Barb’s Burblings

I was killing some time in a Bed, Bath, & Beyond a couple of weekends ago when I came across the display:

I love it. The romantic music, paired with…plungers. Win!

I was having a good day. Plans with a friend fell through, which sucked, but I managed to finish the work I had brought home and update my photo album. (Yes, I still have physical photo albums.) I watched some tv, I played some Wii; I was having a good day, following a good weekend. I was in a cheery frame of mind.

And then night fell. And I went from being like, “I have so many things to keep me occupied!” to “Everything’s so boring.” Sunday Night Syndrome had struck. Belatedly, of course, but that’s what happens on 3-day weekends.

Sunday nights are the worst. You go from the joy and freedom of the weekend to contemplating the return to work. And I like my job. I just prefer sitting around at home, apparently. It comes from school days, when Sunday nights were the time you had to sit down and do your homework. It’s not really an issue now, but that weight remains. It was much worse when I was younger; I remember going to a Broadway show and getting sad because the next day was Sunday, and then I’d have to go to school. Of course, this was a couple months into a new school after we moved, but that same sort of feeling has stuck with me.

So I’m trying to combat it by treating tonight like a normal Monday night. I’m going to go to the gym and then grab dinner and watch How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. The only difference will be that I’m more well-rested than a typical Monday evening. Ah, television. Thank you for having new shows tonight; it helps.

I’ve been amused reading the latest entries on Pamie’s blog. She’s been posting letters she wrote when she was 15 to boys she liked/dated. (It seems like there may have been a relationship, though not the undying love the 15-year-old Pamie believed it to be.) It reminds me of when Wing posted chapters from the novel she wrote as a teenager–now available for sale. (It’s pretty darn amusing. I say this as someone who has her own writing from a similar period in life squirreled away somewhere.)

Anyway, in that vein, I pulled out my own old diary, just to see. And oh, good times. For example, this, from when I was 14:

After trudging through the day, I realized something: last night, I gave [Boy] my heart.

This was written the day after a party I went to, in which Boy and I (and a bunch of other people) chatted and he talked about how depressed he was that his friends all had girlfriends but he didn’t. This was, quite possibly, the most I ever talked to this boy, with whom I had one class.

All day (even now) I feel this empty, gnawing feeling where my heart should be. I think about him all the time. Sometimes I take out old yearbooks and just stare at him. I don’t even know what I see in him. All I know is that I stare at him in Geometry all the time,

And I wonder why I did so poorly in that class!

I veg out thinking of him, and picturing him helps me to sleep at night.

Mind you, the next entry, dated two weeks later, starts

I took back my heart. I still have a crush on [Boy], but I took my heart back.

Well, that’s encouraging. And I somehow managed to be WAY less melodramatic about my next crush, with whom I had an actual relationship. Not a romantic relationship, mind you, but we were friends. Actual friends. We talked on the phone. We hung out. I believe he’s now a priest.

But to give you even more of an insight into my mind, we have this:

I might have a crush on [Yet Another Boy]. I’m not sure yet. I hope not; he’s only in 8th grade.

I was in 10th at the time.

But he is taller than me.

There was possibly more to the attraction than that, but I’m not going to swear on it.

In some ways, I wish I were more different from the me of 1993 than I am–looking at my life, I can see myself developing crushes, and it not being THAT different. But the main thing is, I REALIZE that it’s just a crush. Not whatever I thought these infatuations were.

There are times when it’s WAY easier being 31 than 15. Also, you can have ice cream for dinner and nobody cares.

It’s 11:15 on a Friday night and instead of doing something fun, like seeing a movie or playing Super Mario Bros. or watching John Oliver’s stand-up show, I’m working. (Or, you know, taking a break from working.) I have a freelance project that’s due Monday. I’ve had this to work on since December 22. So there I was with a choice: Work on it over the holidays, when I theoretically had more time, or wait until now.

Naturally I waited. I’m a procrastinator at heart, but this was less a case of just putting it off and more making a conscious decision to not worry about it until this week. I had a busy week off–dentist appointment, trip to the Newseum, gathering with friends, cleaning. I wound up with really not much time to sit around and do nothing, and I grabbed at that chance. I spent last Sunday watching a 6-hour documentary about Monty Python, laying on my couch in my pajamas. It was so worth it.

But it is a trade-off. I was asked to take on another project. I could definitely use the money, but I had such an incredibly busy December that I figured my sanity was worth it. I needed some time without work hanging over my head like that. But it’s a hard decision to make, because it really is gratifying getting that check. (The work itself isn’t too bad, either. Generally.)

Similarly, I also need to finish Anna Karenina for my book club on Monday. I have a good 300 pages to go. Plus this project. Plus volunteering both tomorrow AND Sunday. And then I went and got a ticket to see The Fantasticks tomorrow night. A little crazy? Sure. But I want to see it and it closes this weekend. And this way, I have a good 3-hour window in which to read between finishing at Ford’s and heading to Arena. There’s a method to my madness.

But again, having fun tomorrow means focusing tonight. And break’s over.

A lot of times after a vacation, part of me looks forward to going back to work. I enjoy routines. For all that I joke about winning the lottery and quitting my job, I know that even if I didn’t have a job, I would need to find some sort of routine by which to live. So after some time away, on a random schedule, the prospect of heading back to work is usually not a bad one. After all, I like my job, I like my coworkers.

I could go for a longer break now, though. I’ve been off for almost two weeks (since December 23), but I haven’t been home a ton, and don’t feel like I’ve had time to just lounge around and not do anything. I’ve been doing fun things–dinner with friends, going to the Newseum, having an open house and hanging out with people–but I haven’t had enough lounging-around-in-my-pajamas time. And next weekend I have Ford’s and Smithsonian, so it’s not like I have free time then. But hey, at least Martin Luther King Day is coming up…

I’ve spent most of this break preoccupied. I think I’m going to go to the movies tomorrow, maybe check out Up in the Air. While I’d have to get out of my pajamas, it might help me get out of my head a bit.

I went to the dentist yesterday to replace an old filling. She worked on it a while, then said that there was not one, but two fillings in there–a silver one and a tooth-colored one. And that there was a cavity beneath them.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I’ve blown so much money on dental work.

What? I would NEVER cause trouble!

I wrapped Christmas presents the other day and put them into the second bedroom, mostly so I could make sure Pem wouldn’t be around them without supervision. And I was impressed, because it took her a couple of days before she took an active interest in them. (How could she not? All that paper to be chewed!) And it was only just now that I realized her plan–a slight modification of her evil morning plan to wake me up.

Step 1. Do something that will definitely annoy Mommy (e.g., get into bag of presents, play on nightstand).
Step 2. Keep doing this until Mommy takes notice.
Step 3. Once Mommy’s attention has been gained, continue until Mommy stops whatever else she’s doing (sleeping, working on computer) and focuses solely on me.
Step 4. Lure Mommy into petting me, etc.
Step 5. Run into other room.
Step 6. Run back to where Mommy is, repeating all steps as necessary until Mommy realizes that it’s feeding time.
Step 7. If running back and forth doesn’t work, sit on her and meow until food is given.

Now, normally I have no problems with snow. I’m OK driving in it; after all, I got my driver’s license in Montana. In December. Shoveling isn’t a big deal, I think snow is pretty, and there’s something special about wandering around in the quiet that accompanies a snowstorm. But I’m not too pleased with this snowstorm. It conveniently waited until 9:30 on a Friday to start, meaning that it wouldn’t interfere with work. And it totally screwed over my plans for today. My day was full and it was going to be awesome. But no, now I’m stuck at home, doing work. (Which, OK, I really should’ve been doing instead of gallavanting around. And I really should’ve been doing for the past few weeks instead of doing the panto. But whatevs.)

My car tires? Mostly buried. From around 1 this afternoon:

I finally accepted that I wouldn’t be going anywhere and settled in. I thought I’d take a glance outside, so went downstairs and opened the door:

Yeah. The snow was higher than the bottom of the door. I’ve since shoveled a little path to the door, easing my concerns of getting snowed into the building.

And the fun part is, there aren’t any signs of it slowing up! Whee!

I realized something this afternoon. I’ve been going over a few conversations I had this weekend, trying to figure out why they were sticking with me. It’s not like they were about anything particularly deep or personal…and then I realized it’s because they didn’t totally skate on the surface.

I’ve met a lot of people over the past couple of weeks, and everyone’s been very nice and I’ve hit it off with a few people, which is great. (Huzzah! I do have some social skills! I’m not forever doomed to standing around awkwardly, though I do continue to excel at that.) I found myself talking to someone whom I hadn’t talked to much, and what strikes me in retrospect is that the conversations went a bit deeper than what I’m used to when talking to someone I don’t know. Or even, really, people I do know. We didn’t get into anything particularly personal, but instead of just staying on the edges of a topic, we went into it. It wasn’t, “Who’s your favorite president?” but “Why?” “What interests you about that?” “How do you feel about this?” “Why do you think that is?” (Though not at much of an interrogation as it might sound.) Maybe it helped that there was an age gap; maybe he’s just better at making conversation than me. (This wouldn’t take much.)

But it makes me think about how shallow a lot of my conversations can be, even with close friends. Not that I don’t have more in-depth discussions, but it’s rare that a conversation about something not personal made me think–actually challenged me a bit.

Now, don’t get me wrong–I also prize my conversation about Doctor Who and traveling the world. But having a more in-depth conversation…it’s almost like college again, you know? In a good way.

The last time I did anything with theater was spring semester of junior year of college, when my Medieval Drama class put on a production of Noah. I directed and played the Devil. It was awesome. (Also awesome was that as directors, my group also cast the play and made the decision on who would get to play Adam by who would look best in a fig leaf.) (Anyway.) Before that, it hadn’t been since fall semester of sophomore year, when I was in a couple of small pieces done by folks in the directing class. It’s something that I’ve missed and have meant to get back into for ages.

I recently got an email asking whether I could help with a theater group, so I now find myself helping out backstage for a traditional British pantomime of Mother Goose. And even though it was a group of people whom I didn’t know at all, being thrown into rehearsals two days before opening night…it still felt totally right. Depite the 10 years (…holy crap, I’m old) it’s been since I’ve done this, I just felt completely at home standing in the wings. Man, I’ve missed it.

One of the amusing things about panto is that it uses popular songs throughout, and one of the songs is “I’d Do Anything,” from Oliver, which I was in 17 (!!!) years ago. (HOLY GOD. 17 YEARS.) And standing backstage, hearing them sing that song, it completely takes me back. I almost expect to go on and do “Oom Pah Pah” and then have John Casiello try to make me laugh when Bill Sikes threatens us all during “My Name.”

It’s good times, my friends, and I’ve missed it a lot. It’s good to be home.