journeys of a restless mind

she has sprung

Happy spring, y'all.  Suddenly all the single men in town (all three of them) are coming out of the woodwork and buzzing around kinda like the big fat bumblebee I saw with it's entire fuzzy self stuffed deep into the trumpet* of one of my daffodils.  Many of the old gnarled trees around town are full of blossoms; even my rosemary bush has some little purple flowers on it.

Aptly, it will soon be spring break for Hijo (who gets to go to Canada with his grandparents), and I will get a nice visit from Medford Man.  I am hoping to spend some time on the water this spring, both under sail and paddle (and if you invite me out on your power boat, I won't say no).  We are having a team building day at work soon, which would normally make me groan and search for escape, except that I am lucky enough to work for an organization that is all about getting folks out onto the water.  We will be taking out one of our longboats for the day.  I have been really excited about this prospect, and only hope that I do not embarrass myself too horribly.  I have been reminded that of course, there are no heads** on board, and so I've already started to obsess about how to prevent myself from psyching myself into having to pee immediately upon leaving the marina.

Also aptly, I will be embarking upon a big ol' spring cleaning this weekend.  This is really the only reason to invite anyone over: to provide motivation for major house cleaning projects.

Enjoy the season, my friends, and try not to get yourselves all twitterpated.

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*which the Minnesota Daffodil Society tells me is really called the cup
**fancy nautical term for bathroom; see what an old salt I am?

NaBloPoMo Day 19: by the numbers

Number of issues behind I am in reading The New Yorker: 3

Number of movies from Netflix sitting on my desk unopened: 2

Number of movies from Hollywood video strewn about the house: 3

Number of books sitting on my nightstand:  11

Number of times a week we order pizza for dinner, on average: 1

Number of vacation days recently requested: 6.5

Number of times I've turned out the light in Hijo's bedroom this past week:  1,004,876

Number of times I usually hit the snooze button before I get out of bed: 3

Number of times I've ordered coffee beans online from Victrola since moving to PT: 12
Number of pounds per order: 3
Total pounds ordered: 36
Difference in weight between coffee beans and Hijo: <20 lbs.

Number of jobs held in lifetime: 12

Highest number of years at any one job: 7

Number of apartments/houses in which Hijo has lived during his life: 6

Number of men who've broken my heart: 2

Number of hearts I've broken: 2 for sure, maybe 4

Number of married men I've had a thing for: 3

Number of years in my life spent married: 7

Number of days until spring: 1

NaBloPoMo Day 18: books on my nightstand*

What is the What ~ Dave Eggers

Atonement ~ Ian McEwan

Snow ~ Orhan Pamuk

Steering the Craft ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Not the End of the World ~ Kate Atkinson

Making a Literary Life ~ Carolyn See

Turning the Mind into an Ally ~ Sakyon Mipham

Shadow of the Wind ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafron

God of Small Things ~ Arundhati Roy

Return to Earth ~ Jim Harrison

Suite Francais ~ Irene Nemirovsky

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* I have finished none of these; some of them I haven't even started

NaBloPoMo Day 17: best things

Best thing I've heard in a long time: "I'll probably just show up on your doorstep sometime Friday night."

Best thing I've seen lately:

Best thing I've done recently:  Walk around the boat haven taking fotos of boats (and other stuff).

Best thing I've listened to lately:  The rain falling on the leaves of the camillia bush.

Best blog I've discovered recently: Le Pen Quotidien.

NaBloPoMo Day 16: hulls

NaBloPoMo Day 15: salt 'n' pepper

I love my hair.  There aren't many things about myself that inspire that phrase, let me assure you.  But I think I rock the salt and pepper.  Would I look younger without the salt?  Of course.  Do I care too much about that?  Not really?  Do I think it prevents me from getting laid? Only by the silliest of boys.  Since so many of you chimed in on this issue, I thought it was only fair to say that I was only joshing.  I'm not likely to dye color it any time soon.

In other news, on the way to taking Hijo to the ferry so he could stay with his dad, one of those gigantic pickup trucks, the biggest ones you see out there, swerved way over into my lane as we went around a curve on the freeway.  He was coming right at me and we were both doing at least 50mph.  I had lots of room on my right and I easily got out of the way without even making my heart rate increase (I did toss out a few choice words) but I quickly realized that if he'd barrelled into me at that speed, I'd have been toast. And toast is not nearly as good as salt and pepper.

NaBloPoMo Day 14: an excerpt

She waited.  Each day she woke up and made coffee for herself from the beans that Eliades stole from his job at the finca.  He roasted them in the back yard over the fire in an old pozole can, and she ground them with her metate.  Sometimes they had sugar for it and sometimes not.  She made it strong and drank it from a chipped cup thrown away by one of the hotels down by the beach.  Her brother again, always finding or stealing things for her.  She drank it while she made breakfast for the workers , the smell of it mixing with the odor of onions and chiles as they sizzled in the pan.  The men always ate first, but she had the first coffee of the day.

NaBloPoMo Day 13: reveal yourselves!

I am dealing with a sick child and dysfunctional heaters at work and rain and am generally feeling grumpy and out of sorts.  Therefore I am going to do something I've never done in five years of blogging; I'm going to fish for comments.

Even if you've commented before, go ahead a leave me a comment today.  Say hello.  Tell me something about yourself.  Give me some dating advice.  Whatever.  I know there are plenty of you who read and don't comment and that is fine.  But if ever you've felt a slight twinge of desire to say something to me, today is the day.  And even if you've commented many times before, I'd love to hear from you.

If you really can't think of anything to say, here's a question for you:  should I dye my hair?

Thanks!

NaBloPoMo Day 12 : spring fever

Now that I've cracked open the hard pearly shell that was keeping me from thinking about men and their lips and eyes and smiles and hands and other delicious parts, I'm having a hard time thinking about anything else.  When did everybody become so sexy?  People I never looked at twice before are suddenly very alluring.  It's unsettling.  It's distracting.  It's kinda fun.

In between trying to plot ways to get a chance to talk to boy #1, I'm thinking about my (potential) online profile and how to make it irresistable, yet not be full of shit.  Part of my problem, well, actually the big problem, is that I don't really know what I want.  I want something more than FWB (as they're calling it these days) and less than marriage.  Far less than marriage.  Do I want to just date, or do I want a boyfriend?  Are there even enough interesting single men in this town to make any of this a possibility?  How far afield am I willing to search?

I asked a friend yesterday if guys were so intensely analytical about every glance and gesture when they had their eye on a woman.  "I don't think so," she repled, "to them it's more like a dog and food." While I would like to simplify my approach, I don't know if I can make it quite that straightforward.  I know that I am tired of the girly dynamic of batting eyelashes and waiting for someone to notice.  I want to take some control, and if I see someone I'd like to get to know, then I will make my move.

On the other hand, I don't want to fool myself into believing that I can control all of the process.  There is a certain amount to be said for the approach of focusing on filling your life with things that you love and seeing what comes along.  If what comes along is looking good, I'm going to ask him out for coffee.

question of the day

Do men like to be asked out by women?