Not Helping

This current state of ennui and distraction I'm experiencing is not helped by my packing issues. I'm heading out of town this weekend and was up until 3am last night, packing.

Yeah, you know that's a lie. I was up until 3am, but very little actual packing took place.

From 10:30pm until 12am, I worked out what I would wear to the wedding tomorrow - this involved trying on nearly every dress/skirt/sweater combination I own, while my roommate offered sage advice. Then came the shoe debate. Three contenders were narrowed to the one Chosen pair. Finally, accessorizing (pearls? pashmina? neither?). Being a girl is so hard!

From 12am until approximately 1am, I avoided packing by weighing the options of which piece of luggage to use. (rolling suitcase or backpack? rolling suitcase or backpack? rolling suitcase? backpack?) I determined that neither the rolling suitcase or backpack were suitable. I envisioned the perfect piece of luggage. I spent 10 minutes online trying to find it, even though it would be of no use to me at that point. I gave up, and dragged the ol' backpack out of storage.

The hours of 1am to 3am are a blur, though I am confident nothing made it into the backpack during that time. I vaguely remember creating a new iPod playlist entitled "Meloncholic Mellow Noel." I ate at least 3 Hershey kisses. I reviewed my dayplanner to ensure I had noted all events from now until January. (I had.) I read some blogs. I measured the merits of staying up to finish (ok, start) packing versus going to sleep and packing in the morning. I changed the display options on my cell phone.

Finally, Exhaustion could be ignored no longer. I fell asleep. I overslept. I did all my packing between 8:30am-8:40am this morning.

Love me or leave me, I remain forever-

Your Packing Freak

She Makes the Connection

After spending all week plagued by un-productivity (uh- what word am I looking for there?) I realized today that perhaps my lack of sleep might have something to do with my lack of production. I've been getting about 5 hrs of sleep per night since Sunday (and for no good reason, really).

You mean I actually need to be well-rested in order to think, function, produce, create?

Yes, yes - just maybe. Why is this point so hard to drive home? Why don't I believe it enough to make sleep a priority? If only I feared lack of sleep as much as I fear revolving doors, E.T., spiders, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, and the Big C (as in Chow Yun-Fat), things might be different.

Sigh.

BACK

I'm back from a long weekend at home for Thanksgiving, and I think my back may be broken. Ok, it's probably not broken, but after a morning spent raking leaves in my parents' yard, muscles I never knew existed are aching & shouting at me every time I move.

It's not a terribly terrible pain, though - and it's a reminder that I participated in that age-old suburban autumnal experience: first admiring the golden-hued leaves as they cling to the trees, then cursing them once they're on the ground requiring disposal.

The funny thing about my parents' back yard is that it just keeps shrinking and growing ever more foreign. Time was, I knew every inch of it - the number of steps from my swing set to the prickly holly bush, and how to avoid tripping over the dead tree stump when sneaking out of the basement door in the middle of the night. (mmm...hope my parents aren't reading this :) But as I stood there raking yesterday, the yard felt small and unfamiliar. I couldn't picture what lay beneath the leaves - where was that stump? Where does the path to the woods start? Hey - what happened to my swing set!?

It's a strange feeling - revisiting the places of your past and finding them unfamiliar. When I'm home, I sometimes let myself go tripping through memories and drive by my old school, or by the house of a friend who doesn't live there anymore, or by some other landmark of my youth. Each time I go expecting to feel something - a tangible ghost to rise up and douse me in nostalgia and sadness for days-gone-by. But most times I don't feel anything. I just stare blankly at the building/road/lot before me, remember the events that once transpired there, and think, "Huh."

So, yes. I've been thinking about feelings and memories a lot lately; perhaps a topic for a separate blog-post. Happy post-Thanksgiving! Wishing you easy adjustments back to reality.

AVM Arrives

Finally! My requested copy of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle just got freed up at the New York Public Library and is now in my possesion. Twenty pages in, and I'm digging Kingsolver's writing style. (How have I neglected to read any of her work before now?)

Folks, let me be honest: I'm just glad to be reading something other than an Old Testament Theology text book these days.

CaseyBeck and MadDogChantal - we've got some AVM-discussing to look forward to!

Wanted

I need an alarm clock that doesn't take 'no' for an answer.

One that pinches me if I start in on any of that "5-minutes-more" foolishness.

Yes, a clock that uses physical force if necessary.

Perhaps it should even get snarky and ridicule me a little.

Call me names and prey on deep insecurities.

(though NOT in a way that makes me want crawl back under the covers!)
(in a way that gets me angry & awake & ready to prove the clock wrong.)

Speaking of covers, this alarm clock should have the capability to steal them from me.

Above all, it should instill FEAR in me.

(Maybe by threatening to release a mouse in my room if I don't get out of bed immediately)


Does such a device exist? I'm going to check the Sharper Image catalogue now.

Quoting

I was just reading this Boston Globe article about a recent discussion hosted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, where Senator John Kerry defended the place of religion in American political life. Honestly, I'm kind of bored by this topic of late, and leaning towards the camp that says Religion + Politics = Politics, but this paragraph caught my attention:

"Kerry traced his religious background to John Winthrop, an ancestor who first used the term "city on a hill" as an early Puritan settler of 17th-century New England."

I'm a little unclear by what they mean by "first used the term." I don't know about you, but I associate those words with Jesus, not John Winthrop. Plus, who knows who said it before Jesus? (How does one really know who first used a term anyways? What if I tell you I was the first person to use the phrase "like honey on a dog"? Would you believe me? If you did believe me, you'd be wrong. My mom was the first person to use that phrase. So there.)

Given sentence structure and punctuation, it's possible the author meant that "the first time John Winthrop used the term, he was an early Puritan settler of 17th-century New England." But that's not probable.

More likely, perhaps the author meant that John Winthrop "was the first person to use the term to apply to America being a 'city on a hill'." But that's not what the author wrote.

Anyways. Maybe I'm being unfair to the author. Maybe I'm extremely bored and don't have anything better to do than nitpick semantics. In any case, I plan to try to be more careful, going forward, to ensure that what I write is what I mean.

How To Tell You...?

About a year ago I decided that I should throw myself into awkward social situations whenever the opportunity arose, because as unpleasant as it might be, undoubtedly I would get good writing material out of it.

Such an opportunity arose yesterday and I took it, but now I'm having trouble figuring out how to write it for you. I mean...it was just so...bizarre. Part of the difficulty I'm having lies in scenary - I'm terrible at descriptions and the physical surroundings of yesterday's weirdness play a big part in the story. So this is a good writing challenge for me - I will work on a way to paint the scene for you, to take you with me into that crowded apartment, to let you experience what it feels like to be set-up at an octogenarian grass-roots peace activist meeting.