April 23, 2003
Lookin' for my lost shaker of salt.
An On Display contribution.
I'm working. It's Wednesday. I've been here since about 6:30, and will be here until about 6:30. It's bright and sunny and just the right temperature outside. I just got back from lunch with Heather, and walking back in the door was an almost painful experience.
I am Jimmy Buffet, being told to abandon beach and flipflops for cubicle and tie.
The music emerging from my headphones at the moment happens to be using the "F" word a lot. It's helping, a little. I'm alternating between wanting to be at peace with the universe (Yanni, classical music, Ben Folds, John Mayer), wanting to shake my groove thang (California Love, a little KC, a little Led Zep, a whole lotta Prince), and wanting to rebel and bolt and holla (trance, Kid Rock, a mix CD with gangsta rap). A common state of mind, for me.
No diggity.
I have way too much energy right now for a desk job. I'm actually craving a workout, and that, like, never happens. Heh. Grandma would say, "Get up and run around the block." Why did she always say that, I wonder? There are no blocks in the country. Holdover from her childhood in Brooklyn, I imagine. Did she ever take her own advice? I can just picture her, twelve years old, feet flying down the sidewalk, pigtails strung out behind her, passing boys on the street playing stickball. Clear as day, I can see it. Wait, I think that was a scene from "Annie".
Anyhoo. I seem to need to go to Atlanta where the playa's play, where we ride on 'dem things like every day, where big beats hit streets, where we see gangsta's roamin', where parties don't stop 'till 8 in the mornin'.
I'm having a really hard time being patient for the start of my sabbatical. 37 days! Only 26 of them working! I have many, many plans. Big ones - Hawaii, Maine, camping. Medium ones - researching debt consolidation, organizing the garage, road trips with Marie. Little ones - lots of pictures and entries, ownership of household duties (Calvin gets a version of summer vacation!), much reading.
I'm toying with making a Sabbatical scrapbook, but if I'm planning on doing as many photo-heavy entries as I have in mind, a book would be redundant. But I like having something in my hands. A small dilemma, as far as dilemmas go. Maybe I'll just make a photo album, and print out the written text of the entries to go with it. Maybe nobody cares.
Lordy, I see a list forthcoming.
Oh, and the sleep! Afternoon naps! And working out, in the morning! When I have energy! And soaking in the hot tub afterwards! Enjoying the morning light of the bedroom while surfing. Quiet leisurely breakfasts, and more than a half a cup of hurriedly gulped coffee. I need time to really enjoy this, one of my few addictions.
Roll out! Roll out! Tell me, who's your weed man?
(MAN, I hope folks are getting all these lyric references. It makes all kinds of sense to me. And here I am chair dancing like a damn fool. Shake it, shake it baby.)
Why yes, I am hyper much. Time to make some sense out of this entry.
I think what I'm looking forward to most of all about my vacation is the ability to enjoy the little things, in a way that I'm not able to do right now. Taking my time, for one. Seems to me I'm always rushing, rushing, rushing to do something or get somewhere or reach a point where I can just sit down. I want to get up early most days, so I don't waste my precious time sleeping when I could be just awake and enjoying the fact that I don't have to do anything. Yet I will cherish the opportunity to lie down for afternoon naps, oh, say right around Oprah-o'clock. Twenty minutes always does me fine. Better that than sleeping an extra three or four hours in the morning.
That goal is of course subject to change - it's HARD to get up when it's still dark outside. 6:30. That's early enough. Maybe 7:00. Or so.
Marie is grateful that she won't have to spend another summer vacation alone, this year. She's been a lonesome and bored chica since Michael left. Entertaining her is not a difficult thing at all, since we like to do a lot of the same things. Bonding with one's step-daughter isn't such a "little" thing, but it's an opportunity I'm grateful for.
I get to cook this summer, too. I have tons and tons (well, dozens) of recipes that I've been wanting to try out (baking, mostly). Like a bunch of muffin recipes I lifted from Amy's website. And I haven't made potato salad in forever. Hell, I'm not expecting to lose weight this summer, but I will be happy if I manage to maintain. Yeah, with the amount of eating I'm PLANNING on doing (that's a big part of our vacations!), I'll be lucky if I don't gain fifty. But then, Calvin says he'd divorce me, and I don't want *that*. I'll keep it to forty-nine. And a half.
Interspersed among these long days of summer are, of course, the three vacations we've planned. It kind of tickles me that I'll be spending time on the Pacific and on the Atlantic in the same summer. I imagine I'll maintain a mild buzz the entire time we're in (on?) Maui, what with all the places boasting free Mai Tai's. And my sister has beer for *breakfast*, so Maine will probably feature sipping Corona's on the patio of the hotel and watching the kids try to get themselves swept out to sea. We've got TONS of activities planned for Maui (and here's the website of the folks we went with to book 'em all), but really none whatsoever for Maine. Well, other than eating pier fries and italian sandwiches and lobster, and shopping The Old Port and Freeport. Totally different types of vacations, each completely satisfying in their own way. Then toward the end of my sabbatical, we'll be camping back at Big Lake, which is a third direction on the vacationing spectrum.
I'll have to budget money to account for the cost to develop all the film I plan on using up. I want to savor and cherish every moment and every experience, even if it's just a lazy day doing nuthin' much of nuthin' at home. There will be a time in the not-too-distant future where I'll need to look back on my words, and those pictures, and recall what it's like to live a life of leisure.
Dammit. I'll be lookin' for my lost shaker of salt, soon enough.
This month's On Display entry is about "little things".
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