I have this weird sense of anti climax.
Here it is, the day after thanksgiving and I'm not sure what to do with myself. I guess we're going to go out drinking tonight but I just feel really bored and restless. I can't believe I got through the holiday without a major drinking binge.
I'll save you the sordid tales, except to say that it was another adventure with the Italians. Rob's mom came to visit. What was lacking in hoopla was more than made up for by all the little comments about the fact that I don't cook.
You want me to cook? Fine. I'll make dinner. I hope you don't mind frozen veggies, pumpkin pie from the supermarket bakery and prefab food out of a box.
She was obviously wondering how I could have reached thirty without knowing how to cook. Hey, someone went to a lot of effort to invent microwaves so that a woman (or, for that matter, a man. But in this case it's the old "womanly duties" thing.) wouldn't have to spend five hours in the kitchen. A lot of money is spent each year inventing newer and tastier frozen dinners and meals-in-a-box, and even more money is spent advertising them. It is my responsibility as a consumer to take advantage of these wondrous inventions. If you want me to cook, be prepared to taste this stuff. If you want to spend your whole day making stuff from scratch for a meal that involves all of three people, count me out.
But finally this holiday is done and it's time to decompress. I still have this tension from the weekend and haven't found an appropriate release. Maybe I'll go work out in a little bit, or maybe I'll throw darts.
So...
I'm going to Chicago next weekend. It's our anniversary. So, we're renting a hotel room and we're going out to eat at como inn, hopefully in one of their adorable little alcoves.
Sigh. I feel restless.
The subject of Arizona came up, and I found myself getting a bit homesick and nostalgic. Not that I want to go back to those summers, but sometimes I do find myself missing the life I had there. I guess deep down, I was more comfortable there than anywhere. It was affordable and down to earth, but still there was plenty of culture to be found if you wanted it. Sometimes I miss the people there, too.
This would never happen, at least not in the next five years, but sometimes it just pops up in my brain, and the melancholy sinks in. Especially at a time like this, when winter is creeping up on us and I have the months of snow ahead of me. Maybe someday I'll be able to have a winter home there.
So I'm thinking I'm going to paint in a little while, though I'm not sure what. Lately I've been doing this semi observational stuff, just as an exercise, and it seems to be working for me.
I don't think I'm going to study writing in school after all. It seems pretty futile to me. I mean, there's nothing I want to do with it that I can't already do, and it's kind of the old stand by. The whole study writing versus study art thing...it seems kind of like going back to an old ex because of the sense of security versus taking new risks.
I don't want to study art in a way because I never want to be a designer. I'm pretty damned confident in that. I wouldn't mind taking at least some art courses, for refinement's sake at least, but maybe something will become clear, an option I hadn't considered where I could create without comprimising myself, along the way.
I guess I don't really care if I have a clear idea of my goals or not. Seems most people get where they are through whim and chance anyhow, and what they wind up doing was nowhere close to what they originally thought they wanted to do. So I don't mind. I think all I really care about is my own self enrichment.
I'm trying to trust the universe a little bit more. I'm trying to trust that if I pick a direction and don't second guess myself that I'll be fine. But just go with it, and see what happens.
Regret is a nasty thing. Once you start regretting, it's hard to stop. And once you start regretting, any decision can seem terrifying because of the implications and everything that you're trying to avoid. Sometimes it can become a self fulfilling prophecy.
But show me someone who says they regret nothing, and I'll show you a liar. That said, I'm willing to let it all go, and I'm willing to make stupid mistakes. Hell, I'm even willing to be proven wrong. But what I'm not willing to do anymore is to get stuck in a bog of self doubt and second guesses.
Fuck it.