Recently in Flotsam Category

So I'm at the beach Sunday afternoon with my friend Batman and her husband Mr. Science, and she asks, out of the blue: "How you manage to imbibe enough calories? With all the biking, I mean?"

"Simple," I said. "I eat six meals a day."

Now, this is unremarkable, except for the fact that I was wondering, last night at about 3 am, as I finished my sixth, why it is that I always seem to be running out of groceries. Well, duhhhhhh. I am basically eating for two people. I mean, if the average human eats three meals a day, and I am eating six, well, there you have it.

It's not that the meals themselves are especially large. They're average-sized, for a person of my height and gender. There are just a lot of them, and I guess it adds up.

I am not really sure why I am telling you this. It just struck me as funny. I keep getting frustrated by things like eating right before I leave for a bike ride, riding to a friend's new apartment (about 40 minutes away), and then being hungry again within ten minutes of having arrived. Sigh.

Oh well. I am currently replete with spaghetti, so it's all happy satiation in the vicinity of Lizbon's tummy at the moment. Though by the time I am done writing this, it may well be snacktime.

Anyway, to leap from the trivial to the slightly less trivial, the other thing that's been on my mind is this:

I wonder if getting older carries with it a higher tolerance for relationships that are less strictly defined. I have wondered this several times in recent weeks, as I keep coming up against examples of undefined relationships in my own life, which give me greater enjoyment and cause less consternation that I would have expected.

For example, I called Boywich last night because I was feeling blue, and he is still (often) my go-to guy when I feel that way. Sometimes it makes me feel better to talk to him, and sometimes it doesn't, but that's okay. Our relationship would look very odd to an outsider. Sometimes it looks that way to us, too. But we both appreciate it, even treasure it.

We love each other. We aren't exactly romantic, and we're not in love anymore, but we care deeply and differently for each other than we do for our other friends. And I'm cool with that. In fact, it's really nice.

Example #2: Redhead #1. We are certainly friends. And I am quite friendly with his girlfriend, whom I met recently, and whom I quite like. And yet we were, until his girlfriend arrived on the scene, highly flirtatious. The kind of flirtatious where you realize, at some point, that people you both know are talking about you, and wondering if there's something going on.

There's nothing going on, and there never has been. And won't be, because I don't get involved with other people's boyfriends. But I have really enjoyed the flirtatiousness, the fact that there's that energy between us, even if it will never be acted upon. In years past, that kind of thing would have driven me crazy. Now, I like it. It's as if it's a spice, something that adds a little extra enjoyment to being around him.

Example #3: da blonde. A guy I dated for a few months, then stopped seeing, then slept with once casually, then didn't see again for several months, then recently saw in a platonic context, and then had text sex with. Could it get more nebulous than that?

In the bad old days, I would never have wanted to see him again unless I could see him. Or I wouldn't have still been attracted to him, once I realized he wasn't right for me. Or something.

Now, though, it's lovely and fun. I have a playmate, whom I only see now and then, when one or the other of us feels like getting in touch. It's light, and I find that enjoyable.

I find, too, that I am able to enjoy the "crush" stage of things a lot more. It used to simply be painful. Heck, it's been simply painful at various times and with various people this year. But I don't know - I think I am growing more open to the permutations of love, lust, attraction, and everything in between. It's like enjoying the whole process instead of just racing to the orgasm. I am being metaphorical, mind you.

Some nights I just want to eat a Frankendinner, ya know?

You know what I mean. A little bit of this and a little bit of that, and none of it adding up to a cohesive whole, but somehow that's what I want anyway.

It occurred to me, after eating the veggie hot dogs and the zucchini in garlic and olive oil and the tomato and basil salad, that we're always expecting life to be like a story is. To have a beginning, a middle, and an end - and more than that - a thrust, a meaning, a punchline - something to pull it all together.

We expect it to be like spaghetti and meatballs, not like a Frankenmeal.

But it feels a lot more like my little plates. A little of this, and a little of that, things that taste different, songs that don't go together. Milkshakes before the meal, pancakes for dinner, chocolate in the morning, and fruit with vinegar. It's weird. And it makes very little sense, except in snippets, flashes of insight that peek through at us like the stars winking here and there in the heavy backlit blanket of a NYC night.

Once you start down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. - Yoda.

Put it down to a sudden onslaught of girly bleeding. I have resisted and resisted and resisted. I bought the French press just in case I had a coffee-drinking visitor, months ago. The boy in question vanished before I could use it on him, and there it sat, in the upper cupboard, looking sexy.

All glass and stainless, small, sleek, batting its little French mesh at me. Drat the thing.

I'd also bought a pound of this. (The Hair Bender - do you even have to ask?)

And again, there it sat, well-sealed against air, in the fridge.

Every night it calls to me and I say, no, it's late, I'm not drinking you. And then today I crawled wearily out of bed at 1pm. Okay 2pm, but that was after doing my exercises. Padded into the kitchen. Threw some bras in the sink to soak. (The ones that got hailed on and danced all night in, respectively - I figured they were due.)

Fed the yowling feline.

And looked up into the cupboard, where she sat, twinkling at me. "Lizzzzzbon.....Psssssst. You know you want it."

Yeah, I do, but "It" is usually some glamorous and flouting-the-laws-of-physics escapade involving multiple young boys.

"You can put hot milk in it."

Yeah, honey, I can put hot milk on young boys, too.

"But they are not in your cupboard. And I am."

Well, I can't really argue with that, can I?

Everyone from doctors to gypsy fortune tellers have warned me that coffee is just not good for me. I've got a sensitive stomach, and my brain doesn't respond well to drugs. I had a terrible time, years ago, kicking an only-mild daily coffee habit, and since then I've really just stuck to green tea, and that not even daily.

But:

My redheads are gone - one's moving away, and the other's got a girlfriend. And my new bike is still waiting for all its parts to arrive. And I've recently come to the conclusion that I am not up to letting anyone get closer to me than a safe biking distance. And....look how pretty it looks in that nice big purple cup.

It tastes just the way I remember it, too. And smells even better.

And now, yes, my stomach hurts. Sigh. Perhaps I ought to just find a new crop of boys.

After a little shameless idea pilfering, followed by judicious googling, I have come up with a list.

What Lizbon needs: (according to the bots)

My agenda needs updating.
My process needs a fresh start.
My referendum debate needs more passion.
The Irish rejection of my treaty has sent shockwaves.
Ireland needs to hold a second referendum about me.
I need a drummer.
And the Irish Times, when reporting about me, needs to use new crayons.

If you ask me, on the other hand:

I could use a 46-tooth chainring, rather than the 45-tooth ones I received. No biggie, but it's a preference.
I could use a good roll in the hay with a good bad boy, preferably at least 15 years my junior, with no significant consequences to either party.
I could use a few days at a nice beach, and a small drink with a big paper umbrella on it.
I could use a nice long bike ride, maybe to Coney Island, maybe with the blonde. It's all platonic now, with him, you know. All fine.
I could use to never have to go on another awful, dreadful, ooky, dull, heebie-jeebie inspiring date.

I could use a little candy. A little sugar in my bowl.

"Meow." That last is from Kitwich. Who knows what the hell she wants?

As humans (operating in little isolated islands of awareness), it's often hard to believe we have much impact on others, even those we know well and see often.

I was having a very interesting conversation this evening, with a friend with whom I often get into such conversations, because we are both built that way.

He said something to the effect that he thinks he's very selfish because he has trouble remembering things that don't directly affect him. I told him that I don't think he's selfish at all (he's not), and that being selfish is about not being interested in or caring about anybody but oneself, rather than a lack of remembering the details of things other people have told you.

Anyway, that's slightly beside the point. I do think, though, that it's very hard, in some ways, to imagine the world beyond our mental four walls. We all have the George Bailey syndrome to a certain extent.

So I find it interesting that a chalked message on a Portland sidewalk so affected two knitters of that city that they posted photos of it on their respective blogs.

A new set of handlebars, choosing rims, having my pedal threads retapped.

Flirting outrageously (redhead, natch). A couple of new dates in the works (non-redheads - well, one of them is in fact redheaded, but is not one of my fair redheaded friends).

A ride in a monsoon. A lovely cool ride the next day.

A thought about what I'd do if I were given another 40 years of life (just now), a thought about what death is, a thought that it's really best not to think such thoughts.

A list written to a boy I'll likely never meet. The world exists so much in the unwritten category these days - letters on a screen but never on a page.

I watched a documentary on the retrieval of a famous pirate ship wreck, and the objects they pulled up - the coins that used to be cut into eight pieces (yep, "pieces of eight"), a boy's shoe with a piece of his legbone still caught in it after 300 years. The cannon. More than 60 of them: English, French, and Spanish. The captain, a legendary dandy. The crew, run as a democracy, with even a primitive form of health insurance - they got paid for missing limbs.

My friends, pirates themselves, in one way or another, braving many, many dangers to flit in and out of traffic, delivering other people's packages for pittances - more money for faster riding. Bold, ignoring the laws of physics and the push of fear. Beautiful, strong, dirty, admirable, trash-talking, fiercely loyal, strangely kind.

That bit of knitting is a new hat, to go under my winter helmet. Yarn: Bought at Rhinebeck last fall, hand-dyed by a woman whom I met. The most glorious irislike colours. Colours is prettier with a "u," if you ask me.

I'm watching Bladerunner tonight, and it occurs to me that melancholia is a lot more attractive when one has an art director, good lighting, and an interested audience.

In a solitary room, with no noise but that of the fans, there isn't much that's romantic about being in that mood, other than that it gives a little extra frisson to having selected a movie that's so perfectly in keeping with it.

After a pause to wash the cat fur off me (she doesn't seem to realize that it's a billion degrees and muggy in here), I pulled out the Nikon to see if I could make myself some similarly good mood lighting.

I have always loved the light (or lack of it) in Deckard's apartment. So tawny and dusty-seeming.

It's all just about the color and feel of that amber whiskey he drinks out of the perfectly square handmade glass.

I'm surprised Crate and Barrel never copied those glasses outright. They are beautiful, and in synch with the angles and weird square relief designs carved into the balcony.

Anyway. Lacking an audience, not to mention Ridley Scott to paint up my face and make me look like an eerie nine-foot-tall ragdoll (Pris), the photos don't do much to make me feel dramatic and vive la melacholie.

But they looked rather nice in black and white, I thought.

I know, I know, it's been ages, and I usually post every other dayish. I just have nothing new to add. To wit:

1. Nothing new on the boys front. As in, no boys.
2. Still biking my ass off.
3. It's kinda hot out.
4. I'm tired.
5. Clients drive me crazy.
6. Waiting to be paid like Godot.
7. It's hot out.
8. I know, I already said that. See what I mean? Nothing much doing.

I'll take a camera out one day this week, so at least I'll have something visual to add, even if there are still no new words.

I'm thinking, just thinking. And it doesn't seem to be happening much in words. More in pedal strokes.

Heh. When the going gets tough, the tough put on their sexiest $15 Target sundress, hop on the cycle, have a 40-minute ferocious yelling brawl with a vicious bastard of a headwind, arrive five minutes early for brunch all lathered up and invigorated, and buy a very large new dildo (on sale!).

Then they (or I) go flirt shamelessly for hours with the very prettiest redhead they can find (looking at him for that long made me high), pet the cute doggie, and ride home laughing maniacally. Bwahahaha.

But now I have to work.

Beautiful sunset on the way home tonight (unfortunately I had no camera), but it didn't make much of a dent in the sense that this has been what Boywich would call a craptacular week. Lowlights include being shaken awake every morning by Richter-scale vibrations from the pile-drivers operating a mere 10 ft. or so below my windows. Not to mention having yet another tube blow its bitty little cork just as I was pumping the last tire preparatory to leaving on a ride.

So my ride ended up being to the bike shop, to buy more tubes (and complain about them having weak-ass valve stem connections). And to top that off, my favorite redheads were not even there, nor was the nice girl I usually talk to, nor was her cute puppy. Drat.

Ugh. I am exhausted, sick at heart, sleep-deprived (construction starts early, and I keep having to work all night because I can't focus all day with that horrible, horrible noise and the whole building shuddering to bits around my ears), and generally demoralized.

I couldn't even get it up to think that the friend of a friend's invitation to go for a bike ride (he just bought a new bike) might have an ulterior motive in it, even though I had at one time found him to be very cute. It all seemed very likely that a bike ride is just a bike ride, and even if it's not, he's probably not a good person to date, being, by all accounts, something of a solitary reclusive type. Interesting, but maybe best appreciated from a safe distance.

Which I am beginning to think is true of all men.

Lately I feel sort of like these guys - giant robots duelling at a mermaid festival. Displaced. Out-of-sorts. Out of context, too.

There's a massive and incredibly, horribly noisy (our whole building shakes) construction project happening right outside my window now, and for the foreseeable future. They'll be done some day, you say? Clearly you have never lived next to a NYC construction project before. I, unfortunately, have.

My last apartment was completely unliveable for two and a half of the five years that I lived there. So much so that in the end, I gave up and moved in with Boywich.

I really love my current apartment, and I do not want to give it up, but already I am doing that PTSD thing where I cringe and creep around, ducking and freezing in place like a wild animal waiting for the Big Scary Noise to start. Already I am not at peace here even at night when it's quiet.

It's not a good situation for a sensitive creature like me.

And I am not sure what to do about it. I am shopping around for an alternate work space - a wireless cafe would be ideal, but that gets expensive because you have to keep buying things, and I just can't drink that much coffee. I have an aversion to public libraries, and while there are parks, they're not much of a long-term solution because of a) weather issues, and b) the wireless thing.

Yesterday I bicycled long and hard with my laptop on my back (in addition to the 15 lbs. or so of locks and tools that I usually carry), and ended up with a very sore and numb shoulder/arm, and cranky knees.

I am actually considering whether it would be possible to rent a workspace. It would kill a couple of birds - I have also been wishing for some company during the day, and to share space with another couple of freelancers might be cool. But there really isn't air in my budget for such niceties, so we will see.

Today's tally. Fits of crying: 3. Shouting matches with strangers: 2. Mysterious bike problems brought on by my own ignorance and/or inattention: 1. Horrible late loud obnoxious outdoor parties given by neighbors who get louder and louder as it approaches midnight: 1. This is your brain. This is your brain on NYC.

Once in a great while I have a day that makes me feel like I just want to float, float far away, up and up into the air and hide in a bank of cloud for about a thousand years.

I don't want to go on any more dates and leave myself open to feeling crappy. I don't want to go the grocery store where some crazy woman will start laying into me for telling her kid to knock it off after she's hit me with the ball she is kicking around the narrow aisles. I don't want to leave the house at all. But of course, the house itself is not peaceful because of the neighbors' party. Who throws a loud party on a Thurs. night, anyway?

My back hurts. My shoulder hurts. I have to (hopefully) locate the dustcap that fell off my pedals months ago and which, had I known what it was and replaced it, would have prevented the now-permanent creak and vibration in my left pedal.

My head feels like someone has beat it with a sledgehammer, again and again. There were a few other people's heads I would've liked to beat with a sledgehammer again and again. My poor, hard-working bike mechanic has several broken ribs after attending an international cycling competition. I mean, it was just a bad day all 'round. Fuck you very much, New York.

Oof. Hot. Spent all day on bicycle in near-triple-digit heat. Didn't really affect me too much (or so I thought) until I was riding home and wondering why I was so strangely exhausted and why my head kind of hurt, and then looked at temperature gauge on handy-dandy bank time & temp sign, and saw that it was 87 degrees at 11pm. Oy.

I know, I'm crazy, right? Riding in that mess.

But while I was pedaling and moving, there was a breeze, so I thought, oh this is fine. And it was. Until it was all dark and felt somehow hotter than it had all day. I think maybe I need to drink more Gatorade before collapsing onto bed in hot (unairconditioned) bedroom.

Ha. And the blonde wanted to go for a (bike) ride tomorrow. Oy.

(Shut up. Don't nobody say nothin'. I can play with naughty little blondes if I want to. Plus, this other boy emailed me.) (Not that that means anything these days, since they just email and then disappear.) (Poof!) (Anyway, where did I put that Gatorade? Hey cat! What are you doing with my Gatorade?)

Dag! That was a long pause in blogging (for me, anyway). I use the middle-school idiom here because I was off visiting my sister, who'd had recently been to a reunion (something I myself have never done and never will do), and well, I suppose it calls to mind the slang of my not-nearly-sufficiently-misspent youth.

Anyway....

She said it was just like having about twenty blind speed-dates in a row. Yuck.

You drift from person you vaguely recognize to person who vaguely recognizes you, and you do painful chit-chat about your jobs and families for five minutes, and then drift on to the next round. I'll say it again: Yuck!

Whoops, got pulled away to IM with Boywich about the terror of writing. There seems to be a lot of that going around lately.

I am addressing my own dealio by having decided to set myself a schedule for meeting grad school deadlines, which is analogous to deciding to decide to try to decide. But you know, I kinda feel better about the whole thing for some reason. Maybe it was watching my sister at work, doing a job she really likes, which gives her what she needs from it, and lets her wangle in all the other things she needs to do, too (like be with her young daughter most days). I dunno. It kind of cheered me up about the whole thing.

Or maybe it was just hanging around her. I really like her. Which is a nice thing to be able to say about someone you love. Does that make sense? Well, it does to me. I had a good time. Pretty sure she did, too. Damn sure my niece did. We had a blast together, laughing over eggwhites. (Yes, you had to be there, but really, it was a private joke between me and my niece, so I'm glad you weren't there.) (How cool is that, having a private joke with a preschooler?)

Gotta go. Bike beckons.

Welcome to the Botanical Gardens. It's very, very pretty there. Lots of flowers and trees. We wandered, we looked up at the blue-blue sky, we took lots of pictures of ourselves playing in among the flowers, we sniffed a metric ton (each) of various roses (mmmm lemony), and we marveled at the giant pitch-black irises.

We knitted on the train both ways. I worked on my First (hopefully Triumphant) Sock. My traveling companion worked on her First (undoubtedly Triumphant) legwarmers. When I got home, I jumped on my bike and rode to Central Park and got a bunch of plant matter in my eyes and tired myself out on those hills and came home all nicely whooped and sweaty.

The next day I had to work (say it with me, ICK!) but then later I got on my bike again and rode to the bowling alley, stopping first at a little park and watching the sun sink low in the sky with about a million hipsters, all picnicking and smoking and trying to outcool one another with their giant 1970s sunglasses and their short little baggy dresses and their long sideburns and their track bikes with curly bars.

But it was nice. And then I went bowling, and bowled really badly until I realized I needed a heavier ball (either that or the second giant 22-ounce beer kicked in), and then I bowled progressively better, finishing up with a STRIKE in the last frame. Yay, me!

And the kids bowling next to us were all sad when we left because we had been cheering for them, too, and they were gonna miss that, because they were too cool to cheer as wholeheartedly as we do. Plus, we had better tattoos.

Today I slept and slept. Very unusual for me. I got tired at 1am, and got into bed sometime before 2, and read, and turned off the light and fell asleep - all before 3. I know, you're thinking that's so late that it's practically early, but really, for me, it is very early.

And then I woke up at 9, all startled and out of a dream, and went to take care of those things that require doing first thing in the am, and then went back to bed. Tried to find my orange bandana (aka. blindfold), couldn't. Fell asleep anyway (also unusual). Woke up, again startled out of a dream, at 11:45.

So that means I got, like, nine hours of sleep. That's almost twice what I've been typically able to manage the last month. I feel like I'm underwater now, which is interesting given that the last dream I had was about swimming in a saltwater pool, and then jumping into a chlorinated pool with my backpack on. And shoes.

Soanyway, I am in something of an altered state. Sleepy/mellow overlaid on incredibly stressed out. I think I was trying to sleep myself into a different life.

But you know, I actually really like most aspects of my life. Okay, some aspects of it.

I like where I live. I like my little cat (most days) a lot. I love love love my bicycle (you knew that was coming).

I like my apartment a great deal; it's lovely and just the right layout for me, and my views are pleasant and green.

I love my friends, and a bunch of them have moved back to the city in the last couple of years, so we are all kind of a happy converged posse. I love not going into an office every day. I love not getting up early (duh).

Here's what I need to escape: work. It's been bad lately. Oh so very bad.

So bad that I need to change the subject. Right now.

Okay, so tomorrow I have planned the following:

a) tie dyeing with two of the aforementioned friends. One of them lives in a work/live space, which is nice and industrial/grungey - perfect for tie-dyeing.

b) bowling. Ha!

Much better.

Okay, then the other news (and this is rather big, in a tiny way) is: I am knitting socks. Well, sock. Yes, and if that weren't big enough, I am doing it via Magic Loop! Yawn, I know, you experienced sock knitters, you. But you see, I have tried this before. I tried and failed to do Magic Loop on some Lornas Laces about a year ago, and I just couldn't get the method to stick in my head. I did about an inch of ribbing, and then put it down and promptly forgot what the hell I was doing, and couldn't figure it out again.

Then a few weeks ago I went and learned the 2 circs method, and somehow that made Magic Loop make sense to me. Go figure. Of course, some of us will not be surprised by the reason I chose to do ML instead of just continuing w/ 2 circs: it's cheaper to buy one needle than two. Plus, in my case, I can't seem to remember that yarn stores exist after about April 25th, and I already had one long size 1.

Blah blah blah. Knitrivia. What can I say? It's been a long week.

PS. Almost forgot crucial info: The yarn is Colinette Jitterbug, in Castagna (128), the exact blend of purples and browns that I've been favoring lately.

Okay, okay. I got nothin'. So I will try to regale you with selected excerpts.

I still hate my work. But I need the money. What else is new.

My friend Special J has designed an extensive questionnaire that I am to hand out to first dates at the 90-minute mark (assuming they last that long). She apparently roped some geek-date of hers into formatting the thing with proper checkboxes and all. She has magic powers.

I am busily knitting lots of little projects on 2 circs, but I have yet to get some tiny needles for sockmaking. I just keep forgetting to hit a knitting store. That happens to me in spring. I forget they exist. I'll wait while y'all make a grab for the oxygen.

Better? Okay. Too bad one can't install smelling salts as an option in Movable Type.

Current project is a shoulder-strap pad for my bike bag. Yes, yes, it's still all about the bike, and always will be, if I have anything to say about it.

I was trying to explain to a potential date about the bike-love, but I don't think he got it. I mean, he's a fellow cyclist and all, but when I mentioned that I sometimes kiss the top tube after a ride, I could just hear him getting weirded out. Through email.

The only person who's yet gotten it is this guy, whom I met at an event appropriately titled Bicycle Fetish Day. He really got it. I asked him to tell me about his bike, and he started out by saying, somewhat abashedly, that he's become obsessed with it. He can't stop thinking about it. He can't focus on work. He doesn't want to do anything other than ride it, all day every day.

I smiled and nodded, and told him about my bike, and how he has a name, and how every time I am going down the big hill on the bridge, I yell the bike's name as a rallying cry.

The bike-obsessed man appeared to melt and laugh and relax all at once, and we had a nice few moments, and I took his picture* and then I went over and talked to some other bike fiends. I mean, bike friends. Yeah, that's what I mean. Uh-huh.

*I hope Brown Bike Man doesn't mind me posting his picture. I forgot to ask his permission. His bike is brand-new (in a sense; it's a custom build-up from an older frame, I believe), and really nice. Graceful lines, and a lovely shade of brown.

PS. I see in this picture now that Brown Bike Man was rather handsome, and that perhaps I should have asked him out.

Is it just me or is there something inherently funny about a cat sniffing a Guinness can?

That's about all that's funny 'round these parts at the mo, but I thought I'd spread the wealth, such as it is.

Still:

1) Working when I want to be playing.

2) Wrastling with recalcitrant clients.

3) Looking futilely for a suitably boyish distraction.

4) Wanting to ride my bicyclette and feeling concerned about his seatpost.

5) Planning to attempt a test-voyage tomorrow (would have done today, but too too rainy).

6) Wondering if I will ever get some time off.

7) Knitting in between the cracks, such as they are.

8) Staying up far past the point when the birdies begin to sing, and sing, and sing their fool little feathery heads off.

9) Watching science fiction on TV and DVD.

10) Honing my nascent superpowers while drudging along in my Clark Kent suit.

11) (why stop at 10?) Being the center of one small stripey cat's admittedly limited universe.

12) Unable to find biking pants that fit me right.

13) (lucky!) Waiting to find out what Schrodinger's Cat smells like.

Short form:

1. Tangled successfully with Client A.
2. Lack of sleep and plentiful stress due to need to tangle with Client A made me sick.
3. Had to cancel all lovely social plans for weekend.
4. Got better just in time to stay up all night reading and then wake up to more client difficulties Monday morning.
5. Tangled successfully with Client B.
6. Am in the final ribbing on legwarmer #2 of set of legwarmers #2.
7. Went on (last week, or the week before: who can remember?) one bad and one decent date. The decent still hasn't quite erased the bad. I think I need another good one.
8. Have scheduled a date with a different boy for later this week.
9. Dad coming to visit.
10. Bicycle Fetish Day requiring my attendance.
11. Saw Ironman. Note to world at large: If Robert Downey Jr. should suddenly mysteriously disappear, it is because I have him tied up in my room. I will release him in a few weeks. Maybe. It might take longer than that to fully have my way with him. (Stamina, you know.)
12. Apparently everyone has decided I need spa treatments and is taking me there; who am I to argue?
13. Paid quarterly taxes (only a couple of weeks late).
14. Ordered bike clothes. Ordered perfumes. Ordered bike shoes. Ordered a change of career and a fabulous young boy. None of these have arrived yet. I am hoping I can afford the latter two.
15. I swear, I swear, as soon as these legwarmers are done, it's Sock Time.
16. Sometimes I feel just like this beer can.

I've been a little quiet here lately, I know. Partly it's because I have been busy like one of those ants you see scurrying so fast they can't even move in a straight line. But partly it's also because I'm having a lull in wanting to post. Or all the things I would say are simply very trivial - the same kinds of things that I always say.

It's not that I don't have thoughts anymore; it's just that I never have them in the right way or at the right time to want to post them. And maybe they are private thoughts.

And maybe spring is just a time of shifting, stirring the pot, watching the colors meld and change and alchemize into something entirely new. I don't really know.

It might be that like so many other bloggers, I am getting a little bored by the medium itself, or by the specific parameters of this one (not that I necessarily adhere to much of a theme, but it can still get stale). Or it may be that I am tired of talking here, in this space, in this particular way, and am simply taking the time out to just talk to my friends. I don't know. Again.

Boywich asked me recently if I had decided whether to keep Girlwich up or take it down. And the funny thing is, I hadn't even remembered mentioning that I was considering taking it down. I've been wanting to start some other things - pure photo blogs, or photo projects with small stories attached to them. And to some extent, keeping this one up interferes by taking up the little time I do have to devote to such things.

But I haven't quite decided what to do yet. I know at least one other blogger who's in the same kind of boat at the moment (or a related one; kayaks and canoes, as it were), and that makes me feel better.

It may just be a cycle of nature, to get tired of one's blog in the same way that one gets tired of one's room as a teenager and wants to redecorate.