...but I'm Not Tired Yet...

Who, as a kid, didn't try anything and everything to avoid getting put to bed? Is there a child who (on a regular basis) willing marches out of the room, away from all the fun, and up to brush her teeth and turn out the light? There may be...but I was not one. I was the kid who'd swear up and down that she wasn't tired, while she was actually managing to fall asleep mid-sentence. I have many memories of drifting in and out of consciousness while the grownups all around me carried on the party and let me pretend I was part of it. I did NOT want to go to bed.

I guess some things never change.

I'm not sure why it is that I hate going to bed. I do love late nights, both the part when everyone is out and living it and the part after that, when it gets impossibly quiet and you can hear yourself think for once. I often get a bit restless on nights when I'm home with nothing to do, because there's so much possibility. And nighttime just begs to be shared - what's better than sitting on the beach after dark, under the stars, with a good friend? Sitting there alone just isn't the same. Nice, yes, but not the same. So putting the kabosh on that and heading off to Never Never Land is not to be desired.

There's also just something I can't put my finger on.... something that makes giving up and going to bed seem like, well, like just that - like giving up. Giving up on another day. Letting it be over, with no more possibility for great things to happen in it. Try again tomorrow, today is done. I guess I like the idea that there's still a little more to come. Anything could happen. I guess anything will have to happen tomorrow....

Choosing an Adventure

My father advocates a very complex system for making decisions, involving a kind of matrix and a bunch of math. It is a good system, and has helped me make many a decision - all of which seem to have worked out okay so far.

My mother, on the other hand, is a big fan of the flip-a-coin method. Her reasoning goes like this: when the coin lands, if you feel relieved or happy, you know that that's the outcome you really wanted. If you're disappointed with what the coin chooses, you know you really want the other option. (And I guess if you genuinely are happy with either outcome then a flip of a coin is as good as any other way to decide.)

So, by my mother's logic, if you get what should be good news and it makes you cry, does that mean you're making the wrong decision?

I know the blogs lately have been, um... "thematic," we'll say. But can you blame me? I'm moving a thousand miles, people, to a city where I barely know a soul. And I'm going back to school to do something I basically haven't done in ten years.

Maybe getting upset isn't a bad sign, maybe it's a good sign. As in, I really ought to be a little freaked out, and if I wasn't that would be bad. Maybe?

I suppose I can refer here to another aphorism my mother favors: "it's all part of the adventure." And, in theory at least, I can choose my own just like I could back in my early reader days. Too bad this time if I don't like the ending I get I can't flip back a few pages and try another one.....

An Open Letter (3)

Dear Likely Future Landlady,

You are entirely cool. You remind me a little bit of my mother, but with a serious drawl. You are (most likely) rescuing me from potential homelessness in my new city - or, more realistically, from paying $700 a month (not including utilities) to live in a (barely) glorified closet. You will let me park my car in your garage and wash my clothes in your washing machine. Your son is going to install Dish Network in my (hopefully) future apartment. The only way this could be any better is if your son turns out to be my future perfect husband. (Maybe that's asking too much.)

Thank you for being so nice. Thank you for sounding so Southern. Thank you for saying you couldn't "put the photos up on the craigs list." I very much hope I can spend three years living upstairs from your overtired self and your deaf mother.

p.s. The forty-year-old avocado green stove is beautiful. Please don't get rid of it.

Free Stuff

The following is a list of stuff I currently own and have no intention of carrying 1000 miles when I move. If you have any interest in any of it, make yourself known! Otherwise, you can just chuckle (or shake your head) at the odd collection:

- various pairs of shoes, at or around women's size nine, including one pair of platform flip flops
- one men's XL timberland jacket that once belonged to someone on the touring crew of the rockstar-no-one-has-heard-of i used to work for, possibly even him himself
- three cans of playdough, never opened
- a thigh master (I don't want to talk about it)
- two small bookshelves that are totally serviceable as long as you don't really plan on looking at them
- a wheely desk chair with slightly ripped fabric (but it's relatively comfortable)
- a very small, very thin, very aquamarine 'throw rug' from Ikea
- one sheet of poster board and one of foam core (both white)
- a shopping bag full of yarn (this has actually been promised to some friends of the knitting persuasion, but if they change their minds it's up for grabs)

-
-
-

I'm making non-jokes that aren't funny.... that means it's time to stop.

Better Things To Do

I find myself, at this moment, most of the way through a weekend that has been....well, awesome. It's been the kind of weekend where I forget about all the trivial crap that I get so cranky about day-to-day, and just get to enjoy the really good stuff. Even the stressful parts of the weekend have been things that really matter - which seems so much more worthwhile than getting stressed out about a stupid part time job or the logistics of moving 1000 miles. It's been the kind of weekend that hasn't been "perfect" but has been exactly right. I wish more of life could be like this weekend.

And it's all going by so fast. How can it be the middle of June already?! It's now only two months until the Big Move, which I still can't believe. I guess that just means I need to make the next two months more like this weekend, and less like last week. (Last week was pretty well summed up by "urgh.")

But I shouldn't be spending this afternoon in front of the computer. Blogging is fun, but I'm pretty sure I have better things to do....

That's, Like, Sooooo Meta

I have two excuses for not writing very recently.

1. I can barely find time to sleep, much less post here. (Why am I still up now? Good question.)
2. After writing that last blog about all y'all who are reading it - or not reading it, as the case may be - every time I've thought about posting I've found myself wondering what on earth to write about...and gotten stymied and given up.

I think I was better off not thinking about my audience, but simply blathering on about whatever was in my head at the time. Now I find myself censoring every idea as (mostly) completely uninteresting to whomever might be reading, or else some degree of pompous and obnoxious.

This leaves me at a bit of a loss. I mean, I guess I could write about the weather, and sports teams, and that sort of thing. I could start writing nothing but movie reviews (though that would require seeing a lot more movies than I currently do). I could let this become a completely 'meta', self-reflective blog about blogging, but I think we've seen from Jason Mraz's songwriting that writing about nothing but your own writing gets really boring (and irritating) really fast.

So.... I don't have a solution. I suppose I'll just get over it and go back to blathering like before. In the meantime....I'm going to get some sleep.