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September 5, 2005Hi, it's late. I'm up.There are many things I find I have the opportunity to do this evening, with the rest of the household in bed. Write for this month's Storyteller. Hunt up some more tawdry romance novels for my Amazon wish list. Upload the pictures from the kids' visit from my camera. Read one of the twelve new books I have waiting for me, or one of the five hundred books I've already read before. I'm not tired, and I don't have to work tomorrow. So I'm curled up on the couch watching "The Inheritance" on We with my laptop and an itch to surf, read, potter with pictures, and write. I seem to be in a romantic frame of mind, lately. Not only is watching something as saccharine as "The Inheritance" strangely satisfying, but I have been dreaming entire romance novels in my sleep. Just because I haven't been maintaining my dream blog doesn't mean that I haven't still been dreaming nightly in full Technicolor glory. Last night, for instance, there was something about a wealthy man falling for a staff person in his household, except I think he was married and flaunting the girl in his wife's face. There was frequent horseback riding involved, and something about taking her to the opera and shocking the well-to-do's in the boxes near them. I distinctly remember her making a face at one of the harrumphing women. But in the end the girl disappeared somehow, and the man was a tragic waste of his former self for the rest of his life. His wife and grown children still lived life normally around him, though. Weird stuff. Oh, and the dream I had (last night as well) about Charlize Theron and Andrew Shue being some sort of ski/tobogganing champions and falling for each other on the slopes. Clint Eastwood was in there somewhere in some sort of role, too. And Matthew Broderick being nursed back to health after a massive tobogganing accident by his "wife" Nicole Kidman (I must've seen The Stepford Wives recently). Weirder still is the Star Trek romance featuring *me* (I usually dream as if I'm watching a movie), and getting Captain Picard to fall for me (still last night). And, ahem, sleep with me. Riddle me that. I haven't watched Star Trek in ages. Or thought about Patrick Stewart at all. My brain is broken. But I guess my subconscious has the hots for him. There is something sexy about the man, although I normally don't fall for the bald ones. Moving along. Calvin and I have actually started semi-serious discussions about moving back to Maine. Calvin's current company has a couple of job openings in Portland. The housing market here in the Phoenix area is going completely nuts, which means we could turn our house for a pretty enough profit to pay off our first and second mortgage, the most significant portion of our debt, and still have money left over for a down payment on a new house. So the single hardest thing about moving, if Calvin actually got the transfer, would be making the decision to move. Harder on Calvin than it is for me, as you can expect. I'm homesick, he's not. I don't mind living in cold weather, he does. He loves Arizona, I pretty much don't. He's enormously adverse to change, and I can take it like a champ. My biggest worry is that we'll move and he'll find that he's as sad and homesick for Arizona as I am right now for Maine. I know I can hack it out - I've done so since 1993. I would rather be homesick myself than have Calvin have to live with the feeling. I'm hoping that won't be a problem, though. We've both reached the realization that we're not permanently cut out for the current rat race that is our life. There's a reason why Maine's State Slogan is "The Way Life Should Be". Marie is still a concern, of course. But she's a Senior in high school this year. She can move with us and go to college, or stay here and go to college. We're quickly approaching the time of life usually reserved for those people in their 50's and 60's - the nest is empty and we parents are suddenly able to make decisions that impact - for the most part - only ourselves. Need you even ask if I have a plan already? Of course I do! You know me, right? I had a plan thought up 20 minutes after the very first casual conversation we had, years ago, about the mere possibility of maybe moving back to Maine some day. Set down in prose it's as simple as this: Calvin gets his transfer. He goes to Maine ahead of me and lives in temporary housing - which, of course, I've already researched. I stay behind, get the house ready for sale (which I've researched), whittle our possessions down to the bare minimum, and wrap up my job. The house sells (which possible selling price I've researched), which gives us a time frame in which to find a house to purchase in Maine, or an apartment to rent (both of which I've researched). I hire some movers to haul our crap across country (researched), Calvin flies back to AZ in order to drive 3000 miles back East with me and the pets (researched). We get ourselves settled, I find a job (researched), and voila! Complete life change achieved. Don't laugh. There's no reason why it couldn't be that easy. Calvin is one tired, depressed, discouraged puppy these days. If there's anyone who needs a major change in the rhythm of life, it's him. A new environment, new interests, new surroundings, fresh motivation. It just seems to him, and to me, that life here is just existing. We both want to be where we can live. I don't know why, but every activity I can think of, even if it can be done here in Arizona, seems so much more appealing to do in Maine. Photography, exploratory day-trips, hiking. Canoeing and kayaking along the lakes and rivers. Finding every single lighthouse (which is hard to do in Arizona). Going to the ocean (also tricky in AZ). Finding every lobster and crab shack along the coast from Freeport to Bar Harbor. Hey! Weekend trips to Bar Harbor! Free access to italian sandwiches any time I want one. Cooking with real live fresh produce from a farm stand, and milk that tastes like milk instead of water. Fireflies in July, and the Cumberland Fair in September. Cross-country and downhill skiing in winter. And, oh! Calvin would get an absolute kick out of owning a snowmobile. Hell, he'd probably even like ice fishing - sitting around a hole in a little shack with a charcoal heater and a case of beer. Hell, yeah! I wonder how serious he really is about this? Oh, one last thing. I mentioned in the blog that I had yet to send out the "Dance, Bitches!" mix CD, because I couldn't stop futzing with the play list, and now the darn thing has become a two-CD compliation. This is the final-honest-to-God-last-revision of the play list. So, if you haven't dropped me a line yet for a copy, you can still do so. And if you already have, trust me, I still have your request, and I hope to get the darn things out this weekend. Just keep in mind that this mix reflects my particular taste and what I like to dance to - so don't expect the song selections or track order to make any sense whatsoever. Or to be particularly PC or polite in some cases. After all, sometimes I can be a gangsta ho, and my music collection reflects that part of my personality. I've tried to warn you in the track list of which songs you may not want to play in the office or in front of your children. What you care to do with that warning is up to you. Me, personally? I blast the whole darn thing in public (well, in my headphones at work), and who gives a rat's ass what people think. See above re: occasional gangsta ho-ness. Dance, Bitches!!! (Vol. I) A Snerkology.com Mix Track // Artist
A Snerkology.com Mix Track // Artist
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