Striking a balance

I spend a lot of time thinking about productivity and laziness. I wonder how much of each a life should contain. When I'm being lazy, I feel guilty about not being productive. When I'm being productive, I feel a sense of accomplishment and non-guilt for non-laziness, but it's not always a ton of fun or something that I feel gives life meaning. I find that I spend a lot of time feeling my way through this ... what I "want" to make time for vs. what I "should" make time for, and so forth.

This past weekend struck a nice balance between productivity and laziness. I want to keep a record of it, so I'll remember it the next time I find myself struggling with this. (I realize that even contemplating this is a luxury.)

Saturday morning dawned before dawn, as my mornings do these days, thanks to Zuko, who apparently can no longer sleep through the night. I was at the gym when its doors opened and set off on a swim, my first in nearly two weeks. It was difficult after such a long break from the pool, but it was nice to feel myself getting back into the rhythm of laps while a class full of people who must be training for something splashed rapidly through their drills all around me. Before going home and showering, I rushed to the farmers' market, dripping all the way. Lo! There were still eggs, so I bought two dozen, along with a basket of assorted peppers and some peaches from the very nice peach man for my mom, who loves them passionately.

My front bed had become overgrown and messy, so I spent several hours pulling weeds, hacking away at my witchhazel and lantana and ferns, and using the electric trimmer to try and get things under control. I hauled a giant pile of leaves and branches and weeds to the curb, got bitten by many mosquitoes, got scratched and covered in yard filth, and felt very satisfied in the end to have shed some blood & sweat working in my yard. My dogs had become messy themselves, so I bathed both of them, which is always a wet and wrestly experience that involves tremendous clean-up once it's all said and done. I love a clean dog, though, so it was worth it. My neighbor invited me to lunch, saying she needed a "big beer," so we went out for tomato basil soup with grilled cheese on focaccia (her) and a veggie burger with fries (me). We both had big beers.

The post-lunch afternoon brought me over to my little brother's apartment, where I planned to watch a couple of episodes of season two of True Blood ... I ended up staying for seven. We ate cheetos and baked Reese's Pieces cookies and mashed them still warm into caramel turtle ice cream. We laughed, we covered our eyes, we screamed; all of the best parts of watching this crazy show. He took a nap and came out hours later rubbing his eyes and laughing, "You're still here??" Finally I peeled myself off the couch and headed home for bed, drunk on sugar and vampires and the flaming hotness of Eric Northman. ("He's been named the hottest man in Sweden like 5 times!" my brother informed me.)

Sunday morning began in a very decadent way, as Zuko let me sleep until 6:30! It was magical. I went on a 14-mile bike ride, which was gorgeous, mostly because it was 65 degrees outside, which is downright freezing for August. Heaven! I spent the rest of the morning dusting, vacuuming, and tidying my house. If I could hire someone to do a chore for me, any chore, I would hire someone to vacuum my living room furniture. Or to shave my pets permanently bald. I love them, but their fur ... gah. Pet people, you know what I'm saying. (A dream of mine is to invest in some living room furniture off of which pet hair can be easily swept. Does such furniture exist?) This all took a very long time, but I blasted the Dr. Horrible soundtrack and then an angsty love mix by mo pie and lit a bunch of candles and everything smelled lovely and clean! I did three loads of laundry and overall got a lot of household drudgery taken care of. It won't last long, but it still felt great.

Later that afternoon, I headed back over to my brother's. We ate cheese pizza and drank Coke. Actual real Coke, which I hadn't had in years. Coke just doesn't really do it for me (thankfully), but it sure is good with cheese pizza. Wow! We watched the final 2 episodes of season two in order to be caught up for this week's new episode. There was more laughing, yelling, eye covering, and general ridiculousness. Seriously ... so much laughing. Good times.

I headed home and decided to bake some more cookies, this time from scratch. These were a bit messy (when melted chocolate is involved, along with an electric mixer, I inevitably end up with chocolate splattered from ceiling to floor, and I knocked over and spilled an entire new bottle of vanilla extract on the floor ... yay), but so, so good. I didn't bother toasting the walnuts or using sea salt and had to improvise on the double boiler issue. And I just used spoons to dole out the dough, so mine aren't perfect and cute and round like these. But they still taste mighty fine. And the recipe made a ton of cookies. And smashing Skor bars with a hammer is a great stress reducer.

Thus, to conclude, I spent a lot of time this weekend doing things I "needed" to do -- housecleaning, dog bathing, yard work, and exercising. But I also spent a lot of time doing things that were in no way "productive" -- eating junk food, watching the trashiest TV show known to man, etc. But I loved doing those things with my brother, so I definitely think it was time well spent. There are things missing from my life that I want to carve out time for: yoga, for one, because I need to both stretch and meditate more in a big way, and some kind of service to the greater good of humankind, for another. I will get to those soon, I hope.

Sometimes it's 2004 and the Garden State soundtrack is all the rage, and you are 29 and see the movie and you love it, along with a lot of other people, until everyone decides to hate it, and you listen to Frou Frou's "Let Go" a thousand times. And suddenly it's five years later, exactly, and you're 34 and you haven't listened to the song in a really long time and it reappears in your life on a mix from a good friend and it sounds somehow totally different and the same. And you fall in love with this song about letting go all over again, and you think about what you want to let go and what you want to keep, and it's like a little piece of your heart you forgot about is still there after all.

What I am coming to see this year in a new way is that our lives really are what we make of them. Most of us are lucky to be able to create the lives we want. Our lives are all different and our days are all filled with different things and different obligations and things to tend to -- jobs, classes, kids, pets, relatives, friends -- but for the most part, we can build a day like we want to, with certain hours carved out for this, and others carved out for that. It is kind of a beautiful thing when you really stop and think about it, being the architect of a day. I have really liked the days I have built for myself lately. I just want to recognize this and take a deep breath and have a moment of gratitude about it. So that is what I am doing. And now I am going to eat a cookie.

Randomosity

Today's entry will be a string of random thoughts.

It turns out that I have some complex feelings about Michael Jackson. At first when he died, I was immediately annoyed that everything was super positive about him with nary a mention of the fact that he was bananas and possibly did some unspeakable things to small children. But then I started watching clips and remembering. Remembering how much I once loved him, the posters on my bedroom walls, my lapel pin with his face on it, how he predated any other celebrity crush I ever had in later years, the way I adored him before my age even hit the double digits, the whole thing. It's hard for me to articulate my feelings about this so I'll leave it to Linda & Sars, who both said it better than I could.

Apologies to those who have already heard me rant about this: I do not think Chace Crawford is a good enough actor to play Ren McCormack in the Footloose remake, and I wish Zac Efron were going to play him as originally planned. Because I actually think Zac Efron is very talented! Shut up. I also think that Julianne Hough in the Lori Singer role (Ariel) is an abomination. She's supposed to be dark and damaged, and I highly doubt that Hough has that in her. Lori Singer was hardcore. It sort of bothered me when I was very young that she was not your typical teen beauty type like Cindi Mancini in Can't Buy Me Love, but as I've grown up, I realize that she was pretty much perfect for this role. Like, if my dad were super strict and my life were that legitimately dreary and hard, maybe I wouldn't eat either. (Not trying to diss her skinniness, I'm just saying.) Footloose is not all feel-good dancey dancey lighthearted goodness by any stretch. I mean, Ariel's brother died. The reverend is genuinely conflicted. There are some long and sort of boring for children scenes dealing with this, particularly the one set in church and the talks between the reverend and his wife. Bricks are thrown through windows. Books are burned. Ariel's boyfriend beats her up. I'm saying, it's got some heaviness interspersed between chicken races on tractors and Ren teaching Willard how to dance. And the director of the remake directed High School Musical. The more I think about the remake the more annoyed I get, frankly.

I've now made these two weekends in a row. I first made them several summers ago for B.'s birthday, and I've been thinking of them ever since. These past two batches, I've had some trouble dislodging them from the muffin pan without breaking the edges, so they look kind of ugly, but they still taste great. (I use sugar cookie dough instead of peanut butter cookie dough because they are already plenty peanut buttery.)

This was a weekend of nonstop chick-flickery. First: He's Just Not That Into You. Despite my enjoyment of Justin Long in anything he does, this is just not a very good movie. For many reasons. I lack the energy today to get as worked up about this movie as I'd like to, so let me just tell you that I don't recommend it. Second: Confessions of a Shopaholic. I rented this movie solely because of Isla Fisher and Hugh Dancy, and it did not disappoint. I find them both infinitely charming, and this movie is totally cute and entertaining. Third: Marley and Me. Bawled my eyes out at the end, not just cried quiet civilized tears but bawled. I can't say it was a great movie, but Marley sure was cute and reminded me so much of Zuko, that stupid, wild, destructive maniac of a dog I can't help but love.

Went on a 13-mile bike ride this morning. Yesterday I rode to a bike store to get my bike outfitted with new pedals and pedal brackets (baskets? not sure what they're called) -- things to put my feet into. Not clips or anything that would require me to actually fasten my feet in or buy expensive new shoes, but just something to slip my normal sneakers into so I can pedal more efficiently. Other than actually getting both feet inside these without tipping over -- it took me several tries -- I liked this newfangled way of riding and do think it helped me go a little faster.

Today's ride also marked a milestone I've been working up to -- reaching down to grab my water bottle while pedaling. I have never braved this feat because it's really far down, practically below the seat, and takes a really long reach to grab it, which means pedaling one-handed and reaching down and grabbing it and this just seemed too herculean a task to achieve. But today I reached down and touched the bottle a few times without actually grabbing it (tip from Jessie) to practice the reach down. It got to the point that sweat was pouring from my forehead down my nose to my upper lip into my actual mouth and I was so thirsty I started tasting what can only be described as lung juice in the back of my throat and this disgusting sensation propelled me to reach down and grab the tip of the bottle between my knuckles. Triumph! I swigged with abandon and thought I'd just hold the bottle the rest of the ride and drink out of it at my leisure. But then I remembered I needed my hand for, you know, braking. So I had to reach down and return it to its holder. Which was scary in and of itself but I did it. Then I repeated the whole process twice more over the course of the ride. I am very glad I now know how to do this because it's going to be a long, hot summer and I can't ride without drinking water, hello.

The ride was fairly delightful once I got this new routine down. Nature highlight: gorgeous, delicate egret slowly walking across the water. Nature lowpoint: seeing how low the lakes are due to basically zero rainfall in weeks. Musical high points: the harmonies in Cages or Wings and the theme to The Greatest American Hero and hearing The Weepies sing about how you can't steal happiness.

Catching Up

Before it gets away from me, I want to get a little down about a wonderful weekend. I've already posted about the concerts, which were both amazing, but I want to record what else went on. It was a rare weekend when the whole family was in town -- my sister and her husband (they live out of state) and my brother and his new girlfriend (they travel a lot). My sister had the inspired idea to rent out a private karaoke room at a Thai restaurant in an early celebration of my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. We thought about inviting other people, but in the end, it was just us, and we had what can only be called a blast. There was dancing, there was drinking, there was so much eating, and there was plenty of singing. One of my favorite parts was watching my mother watch my brothers sing together. Their harmonies were admittedly beautiful but she was just blown away. Many pictures were taken, some of which I will eventually get around to posting. We also went to one of my brother's gigs, had boiled crawfish, had beignets and cafe au lait, and just had a merry time. I loved having everyone here. Just sitting around eating my mom's crawfish etouffee or lying around on the bed with my sister and brother-in-law were delightful. It was a really wonderful weekend and one I will not soon forget.

Randomness: The Great Performances special In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams is excellent, even if you are not familiar with the show. Definitely worth checking out.

Meanwhile. I am still watching season two of Chuck and loving it a lot and am thrilled it has been renewed. I am reading The Wednesday Wars, finally, and loving it.

I got from Netflix the DVD of the Rent: Live on Broadway special that my brother and I went to see last fall. The special features are indeed quite special. I highly recommend both the live stage show itself as well all of the featurettes, which are VERY WONDERFUL. Seeing Jonathan Larson's parents and sister, all kinds of backstage goodness, the longtime crew members, the closing cast, the original cast (except Adam Pascal -- where were you, Adam Pascal? What could have been more important than this?). Everyone crying and laughing and singing and embracing and remembering, forget about it, it was too much, the tears poured like rain. Rent, I thought I was all cried out over you. But I was wrong.

Once again I have found myself engaging in last minute triathlon registration ridiculousness. A few days ago, I signed up for one that is tomorrow. The distances aren't terribly long, so I think I'll be okay, though I am a bit apprehensive about the biking part since the farthest I've ever gone in my life was seven miles. I'm just going to take it slow, try not to fall off or crash, and try to enjoy myself. I'm viewing it as a chance to road trip with a friend and as good practice for the one in August. I know myself, and I know my anxiety over that one will be greatly lessened over the summer by having this one under my belt.

This morning I went to the farmer's market and came away with fresh eggs, cucumbers, strawberries, bell peppers, yellow squash, and carrots. I feel really good about this. The dogs also approve.