So, a week later I'm feeling a bit better and am ready to tackle the world again. Kind of. Well, the world as seen whizzing past a car window at the very least. Today my brother and I set off for adventure (i.e. Pittsburgh), on the first leg of our cross-country road trip. (Background: the bro is moving to Hawaii, with his car, which is shipping out of San Diego - so that's our destination.) On this leg we gave a friend a lift to the 'burgh, in return for some pretty posh overnight accomodations upon arrival. Seriously - I'm writing this from one of their two guest rooms, in an antique-y brass bed on the third floor of an undeniably gorgeous house. A cat is balled up and sleeping on the bench next to me. AND I have Wifi. Life could be worse.
Preliminary thoughts on road-tripping:
- So far, popular conversation topics include: things that our parents do that we don't like, sci-fi television shows, what we are listening to (or what we are listening to next)
- The Pennsylvania turnpike is always just as scary as I remember it being. And I didn't make up that they force trucks to drive in the left lane in certain sections. Because having zero shoulder on dark windy roads the mountains of Pennsylvania wasn't scary enough on its own, apparently.
- The tuna sub at Wawa is superior to the tuna sub at Sheetz.
- Combos has a special limited edition Buffalo wings flavor
- I am just as bad at reading in the car as I ever used to be.
- Coconut water: available
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Daylight Savings Mind
Day three of rain here in DC, and it’s getting darker every morning. Just as it did during the deluge in mid-September, this kind of weather spurs a particularly powerful impulse to contemplate every mistake I’ve ever made and catalog every failure in my life. Sometimes I literally make lists. SUPER healthy, I know.
Things aren’t even that bad. I’m keeping busy, spending time with friends and family, seeing shows, planning a big trip at the end of the month, taking small steps professionally . . . opening my mail, watering the plants, reading the news . . . all sorts of semi-adult and reasonably functional stuff going on around here. But I gotta admit, brain-wise, the ol’ belfry seems to be filling up with bat guano. And while I KNOW that (to torture the metaphor) said guano may be valuable for its properties as a fertilizer, that doesn’t make it superfun to have in my brain where normal, happy thoughts should be. PLUS as it turns out mining bat guano is really bad for bat populations, so there’s that.
In conclusion, shut up brain, shut up your face.
Right now I’m pinning a lot of brain-clearing hopes on the end of daylight savings time. Anything that makes my first hour of consciousness each day a little more sun-filled is a pretty good plan in my book, and who doesn’t like an extra hour of sleep now and then? It’s like a mini-snow day, a reminder of forces beyond my own little life. Natural phenomena really have a pretty profound impact on my mood. I'm pretty sure my brain chemistry changes substantially every time I take a walk at lunchtime or stop to smell a flower on my way home from work.*
Probably this means that I should be outside more or something CRAZY like that. Maybe if the f-ing rain ever stops. Tonight I’m going to see 50/50 because I really enjoy snotting all over myself in public apparently, and if all goes as planned tomorrow will find me gnawing on a turkey leg while watching some jousting in bumfuck Maryland. That’s outdoors, right?
And the sun just came out, for a moment anyway. Schizo weather. I’ll take what I can get.
See you on the other side! Hopefully at a post-5-pm-sundown happy hour, because that extra light in the morning always comes at a price. Weather jerks.
*If you’re in the Dupont area, there’s still one dumbass magnolia flowering over by the Brookings Institute. You have to climb up on a wall in heels and will probably spill pollen all over yourself, but it’s worth it.
*And in other news, I have officially become my grandmother.
Things aren’t even that bad. I’m keeping busy, spending time with friends and family, seeing shows, planning a big trip at the end of the month, taking small steps professionally . . . opening my mail, watering the plants, reading the news . . . all sorts of semi-adult and reasonably functional stuff going on around here. But I gotta admit, brain-wise, the ol’ belfry seems to be filling up with bat guano. And while I KNOW that (to torture the metaphor) said guano may be valuable for its properties as a fertilizer, that doesn’t make it superfun to have in my brain where normal, happy thoughts should be. PLUS as it turns out mining bat guano is really bad for bat populations, so there’s that.
In conclusion, shut up brain, shut up your face.
Right now I’m pinning a lot of brain-clearing hopes on the end of daylight savings time. Anything that makes my first hour of consciousness each day a little more sun-filled is a pretty good plan in my book, and who doesn’t like an extra hour of sleep now and then? It’s like a mini-snow day, a reminder of forces beyond my own little life. Natural phenomena really have a pretty profound impact on my mood. I'm pretty sure my brain chemistry changes substantially every time I take a walk at lunchtime or stop to smell a flower on my way home from work.*
Probably this means that I should be outside more or something CRAZY like that. Maybe if the f-ing rain ever stops. Tonight I’m going to see 50/50 because I really enjoy snotting all over myself in public apparently, and if all goes as planned tomorrow will find me gnawing on a turkey leg while watching some jousting in bumfuck Maryland. That’s outdoors, right?
And the sun just came out, for a moment anyway. Schizo weather. I’ll take what I can get.
See you on the other side! Hopefully at a post-5-pm-sundown happy hour, because that extra light in the morning always comes at a price. Weather jerks.
*If you’re in the Dupont area, there’s still one dumbass magnolia flowering over by the Brookings Institute. You have to climb up on a wall in heels and will probably spill pollen all over yourself, but it’s worth it.
*And in other news, I have officially become my grandmother.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Wonderful
Last weekend I travelled to the Twin Cities for a good friend's wedding. My bridesmaidly duties for the weekend involved being the first person in line at a liquor store at 10 am on a Friday morning for mimosa ingredients, drinking said mimosas in a hot tub at 10:30 am, rocking a fab orange dress with these amazing shoes,
getting a manicure that only resulted in minor toe-thumb, and valiantly not crying through a very exciting, well-planned and love-filled day. Also dancing to Men Without Hats played by a swing band, eating mashed potatoes out of a martini glass and enjoying a pretty gorgeous sunset over the Mississippi.
I was also newly acquainted with this touching My Morning Jacket song
and reacquainted with this lovely, lovely Mary Oliver poem.
Coming Home
When we're driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we're weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place — the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea —
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything — the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness —
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.
Happy marriage, C&J. Couldn't be happier for you two.
getting a manicure that only resulted in minor toe-thumb, and valiantly not crying through a very exciting, well-planned and love-filled day. Also dancing to Men Without Hats played by a swing band, eating mashed potatoes out of a martini glass and enjoying a pretty gorgeous sunset over the Mississippi.
I was also newly acquainted with this touching My Morning Jacket song
and reacquainted with this lovely, lovely Mary Oliver poem.
Coming Home
When we're driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we're weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place — the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea —
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything — the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness —
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.
Happy marriage, C&J. Couldn't be happier for you two.
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