Bubble Tea

I found out yesterday that there is a teahouse in my city. Who knew? Apparently it's been there almost five years! Sis and I had to pay a visit to sample the bubble teas. I've always enjoyed tapioca, so I couldn't resist having it in my tea. How could you go wrong? You can't! So tasty! I can't wait to go back and try some of their other teas and maybe that coconutty dessert.

Summer in April

It's that time of year again. Farmer's market time! Although the farmer's market is open year round, we wait for the warm weather and the greenery to arrive. Many plants were for sale, but I try to avoid planting until late in May. Instead I picked up locally made yogurt, handmade raviolis, and free-range eggs. It was great to be back, and it will be even better once the locally grown veggies start showing up.

It's also lawn mowing time once again. I finally dug the mower out from under many months of clutter in the garage and fired it up. Bright sun and high 80s made it feel more like August than April. I had to take a cool shower just to recover.

Late in the afternoon I went out for some cookie dough ice cream. All in all, it felt like a summer day!

Alive Again

I felt alive yesterday for the first time in months. I've been feeling much like a zombie, but yesterday was a whole different story. It was sunny and breezy for my walk. There were spring wildflowers in bloom and the trees even had a hint of color to their aura. I walked so long that I tired all three of us out. Clearly we are all out of shape from this long winter. At home I read, as in recreationally! I finally finished the book I started on my flight back from California over spring break. I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 pages left! It felt so good to read something of my choosing.

Walking and reading, all in one day. What could be better?

Day Off

I have today off. Off from work and off from school stuff. I had class this morning, of course, but now that that is done I am taking the rest of the day off. I've taken a handful of days off in recent weeks, but they were all devoted to not-fun things like taking all day essay exams or working on a poster. The poster session is in the past, and I passed my masters intensive exam on the first try. In fact, all that remains of my semester is a one page paper and two final exams. So today I will do nothing school-related.

I picked up some sushi on my way home from class. I adore sushi but am fairly limited in my local selection. Grocery store sushi will suit me just fine for lunch though.

This afternoon I will load the dogs in the car and head to the nearby game management area, where I will try to avoid the scary men that lurk there without accidentally entering restricted areas or getting lost. I've been hiking there for almost two decades, but usually with one parent or another to serve as guide.

Tonight I will watch mind-numbing amounts of TV. And the rest I'll just make up as I go.

Back to Basics

I started writing in spiral notebooks the summer after college graduation. I had a lonely, miserable job in the middle of nowhere. That summer changed the trajectory of my whole professional life. The thing that I'd wanted to do for years became the last thing I could see myself doing. My mom sent me writing books and encouraged me to journal, and journal I did. I filled several notebooks that summer, discovering that I preferred wide-ruled ones because when I got into the act of writing my print got bigger and the college-ruled notebooks made me feel cramped and limited. I also realized that blue ink was my color of choice. Black ink has a tendency to make me feel darker and depressed just by its mere presence.

As much writing as I've done in my spiral notebooks over the years, it's never been about the process of creating. I'm not jotting down story ideas or first drafts of poems. I'm rarely describing scenes around me or even doing any people watching. Instead I barf my anger, my pain, my jealousy, my rage onto the page. I almost always only journal when I'm unhappy. If an outsider were to read my notebooks they would probably reach the conclusion that I am either homicidal or suicidal. Sometimes I think it does me good to get it all out. Other times I feel like it might be making things worse by giving me an unlimited space to dwell, dwell, dwell.

So if you're wondering where I am these days and why I'm not blogging much, it's because I'm filling the blank pages of another spiral notebook. It's better that I go back there right now. This venue just does not provide the same outlet for me.