Happy birthday!

Yesterday it was my birthday

I hung one more year on the line

I should be depressed, my life's a mess

But I'm having a good time

OK, so my birthday was really two days ago. But I think this Paul Simon lyric is incredibly apt—I'm still feeling pretty sunnyside up for someone with no job and no real income. I like to spread my birthday celebration out over several days and this year it was even sweeter for having the free time to have bistro breakfast with a friend one day and an afternoon hike and picnic lunch another. I've stayed late at the beach, gone for afterschool cupcakes, and lingered at Starbuck's, still believing that opportunities lie just ahead. Hope and gratitude are alive and well. 

It's going to be a good year. 

Into the woods

Dig my new flashlight: 

I'm going on a full moon hike tomorrow night and I'm responsible for my own lighting, the small skinny one i keep at home to fish dog toys out from under the bed isn't going to cut it out in the woods. I'm terribly excited, we're going to roast marshmallows—haven't done that in years, I prefer mine just lightly tanned—and we're invited to take a midnight swim. Not sure about the latter: on one hand it would be an incredible tactile experience; on the other, it's just soooooo Friday the 13th. Everyone knows it's the midnight lake swimmers who get it! 

Today's small pleasure

A much-needed pedicure, and Jelly Apple polish. I love when you can't stop admiring your feet. 

Whoopie!

On Wednesdays and Saturdays from May through October a small farmer's market sets up across the street from my apartment. Taking up just one side of one block, [nothing like the scale and grandeur of the Union Square market] it nonetheless has beautiful things and gets a decent amount of traffic, and has become a very enjoyable feature of my community. With my days now free, I like to take Biscuit and my coffee over to sit and people/produce watch; I love how that simple activity feels so lovely and rich: enough, as if it were a day's event. Biscuit putters around nibbling on the grass and I sit, with the sun on my back on a good day, thinking that life is wonderful and I'm the luckiest girl on earth. I don't usually buy much—though last summer i got into a bit of a Boston lettuce habit—I usually just like to soak in the sights and smells. I've become friendly with a woman who works there named Liz; she's usually at the cooking booth, making something with fresh ingredients and sharing the recipes with the passersby. Last Saturday she had peach salsa, today she had a cool pasta primavera, both were delicious. The corn was especially fragrant today, I tried some yellow watermelon, and the Amish dairy farmer had pumpkin whoopie pies—which, as high on life and simple foodie pleasure as I was, I could not pass up. 

Though I was originally struck by the pumpkin I felt it would be negligent to not also try the chocolate, so this sampler was perfect. Both were outstanding [made by Amish farmers, how could they not be? Really!] but the pumpkin was superior, as special and celebratory as I wanted it to be. 

Bizzee Bee

I've been slacking off here, sorry! I hiked on the 4th of July, went to the beach for a few days, then had my niece in town for week for what turned out to be an extensive and exhausting tour of the city. Limped back to the real world in time to get sick with a cold. But this creative process has been important to me so I'm [re-!] making it a priority, I'll be back to work here Monday morning, just like the rest of the world! 

Ignorance is Bliss

Man, that place isn't called "Bliss" for nothing. 

I pretended I wasn't worried about my dwindling income this morning and had a spa day. In my own defense, I paid for a decent chunk of the treatments I chose with a generous gift card; but really, does pampering need to be defended? I got that card almost two years ago, I'd held on to it for exactly this kind of occasion: when it would really be a welcome treat. Nothing necessary, not routine maintenance, but a real, sensual, relaxing, transporting treat. The New York Times is reporting the unemployment rate has risen to 9.5% and my severance checks are about to run out, but fiddle dee dee, I'm having a facial! La la la la la, I can't hear you! I'm having a seaweed mask applied! I don't have a job but my skin has fabulous elasticity, dammit! I took in the gratuitous compliments, the foot massage, the fresh lemonade and brownies in the lounge, the plush robe, and the hot rain shower like the balms against harsh reality that they are meant to be, and was happy to overpay handsomely for them. Because sometimes you should, even if you probably shouldn't. Because sometimes it's worth it to feel like a princess instead of a pauper for a few hours. Because, aaaaahhhhhhh...

This kiss you give, is never ever gonna fade away

I burped my last motherfucking burpee today. I counted down the last 10, 9, 8, 7... and then quietly said "fuck you" after my last one. 

"Enola Gay," one of my favorite songs of late 1985, was playing over the gym loudspeaker and as I stood there huffing I took the occasion to think back on my former 19-year-old self, dancing with my college boyfriend, both of us with silly hair; I considered my current self, pushing determinedly through this workout, a concern I never would have imagined 23 years ago; and of course I thought about being done, and the freedom I would feel once this chore was off my plate. Past, present, and future come full circle courtesy of a snappy synth pop song overheard between my last-ever burpee sets. A very sweet accomplishment indeed.