The first beautiful Saturday of a new decade

So, it took eight years, but I think I'm finally adjusted to the weather in South Alabama.  Today is January 29th, and the high was somewhere between 65-70 degrees.  I'm definitely okay with that.  Here are some pictures to document our first pretty Saturday of 2011.

Orange Street Pier, Fairhope

White Street Pier, Fairhope

View to the South from White Street Pier

My handsome boys - Seamus wanted to wander around because there was some interesting seagull poop to investigate, and Marcus had to kind of hold him still.

Cut Marcus's head off because I couldn't see, but Seamus is looking dashing!

Walking on Mobile Street

Now we're home for a few minutes before we head back out.  Marcus is going to a wedding with his mom, and I'm going to Papa's to visit with family and eat some good food.  I hope everyone else's Saturday is as pleasant as mine!

Last night, I ate a southwestern chicken burrito wrapped in a green spinach tortilla.

I didn't plan for this to be my next post--my next post was going to be a publicizable version of my list mentioned in the last post.  However, this dream was just too weird not to share, so without further ado ...

I'm not sure where I began.  I had Rapunzel hair (except it was still the same color--not blond), and there was a 3-year-old with me, and the 3-year-old was me.  I was talking to my 3-year-old self, and she was getting frustrated because I wasn't taking her seriously.

Skip to the next scene.  Someone had sent me to the grocery store to get a pumpkin because it was "Forest Day."  When I walked into Winn-Dixie, which was nothing more than an indoor produce stand, the cashier cheerfully wished me a happy Forest Day.  I was confused, but not worried about it enough to ask what exactly Forest Day is celebrating.  I found a beautiful pumpkin, and when I was walking to the register, I realized the reason the pumpkin was so beautiful and perfect was because it wasn't a real pumpkin, but a ceramic candy dish.  I bought it anyway, and left Winn-Dixie.

I was driving a big, giant pickup truck, and I was in downtown Fairhope.  I saw some baby ducks in the road, but I figured they'd fly away before I reached them, even though they were really too young to fly.  I couldn't reach the pedals in the truck because I had embodied my three-year-old self while driving.  I eventually lowered myself down low enough to hit the brakes, but it was too late.  I had run over two baby ducks.

Flash forward to the next scene.  I'm not sure whether I'm three years old or twenty-six, but I'm in a tiny cargo plane with my parents, who are telling me all about the next time they'll go on vacation.  My dad is at the wheel, and my mom is in the seat behind him.  The airplane is stopped and there is grass outside the open door.

I kept trying to interject something, and no one would let me talk.  I finally decided to give up and let them just keep talking, except I did throw a miniature fit (that only I noticed).  I was going to tell my mom about how I had these new panties, and I had them folded in my hand.  I decided to just toss the panties out the door of the plane, but when I did that, the panties fell and fell and fell.  What I thought was grass was actually the tops of trees from miles and miles up off the ground.  The distance was so great that really we probably would have needed oxygen masks and whatever other necessary gear in order to have the door open in a plane at that altitude.

My dad circled the plane around and my stomach dropped as I tried not to fall out of the open door.  He looked at me knowingly, barrel-rolled the airplane, and the door slammed shut.  If I wasn't so terrified, I would have mentioned that the view of the trees and mountains was really breathtaking.  There was also a princess castle sticking up beyond everything, which is case for me being my three-year-old self during at least part of the airplane scene.

Queue alarm clock.

Some Serious To-Do Lists

I’m writing this down as a part of a pre-plan.  I am SO bad with phases.  You can tell with this blog, even though I so don’t want it to be a phase.  I’m just going through a numb-time, if that makes any sense at all.  I’m not sure that it makes sense to me.  I’m pushing through.

There are things that I want to accomplish, but I don’t know what they are.  I keep thinking that I don’t want my life to just be another old life where nothing exceptional happens except for the regular exceptional things.  I guess that’s not fair.  My life is beautiful, but it could be so much more purposeful and meaningful if I could concentrate on something long enough to follow through with it. 

I sat and thought to myself why it is that I don’t do the things I want to do.  I’m not talking about the fact that my bathroom has needed cleaning for an amount of time I do not wish to disclose.  I’m talking about bigger things that I can’t quite put my finger on.  Things that require a great deal of time off of work, a lot of money probably, and plenty of creativity and bravery. 

I need to make a few lists, I guess.  The first list will be of all things, big and small, that I want with my life.  For starters, assume all things include Marcus, if not Marcus AND Seamus.  I am so much happier when he’s around. (Seamus, that is.  Marcus is a given.)

The second would be a list of obstacles in the way of list number one.  That’s the crappy list that is going to be VERY easy to make because it’s all I ever think about—reasons I can’t do the things I want to do. 

I’ll work on these lists and get back with you, because right now I’m late.  I’m always just a little bit late.  Sigh.  

To Delete or not to Delete

In response to Don Miller's blog this morning Handling Digital Clutter (and I promise I don't plan on responding to everything he has to say) I have definitely been considering removing the clutter that is Facebook.  My husband has done it.  I actually honestly judge people just a tiny bit when they mention that they have a Facebook account.  I feel like it's lame, chiefly because it generally takes up a tremendous amount of a person's precious 24-hours.  I haven't deleted mine because of a few reasons.

1.  I'm afraid I'll lose this group called The Book Club.  It hasn't been updated or posted on in forever, but I refer to it occasionally when trying to remember a specific book that someone recommended a while back.

2.  I understand that Facebook gives you the option of keeping pictures and saved information, but I'm not sure how that works, and I'm afraid of the unknown.

3.  I'm reluctant to delete it because honestly it doesn't take up ANY of my time.  I probably haven't even opened up a browser to Facebook in 2 or 3 weeks, and I'm sure it's been more than that since I last posted something on my own.  It doesn't tempt me at all, so there isn't any reason to remove the temptation.

4.  Facebook is the only way some people know to get in touch with me, but this argument is weak.  If someone really wanted to reach me, it would be easy enough without Facebook.

The main argument is #3 (I realized I put these in completely random order).  Why rid yourself of something that doesn't hurt anything or take up any space (such as an unwanted pair of shoes or half of the contents of your closet)?  #3 is the main reason I have left it alone.  I know I'll eventually delete it because I hate being a part of such an abomination of socializing, but no rush.

Tedium on the Kindle

There's really nothing as peaceful as sitting on the bathroom floor in my pajamas with a deep cleansing mask on my face, reading on my Kindle. Of course now I've ruined it by trying to blog on the Kindle during the 15-minute mask's set-in. Yeah, this is hard. That's all for now!

Yep, I brought it up because it was on my mind and I'm desperate for a subject that isn't inappropriate blogging material. Long subject.

Okay, no messing around, here we go.  I've got to quit writing in a Word document things that can never be put on the Internet if I value peace, happiness, job, life, and general well-being whatsoever.  It helps to get those thoughts out, but those should be saved for a diary or something.  

So anyway.

I keep forgetting that this weekend is a three-day weekend!  I do mental acrobats (cartwheels, back flips, etc) when I remember.  This has been happening several times throughout the day.  Monday I didn't realize it at all, but yesterday (Tuesday) was filled with mental acrobats.  And maybe some real life chair-dancing.  I don't have any plans for this glorious day, but maybe that can change.  Whenever I think of a nice, pleasant day-off, I'm usually outside.  I am outside much less than I'd like to be as a whole.  Normally, when I picture an ideal day-off, Marcus and I take Seamus for a hike somewhere, then maybe go to a park and I'd sit and read and Marcus would throw a Frisbee with Seamus.  We'd get tired, go home, grill something out, eat, maybe open a bottle of Moscato and enjoy the rest of the evening with either a movie or just visiting.  This ideal plan, however, does a whole lot better in the Spring or Fall.  

So, what about this wintry day-off?  I think people are prone to spend more money in the Winter (or in the dead of Summer in the South) because usually things that are free but not boring depend on the weather.  It's free to sit inside and work on deepening the butt-print on the couch, but that starts to get depressing, not to mention sore.  If you want to do something during these uncomfortable times of the year, usually money must be relinquished.  This brings me to another thought I've been having.

It's depressing and nearly impossible to be friends with couples who have gobs more money.  Their activities and lifestyles are shaped differently than ours.  No one is wrong or bad or whatever, but it's just tough on both.  The affluent friend suggests activities and trips and whatnot, and we have to slink away.  So we thought, okay so let's remember that we love our single friends, too, as long as they don't mind spending time with us, the couple.  The problem here is this:  When I was single, even though I only made $8/hour, I had TONS of money!  I was able to do whatever I wanted.  Money was never an issue.  Let's go to the movies!  Let's go see another movie after that!  Let's all meet at such and such a restaurant.  (I'll just have a water.  With a lemon.)  

One day something will act as the great equalizer.  Or, there will be a time when we can afford to have friends on a regular basis -- even if those friends can now afford to have Summer lodging in exotic countries and are friends with the President of the US and the Pope and whoever else, when we're just getting to where we can go out to eat anytime we want and go see two movies back-to-back.

Well, I guess I've brought up the uncomfortable subject and now everyone is shuffling their feet and dropping their eye contact and feeling weird.  Go ahead and hit the red x at the top left (Mac users) or top right (everyone else). 

And look at the time!  I'm late for my shower again!  

The 'ah-ha!' moment

I just read Donald Miller’s blog for this morning, which coincided with something I was just thinking (and this isn’t the first time this has happened with him and me.  Maybe we should be friends.  Let’s move to Portland!).  Anyway, he was talking about how people are too distracted to be brilliant anymore.  Here’s the last paragraph of his blog:

No culture in history has been more distracted. If you are wondering why there are no more C.S. Lewis’ in the world, no more stories as good as Tolkien’s, no cathedrals as great as the gothic’s, no music as moving as Pachelbel’s, it may be because the writers of these books, the tellers of these stories, the architects of these buildings and the composers of these symphonies are sitting on their couches watching television. I wonder what’s on tonight.

(The rest of Donald Miller's blog can be found here!)

His words are terrifying, even though I don't think it's as bad as all that.  There are plenty of great artists, but I think that there is more diliberate emphasis on the arts (to "save" them, if you will, for which I'm very thankful!) rather than an expected quality of life to be artistic as may have once been, if that makes any sense.  

I was sort of having a “what are we coming to?” fit of anxiety last night about the economy, about employers, about how we function as a society, and how incredibly fantastic it would be to do a cultural detox.  Maybe get out of town and make new habits.  What I thought was a separate thought from this stuff was that ever since we’ve been sitting and watching Friends every single night—multiple episodes until bedtime, I don’t have nearly as much to write about.  I don’t feel creative, and I feel less like reading my books.  Friends may need to be reduced to a once or twice a week occurrence.

I wonder if going to see a movie counts.  I’ve been itching to see something.  I haven’t seen a movie in the theater in a long time and sometimes it just helps to escape life, when life isn’t the greatest. 

We’ll see.  

Writers Block -> Calm -> Friends et al

As if it weren't obvious, I've been suffering some pretty intense writers block.  What's worse, I so don't feel like writing.  I'm having one of those moods that may be construed as a suffering self-image where I don't think anything going on right now is noteworthy.  I'm fine with everything going on right now (or not going on right now, as the case may be) but I'm having trouble extracting the minutely interesting from the clearly mundane. 

Things are calming down in our household since Christmas.  We finished our living room project, as everyone knows.  We went pillow and throw blanket shopping and even bought a wreath for the door for the concluding ceremony.  My justification is this: if we buy it now, the project is through and there's nothing that I'll want to do for a very long time.  I can just sit and enjoy the completeness of our home.  We even went so far as to buy frames for bettering the bedroom situation in the frame of mind that if I left the bedroom too desolate, my mad decorating frenzy may have spilled into there.

Also, now that Marcus has returned from the cold grip of UPS during the holidays, I'm spending more of my time watching Friends cuddled up on our couch after dinner instead of watching Marcus's head bob around.  Watching Friends together is an age-old pastime and one of my favorite ways to communicate.  Actually, no communication takes place here except "This is funny, don't you think?" but it's the best antidepressant – superior to all others and without the first side effect.  The first step of marital bliss is securing each other's safety from angst in the form of Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey, Ross, and Rachel.  At least it is for us.

This causes a different problem – a girly problem – and this may be quite boring, but we'll see.  Because this was my favorite show in middle and high school, and because my friends and I used to decide which of us was which Friends character (I was usually Rachel), and because they always had the coolest clothes, the best hairstyles, and the prettiest makeup (the girls, of course, except I think Joey in earlier seasons wore some pretty intense makeup), I feel compelled to reevaluate my hair/makeup/clothing routine.  I don't realize I'm doing this until it's too late.  Instead of reading in my Kindle before I started writing this, I was mindlessly clicking through Sephora.  I'm not after anything in particular, but it just puts me in that mood.  Blah.  Except it is fun.  I'm a girl.  Let me be.

Well, those of you who never got into the Friends things will find this mind-numbing, so just ignore it.  It will always be my very favorite show due to its popularity during my formative years, but it also got me thinking about writing.  I remember never thinking of the fact that sitcoms have writers just like anything else, until they switched writers towards the end (season 8?).  It was all the buzz, and a light bulb popped up over my head and I realized that could be the most incredible job I could imagine—being a screenwriter.  I never chased that brief dream, obviously, but I can somewhat credit it to my perusal of other writing avenues.

This is my blog, and I'll neglect to conclude this entry if I want.  

Distracted!

I didn't think this would happen.  It isn't a problem, but-- Well, maybe it's a little problem.  It's a good problem.  My high school self is burying her head in her self-loathing, self-denying arms right now as I admit this: I'm distracted from my novel, Cutting for Stone, (which may be the best book I've read since The Help, of course not counting Guernsey) by Shakespeare!  Again!

"Twelfth Night" had me by the 2nd page.  The drunk guy talking up his friend to Olivia's maidservant lady about how tall he is.  Great stuff!  Viola's plan to dress as a eunuch boy, and the captain's weirdly intense promise to keep her secret.  I normally read my "current" novel at night before I sleep, but tonight is "Twelfth Night!"

An Earlywinter Night's Sloth

I just read A Midsummer Night's Dream in one sitting.  (Is it 'sitting' or is it 'setting'?)  Anyhow, I've read it before, but not all at once, and so I don't remember it being that short.  I think it took me 3 hours or thereabouts, but I wonder if all Shakespeare plays are that short.  We read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet in high school, but of course I didn't want to read them or anything else that a lame-o teacher told me to read (despite myself and the fact that I would have enjoyed 90% of my assignments if I had just released myself from my stubborn ways), and so back then they felt intensely long and boring.  I could download those two plays and compare them to the length of AMsND, but I think my Kindle has had enough attention for one day.  I haven't done much else but read this afternoon.

Somehow or other, I managed to have always loved A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I'm not sure if it's because there was a movie with real actors performing a slightly abridged version of the play when I discovered it, but the movie's script was made entirely of the original script of the Shakespeare play.  (I doubt that's why I loved it so much, though, because around the same time there was also a movie of R+J, and while I appreciate the story, I never felt a connection with that one.)  I congratulate my 15- or 16-year-old self on being open-minded enough to listen and discover that I identified with Helena more than any other character in a play or novel or movie up to that moment.  I remember the profound sense of validation when I realized that I could identify with a Shakespearean heroine.  Maybe it doesn't seem like it should be that much of a dramatic turning point, but I remember sitting on my single bed in my room back in Virginia, staring at my tiny white TV set, feeling like I wanted to memorize all of Helena's lines, and feeling comforted in the fact that I wasn't the only one who had ever felt that way.

I never feel guilty for reading all day, but it happens so rarely that I feel like the time spent doing it is stolen (which makes it so sweet) and so I feel sneaky and guilty in that sense.  I do, however, feel guilty that my butt is sore from sitting, and that I didn't even get up to fix myself some supper--Marcus heated up a bowl of leftover chicken & broccoli casserole with rice for me.  Without being asked.  Isn't he fantastic?  Maybe he feels guilty because, while I've been reading, he's been playing Civilization V on the computer in the next room.  I think it suits both of us just fine, but because it happens so rarely, we have that sneaky feeling that, if the other was not otherwise occupied, there would be resentful feelings flying all over the place of the other's sloth.

Well, it's actually 10:00 on a Saturday night, and you know what that means?  I'm going to get ready for bed!  Last night was New Year's Eve, and we stayed out uncharacteristically late.  We're prematurely old and crotchety when we don't get our eight hours.  Actually, I'm sort of lying because I totally got my eight hours last night.  I slept til 10:20 this morning!  In my defense, the curtains were pulled and it was dark and stormy outside.  I was powerless to the intoxication of those perfect sleeping conditions.

Without further ado (which reminds me, I should download Much Ado about Nothing.  I liked that one, too!) I'm off!