Get your own
 diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

2006-08-20 - 12:57 p.m.

Sad. I just got back in from the pool. My last time for that wonderful daily vacation routine. Funny how much I enjoyed that. Well, I'll still be able to use it on weekends, at least as long as the warm weather holds out. I guess that will be good until October, maybe.

The day will primarily be devoted to transitioning from vacation mode to back-to-work mode. For one thing, I've really got to do laundry. I've hardly had to wear anything at all for the past 25 days. But now I will need clean and ironed clothes. Fortunately, I won't have to go back to actual dress shirts and ties for two more weeks. I'm also going to wash and put away my beach towel that I had been hanging up in the bathroom. I will miss those bright, beautiful, summertime colors and beach-side motif. But it will just be in the way, now.

I look back on the vacation and wonder what I really did do. It seems that most of the so-called "big" memories were things I did in the summer while I was still at work, such as Outfest and the S.S. Lane Victory cruise. I have to think back. Well, I did enjoy seeing the Schindler House and the Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock House, and that got me started, once again, on Frank Lloyd Wright. I increased my FLW library with four more heavy-duty texts that I haven't had time to sit down and study through, yet. I figured those were better for the working months when I had a "longer window" of time ahead of me. Otherwise, in my whole vacation I wouldn't have gotten through more than an eighth of one of them. Also, I got that wonderful Ken Burns two-VHS-tape documentary that I will want to study some more. One commentator in there, William Cronon, said the most inspiring things. I want to go back and write down and compile everything he said. I also feel like writing to him, as he is a professor that is available. Might be something worthwhile to pursue, there.

I did lots of other reading, though, articles and on-line offerings, mostly, increasing my understanding of economics and historical events. These things are hard to write about, but suffice it to say, I have a greater picture of the world than ever before, with increased clarity. That's one of those "internal" things that can came to me in a vacation that don't normally fit with people's "external" view of vacations and their travel and activities. I also studied statistics on hundreds of other metropolitan areas in the country, none of which appealed to me quite enough to feel that I could move to any of them. However, I know much more about them than I ever did before, and I think that knowledge is valuable.

I also did a lot of writing, took care of some long-procrastinated activities, and did some important cleaning up. Regarding cleaning up, I have also set in motion some workable patterns or systems that will help me to continue this clean-up process throughout the upcoming months. (By the way--I got rid of the STINK! Yay!) It's a labor of Hercules, but I finally think, now, that it is doable.

I did a little too much eating out, which is bad for my diet, but amazingly, I didn't gain any weight and even managed to lose some more. I guess I was being more careful than it felt. However, I COULD have lost another ten more pounds, which I did not, so this was "an opportunity lost," but this is all a learning process, too. I have to admit that the program had become very boring and unexciting, a fact that worries me, so I will have to work on those pitfalls and find my way through them. I think it will help, though, to get back on a more organized routine. It's easier to be disciplined in eating when everything else is disciplined too, I think. At least for me, that's how it works. Kahlil Gibran complained about too much freedom, and maybe that is part of what he was talking about. We need some kind of boundaries, sometimes, otherwise we widen out as flat as a crepe or a millimeter-thin puddle of water. Then we evaporate.

I do have something coming up for later in the day, though. A jazz concert at the Hollywood Bowl. (That is, assuming I can find my ticket, which is one of those Ticketmaster "print your own" tickets. Loose pieces of paper can get so buried in this apartment.) I kind of wish, now, that it weren't on a Sunday evening right before having to go back to work the next day, but maybe this will be just what I need, to get myself back "out" into the world, but in a very pleasurable way.

But for now, it's time for laundry and ironing.

Later....

previous - next

Sign up for my Notify List and get email when I update!

email:
powered by
NotifyList.com

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!