Spoiled Only Child

Timbuktu, by Paul Auster

Finally, after several disappointing and not-worth-finishing books in a row, I found a good, fun, quick read. I was starting to think I would never find a good book again. This is a novel told from the perspective of a dog, Mr. Bones. Only the most skilled of writers could pull something like this off, but Paul Auster can. Mr. Bones gets a taste of both extremes of American life, first as the dog of a drunken homeless man and then as the pampered pooch of a well-off suburban family, which renames him Sparky.

In the end, I guess, he prefers the former life of wandering the streets, roaming free. There is a sort of authenticity in that life that he cannot find in suburban America. He finally decides that the comforts of the good life come at too high a cost. But for a while, he is seduced by the ease and luxury. This brilliant passage, I think, is the heart of the book: "It might not have been perfect in this place, but it had a lot to recommend it, and once you got used to the mechanics of the system, it no longer seemed so important that you were tethered to a wire all day. By the time you had been there for two and a half months, you even stopped caring that your name was Sparky."

Pennsylvania mood swings

I am at the parents' home in PA. For some reason, I seem to swing between two states of mind here. I am either loving it and absolutely dreading the moment when we have to leave, or I am completely bored and homesick, filled with annoyance and unexplainable dread. Right now I am in the latter state, which is why I'm blogging rather than frolicking in the pool or the hot tub or shopping at the mall or enjoying the other advantages of suburban living. What is with this mood I get in here? I have nothing but free beer and free babysitting and free time and I'm moping around. Well, at least I am drinking the beer.

Part of it is the weather. It is gray and rainy and yucky. And I'm feeling kind of sick to my stomach. I've been eating too much, and nothing with vegetables, and I haven't gotten any exercise.  It's probably just those things, and not the fact that something awful is about to happen. But it's hard to explain this feeling of foreboding that grips me. All the things I excitedly planned to do here--shopping for a bathing suit, tackling the complicated knitting project I never have time for at home, devouring whole novels--just feel like too much effort now. I started reading a book, got about 100 pages in, and realized I'd read it before. Hell.

So here I sit with the computer. Maybe I'll go check facebook, see if anyone's commented on my status.

More pointless musings on the meaning of life

I am on vacation! A real one, the kind where I don't have to go to work. Mia and I are leaving to visit my parents on Wednesday, but these past two days I have been true to my word. The farthest I've ventured is the Asian market in the next town over, the park on the north end of our city. I am loving the freedom of days at home, with Mia in daycare, to do whatever I want. I so rarely have days like this, because of my compulsion to go places. The idea of having time off work and not going someplace, anyplace, has always been unthinkable for me. But the idea that these days are completely free and open is a bit of a lie. Because I have been unable to resist the pull of the list. Since I never have time like this, I have to make the most of it. In fact, the only reason I am writing this blog post is because I am a bit ahead of schedule for today. You see, blogging wasn't in the schedule, but I'm stealing this little bit of time because I finished my gardening early.

I am crazy, aren't I? There is nothing wrong with getting things done, but there is something wrong with always worrying about the next thing on the list, to the point where it's sometimes difficult to enjoy the thing you are actually doing. I was watching a documentary the other night, and a woman made this observation about life, "It's all a tragedy. It's just a matter of how you get through it." Truer words were never spoken. My college Shakespeare professor once said that the only difference between tragedy and comedy was time. In a tragedy, they run out of time--to make things right or to uncover the truth or to do the right thing. And that is really the tragedy of life. That there is never enough time. Things could be perfect if we just had time to finish everything on the to do list.

I realize now that all my life I've been struggling against time, swimming against the constant overwhelming feeling that I have so much left to do, that the seconds are ticking away and every one counts. I have been making lists and crossing things off, trying to get ahead in a race I will never win. And I suppose that I will go on struggling to find the balance between too much and not enough, to feel that I am not wasting my precious too-short tragedy of a life.

Summer vacation, revised

This summer vacation I had planned? Let's just say I'm revising my plans a bit. This thing is becoming a staycation. I am starting to feel that all efforts to leave my home are cursed. First we had the Memorial Day beach debacle. Then, a couple weeks ago, we took a camping trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway. On the first night in the campground, Mia would not go to sleep. For hours and hours she thrashed around, adjusting her sleeping bag over and over and over, yelling "It's not right!" Nothing on this earth could make that sleeping bag right. Finally, it was almost midnight, we were desperate to go to sleep, and Mr. SOC kind of lost it. Actually, we both did. Really, anyone in their right mind would have been insane by that point. So Mr. SOC tells Mia that she's going to have to sleep in the car, and he starts angrily removing her from the tent as she screams. And I'm trying to intervene and tell him to calm down, and at some point in the flailing, I accidentally get hit in the face, so I'm yelling "Ouch!" After a couple minutes, we get things calmed down, and I think the whole scene scared Mia straight, because she laid down and went to sleep. A few minutes later, as we're ready to finally go to sleep, a couple of sheriff's deputies show up at our tent. Apparently, our campground neighbors thought we were child abusers. The deputies threatened to take us to jail, and insisted on checking on Mia (to make sure she was alive, I guess) before finally leaving us. Making the whole situation even better was that Mia had a giant bandage on her forehead because she had fallen in the driveway a few days earlier and needed stitches.

 And that brings us to yesterday, when I decided it would be a good idea to take a day trip to the beach. Mia had had another night of sleep similar to the one in the tent (WTF?), and we hadn't slept much either. But we decide to drag our asses there anyway. Can't miss out on fun! We drive two and a half hours there, haul our stuff onto the sand, and spend maybe 20 minutes before Mia starts crying. She has developed a mortal fear of the water and won't go near it. Then she starts complaining about her eye. It's red and watering, and it's just not getting better. She's crying and crying, her nose is running, we don't have any tissues. After about a half hour of that, we packed up our stuff, got back in the car and went home. Fail!

For some reason I am compelled to go places. To the beach, camping, sailing. I don't fully understand this need, considering the stress of packing, driving, getting Mia to sleep, and just the general stress of traveling. I guess I feel that if I'm sitting at home, I'm not taking advantage of all the world has to offer. If I stay home, I am complacent, unadventurous, stuck. When we're home, there are always chores to do, dishes to wash, errands to run. When we go away, our weekend becomes a vacation. Plus, I don't want to miss out on anything. If we had gone somewhere, we might have had the time of our lives, but we'll never know if we don't go. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with enjoying camping and the beach. But I'm wondering if this is more of a compulsion with me, a sort of grasping and wanting, a way of trying to fill some hole. Instead of traveling, I should be meditating, learning to feel at peace where I am.

So we're still going on our week's vacation at the beach, and we're still going to visit my family. But no more impromptu trips to the beach for a while. I promise.

Secret summer vacation

Oops, I accidentally posted my half-finished draft earlier. This is the real post:

I have a secret. I'm on summer vacation. No, I wasn't smart enough to become a teacher who gets the summers off. (What was I thinking?) You see, this is a stealth vacation. One that involves going to work. Although, thanks to this thing they're calling a "furlough," I do have one week off in July and two weeks off in August, plus long weekends for the 4th and Labor Day, and a few other ones thrown in there for the hell of it. But mostly, this is a mental vacation from my hopes and expectations and plans for the future. This summer, I am not thinking about my career or all the goals I should be achieving, or what my next job should be. I am just going to work, doing my job, going home, as early as possible. I am not studying Spanish or taking that web design course I meant to sign up for.  I am not fretting about money or the economy or whether I'm going to be laid off. For now, I'm just letting it be a simple equation. I have a job, I go there and do what I have to. Seems so simple, doesn't it?

Here's what I'm devoting my energy to. This summer, I am cooking the season's bountiful produce. Fennel and cucumbers and tomatoes and fresh-from-the soil potatoes. I'm packing picnics to eat at the park. I'm watering my flowers. I'm hanging out at the pool. I'm planning endless budget-friendly trips, camping and days at the beach. I'm knitting Mia the cutest little tank top and skirt combo--in pink, of course. I'm planning to listen to the cicadas and catch lightning bugs with Mia. We're going to go to the neighborhood 4th of July parade, decorate our wagon with red white and blue, maybe get some sparklers. We'll spend a little time visiting family, and we'll spend a week at a big house on the beach in late August. I have a good feeling about this summer. I love vacation.