March 10, 2002
Frivolity Therapy

The goal this weekend -- not surprisingly, I'm sure -- has been to Stay Busy. Stay Positive. Stay Moving.

Stay Upbeat.

This probably could have best been accomplished by an invigorating seven-hour bike ride up and down The Diablo Mountain Range, but fate (and pissy weather) conspired against us. Both Saturday and Sunday mornings dawned wet and cold, here in the Bay Area ... and even though the weather cleared up by the middle of the afternoon, if our butts aren't in Spandex by 9 a.m. our momentum is shot. So we spent the weekend pretty much the way we used to spend our weekends, pre-bicycles: by indulging in The Three S's.

Sleeping, Shopping and Sex.

We had birthday shopping to do, first of all.  And since David likes to give books as birthday presents -- except when he's giving diamond engagement rings -- this meant a trip to Barnes & Noble. While he browsed the children's book section, looking for an appropriate birthday present for his newly eleven-year-old son, I wandered around and checked out the bargain bins, seeking inspiration. I'm still struggling to break free of the crippling and mysterious Reader's Block that has held me in its grip for the past half year. In the last six months I think I've made it all the way through exactly two books,  and one of them was a re-re-read. I think part of the problem is that I keep giving myself unrealistic reading assignments -- huge, complex novels that require way more *time and attention molecules* than I've got to spare these days -- so perhaps paring back my expectations a little is the way to go. (Read this: 197 tidy, efficient pages as opposed to 43,897,621 pages' worth of migraine headache.)  I ended up buying two slim volumes: "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan" by Sophie Kinsella, and "Ringing For You: A Love Story With Interruptions" by Anouchka Grose Forrester. They both look smart and funny and relatively painless.

 More importantly: they both look really nice on my side of the headboard, along with all of the OTHER books I'm not reading right now.

After shopping ... lunch. David announced early on that he wanted a vegetarian burrito, but since I am now officially Sick To Death of the little Alameda taqueria we've been patronizing for three years -- the last couple of times we've eaten there the ground beef in my taco has been alarmingly pink and fetal-looking -- that meant we were going to have to go somewhere else. So we went to the other little Alameda taqueria ... the scary one, over on Park Street. I am automatically suspicious of any small ethnic restaurant with 1.) dark windows, and 2.) no line outside the door. Much to my surprise, the Scary Taqueria was not only not-very-scary, once you stepped inside -- it's just dimly-lit -- but the food was about a bazillion times better than the Old Taqueria. I had an excellent crisp beef taco and a side of rice -- just the right amount of *heat* in both -- and although they don't serve Mexican Pepsi in the heavy glass bottles, like they do at the Old Taqueria, they do have fountain RC Cola, which is almost as good (and almost as rare). We'll be going back there again.

Saturday afternoon was all about napping.

By Saturday evening we were still feeling deliciously lazy and self-indulgent, so we rented a couple of movies (even though we are notoriously bad about bringing them back on time: it's a wonder the Blockbuster people don't bolt the doors when they see us pull into the parking lot). On the way home we stopped and picked up sandwiches and ginger beer at Dimitra's, for a makeshift dinner. Bed picnic and videos: my favorite way to spend a Saturday night. As it turns out, we only made it through one of the movies -- the weird and wonderful Ghost World -- but that just means that we can save "Velvet Goldmine" for later in the month. (It's a 30 day rental, right?)

The rest of the weekend has been spent in similarly frivolous fashion. Today -- Sunday -- I had one long, lovely Alone Day, while David was off attending to his usual weekend family stuff. Lots of sitting around the apartment in my Happy Pants. Lots of listening to ghastly mix tapes from the 80's. (Juice Newton, anyone?)  Lots of futzing around on the Internet, where I:

• Looked up my Star Wars name ("Terra St. Sea") and my Hobbit name ("Dolly Knotwise of Whitfurrows").
• Found out how much longer I have to live. According to the Longevity Game, I'm going to live to be 84. Another forty years of *FootNotes* ... oh boy!   (Although if I drop another ten pounds and lower my cholesterol, I can boost that up to 93. On the other hand, if I start smoking and drinking again, it plummets down to 75.)
• Checked my website stats -- something I always forget to do.  It's nice to see that the people who hate me the most are still among my most loyal readers.
• Toyed with the idea of registering for The 2002 Great Mohican Gathering ... [thank you, x.]
• Caught up on all of my favorite other journals, including two that make me want to pack up my little toy website and go home, sometimes -- they're that good -- Lemon Rind and Under The Microscope.
• Wrote a smattering of e-mail ... mostly answering the support mail and ignoring the hate mail. (Although after a while I realized that it was actually more energizing to do things the other way around.)
• Spoke to two-thirds of The Tots on the phone, and left a long, loving voicemail message for the one-third I wasn't able to reach directly.

All of this futzing and fun, of course, has merely been an avoidance technique: a way of dodging the stuff that's really on our minds. But you know what? I think that once in a while it's OK to put sadness on hold and look for ways to stay upbeat.

The frivolous-er, the better.

next        previous        home        archives        throw a rock