It’s Friday night and I’m blogging.
Let’s make this even better.
It’s Friday night before Memorial Day, I’m in yoga pants at nine p.m., alone in my apartment with three-quarters of the roommates gone. And watching Freaky Friday in the background on ABC’s TGIF lineup.
Last time I did anything even close to tonight, a hot pink B.U.M. equipment sweatshirt was tied snugly around my waist, a cucumber mask dried stiff on my face, and ABC kicked off my weekend with Carl Winslow and Balky.
And to think, I was dreading this. I’ve spun a web so tight, jam-packing my calendar with work, projects, lunch dates, obligations, weekends in the country, happy hours, errands, spontaneous and completely unnecessary shopping, meandering walks that start with a shag puppy sniffing the ribbon of my flip flops and end with homemade, chocolate-flecked ice cream, so much so that I haven’t had much time for vegging in a meaningful, restful way. I thought it would be boring, wasteful, pathetic.
But, I’d forgotten how delicious it is.
Even with trepidation, part of me had been craving this. Yesterday, I ran, and as my bag slapped my side and I scraped the point of my right heel on the curb with a stuttered scuff, I had a moment of want for suburbia. Of sleepovers, and videos, and items in bulk, pets, and space…
I’ll get a taste of that while I’m sorting through dusty boxes in the barn, tossing kept Trapper Keepers, Caboodles, and Nirvana tapes. My mom insists that I spend this weekend purging her house of all the things I’ve allowed to accumulate for the past thirteen years. The items I've made them cart from house to house insisting that I needed them, that I would use them again. So pack tonight and up too bright and too early for the morning ride. No fun partying. No running off to a fabulous locale. Just home again, home again.
For a barbeque with the extended family and earning my keep by grilling the ribs and chilling the Pinot to perfection. Bare feet, the lawn, the tink of ice cubes in my parents’ two o’clock cocktails. Leather couches, a spic and span kitchen, the bursting bookshelves. A room that is no longer mine. A household that voluntarily awakes before nine on a weekend and beds before ten each night.
I’m easing into it with this “middle school night” on the couch. Shedding that cosmopolitan skin, that exhausting dance. Now that there is no one around to see me, I can do whatever I want. I don’t have to subscribe to the idea of busying myself or risk frittering away my days. I don’t have to pout my lips, fluff my hair, have a plan.
I’m sure it will get old quite fast. But for right now, it’s relaxing and new. And come Monday, as I exit the train from Connecticut, the city will be just as I left it.
Glittering and impossible as always.
A place that doesn’t take kindly to middle school reminiscence and chick flicks. Thank goodness home does...
Let’s make this even better.
It’s Friday night before Memorial Day, I’m in yoga pants at nine p.m., alone in my apartment with three-quarters of the roommates gone. And watching Freaky Friday in the background on ABC’s TGIF lineup.
Last time I did anything even close to tonight, a hot pink B.U.M. equipment sweatshirt was tied snugly around my waist, a cucumber mask dried stiff on my face, and ABC kicked off my weekend with Carl Winslow and Balky.
And to think, I was dreading this. I’ve spun a web so tight, jam-packing my calendar with work, projects, lunch dates, obligations, weekends in the country, happy hours, errands, spontaneous and completely unnecessary shopping, meandering walks that start with a shag puppy sniffing the ribbon of my flip flops and end with homemade, chocolate-flecked ice cream, so much so that I haven’t had much time for vegging in a meaningful, restful way. I thought it would be boring, wasteful, pathetic.
But, I’d forgotten how delicious it is.
Even with trepidation, part of me had been craving this. Yesterday, I ran, and as my bag slapped my side and I scraped the point of my right heel on the curb with a stuttered scuff, I had a moment of want for suburbia. Of sleepovers, and videos, and items in bulk, pets, and space…
I’ll get a taste of that while I’m sorting through dusty boxes in the barn, tossing kept Trapper Keepers, Caboodles, and Nirvana tapes. My mom insists that I spend this weekend purging her house of all the things I’ve allowed to accumulate for the past thirteen years. The items I've made them cart from house to house insisting that I needed them, that I would use them again. So pack tonight and up too bright and too early for the morning ride. No fun partying. No running off to a fabulous locale. Just home again, home again.
For a barbeque with the extended family and earning my keep by grilling the ribs and chilling the Pinot to perfection. Bare feet, the lawn, the tink of ice cubes in my parents’ two o’clock cocktails. Leather couches, a spic and span kitchen, the bursting bookshelves. A room that is no longer mine. A household that voluntarily awakes before nine on a weekend and beds before ten each night.
I’m easing into it with this “middle school night” on the couch. Shedding that cosmopolitan skin, that exhausting dance. Now that there is no one around to see me, I can do whatever I want. I don’t have to subscribe to the idea of busying myself or risk frittering away my days. I don’t have to pout my lips, fluff my hair, have a plan.
I’m sure it will get old quite fast. But for right now, it’s relaxing and new. And come Monday, as I exit the train from Connecticut, the city will be just as I left it.
Glittering and impossible as always.
A place that doesn’t take kindly to middle school reminiscence and chick flicks. Thank goodness home does...
(Have a nice weekend, wherever you are...)
8 comments:
You too!!!!
hey. i did laundry last night. i have to work all weekend. i so enjoy times alone! and i'm glad you did too!
have a great weekend yourself...
My favourite post so far.
So real. So true. So how I spend my Augusts.
It's funny... minus the teenybopper TV shows, it's exactly how I love to spend my free time... often even on weekend nights. Ahh, to be an introvert. Sometimes ya just gotta be ALONE! :)
There seriously is nothing better, than being at home, pretending to be a kid. It's a total sanctuary, like a thick, fluffy, cotton wool fleece blanket. It totally takes you back to a simpler time, when all you had to worry about was your geography homework...no bills, no carrying the world on your shoulders...just...bliss. Now you go on and enjoy yourself, ya hear?
I too spent the weekend going through boxes of stuff that I've been carting around since my parents kicked it out of their house. Girl Scout uniforms that haven't fit since the 1st grade, tapes that haven't been listened to in a decade, even a Bugs Bunny puzzle with missing pieces. All of it I was convinced I'd need again. I finally had to suck it up and toss boxes and boxes of stuff. I have load of Sesame Street book by the front door waiting to be taken by Goodwill. I've had to let go of the things that used to make up my life in order to make room for what currently consitutes my existence. But the Bugs Bunny puzzle stays.
I miss home : (
...and Freaky Friday made my sappy self tear up.
Every once in a while we just need a break from city life. I hope you had a wonderful weekend.
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