, without all the complications.
I wish the weather could be perfect more than three days a year.
I wish my phone wasn't starting to suck just a little.
I wish I could spend more time with the people that matter to me.
I wish the places where I feel truly safe were places I could stay and not just pass through.
I wish there was less waiting.
I wish I was too busy with all the good stuff....

They Say Good Things Come in Threes

...though I don't know who "they" are, and I'm pretty sure They weren't talking about jobs. This is unfortunate since, as of this week, I will be working three jobs.

It's likely (for various reasons - other than the obvious, actually) that this situation will not last terribly long, or at least not in its current incarnation. But for the moment, I am once again in the land of three jobs. I've been here before. I remember the lack of sleep. I remember being in a constant late of late-for-something-ness. I remember thinking that cold pop tarts out of a vending machine constituted a satisfactory meal, when I didn't have the time or energy for anything else.

I remember knowing that the insanity was worthwhile because of what it was allowing me to do that I so desperately wanted (at the time) to do. I remember carrying ridiculous amounts of stuff and clothing with me everywhere I went, so I'd be prepared for everything from early morning through mid-afternoon into late at night with a vast array of people to see and tasks to accomplish. I remember vowing I'd never again have more than one job at any given time. (Okay, maaayyybe two.)

So here I find myself again: the pages of my pocket calendar look like little war zones. I already spend much of my time wondering how soon I get to go back to sleep, the answer to which is always "not soon enough." And this time none of the three jobs is The One I Really Like. No, this time all three are just to support something else that might, hopefully, eventually, make this all seem worthwhile.

"Then why," you might say, "if you're SO busy, are you spending time writing this blog about it when you could instead be sleeping (or possibly doing something else remotely important)?" Well.... what fun is being overworked, underpaid, and overtired if you can't at least get on the internet and complain about it? I mean, isn't that what blogs are for?

Now that I think about it, maybe it's actually sneezes that They say come in threes....

Priorities

Sometimes you go out on a Wednesday night and don't get to sleep until 3am, even though you have to be somewhere at 9:30am on Thursday. Sometimes that leaves you tired enough to actually fall asleep facedown on the awful shag carpet in your living room in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes you still go out that night, but vow that you'll go home early and get to bed since you have work at 8:30 Friday morning. But sometimes someone buys you just one drink, and you stay up until 2am doing nothing - laughing - anyway. And sometimes it's really worth it. Sometimes it's exactly what you need.

Missing Pieces

Lately I seem to see a lot of young men missing limbs, all around town. Is it just me?

I wonder if they'd say we're winning...

Pickup Truck of Death

The last time I was on a bicycle was several years ago (much to my roommate's chagrin). My friend was last on a bicycle at least ten years ago. That is, until yesterday, when we decided to ride twenty miles - ten out, ten back - on bikes we dug out of the basement, one of which ostensibly fit her and one that was blatantly too small for me. We crammed the bikes in the back of the car, drove to the parking lot, donned our dusty helmets, and congratulated ourselves heartily on making it from the car all the way to the beginning of the path.

We considered riding the whole trail - 22 miles each direction - but once we found ourselves stopping every mile or two we changed our minds. It turns out that resting all of your bodyweight on, essentially, the top of a narrow pole is extremely uncomfortable. As in, I'm very much still sore in very inconvenient places, and probably will be for several days.

Fortunately we managed to avoid meeting motorized death at any of the road crossings, and were mostly able to ride side by side so as to hear each other's snarky comments and jokes along the way.

The weather was beautiful, the picnic lunch by the hard-to-find lake was chilly but nice... and I won't be getting back on a bike for at least another five years.

But a weekend out of town, with sunshine and fresh air and really good (completely uncomplicated) company is the best cure for almost any ill...or for many ills at once. It doesn't actually solve the problems, it just makes them seem a lot less problematic. Or, at the very least, it gives you a respite from thinking about them, worrying about them, being sad about them, trying to solve them.

Find a friend to visit or put a tent in your trunk and go. Now. Go.

A Tale of Two Cities

I want to go down to 3rd and Lindsley and run into all the people I used to see at the Lounge. I want a spicy chocolate chocolate chip cookie from Fido after dinner at Diva. I want two homes and a private plane.

I want to tell my friends that I’m not really leaving, I’ll just have a slightly longer drive to meet up with them. I want to believe that there will be no sense of loss, just a geographical redistribution. I want to say that I know it won’t be easy, but what’s (and who’s) important won’t change. I don’t know how it’ll work, I just know that it will.