Currently

For a while, I've been feeling like I need a creative outlet, and that I miss writing, but I just don't know how to express myself anymore.  When I say 'for a while,' I probably mean for the last year, and when I say 'I miss writing' I really just mean that I have been very lazy.  And when I say that I don't know how to express myself, I really mean that I have been so simultaneously bored with and overwhelmed by all the thoughts bouncing around in my head that I just couldn't be bothered.

Picture one of those toy vacuums with the colorful balls inside that pop all over the place when you push the vacuum around.  Now picture that vacuum filled not with brightly colored balls but with beige squares knocking against each other.  That was my brain.

pay the mortgage.buy cat food.meet work project deadlines.plan, shop for, and execute balanced and filling meals that will please both a vegetarian and a carnivore.oh and don't forget your reusable grocery tote bags because you care about the environment, remember?and while you're at it, remember and acknowledge friends' and relatives' birthdays.hand wash bras.clean cat paw prints and dog nose prints off the sliding glass doors.respond to work emails...in a timely manner. get your oil changed.buy plane tickets for work travel.plan your presenation for that work conference.and oh my god pack your suitcase for the conference, but don't forget, you can't take half the toiletries you totally need, because terrorists.wouldn't it be fun to spend hours on the phone arguing with a non-native english speaker about your comcast bill?you should probably take the empty toilet paper tube off the holder and put the now half-used new roll on, because you left it perched on top of the empty roll like this haunting spectre of your inadequacy for three days, dammit!

Chaos can be boring, and being responsible is exhausting.  I feel like I do an excellent job of going through the motions of adulthood, but it feels like a farce and my 15-20 year old self would be so embarrassed and disappointed by how lame I have become.  I eat all the vegetables and go to bed before 10 most nights.  I don't stay out late, I don't blow all, or really any, of my money on CDs and concert tickets (does anyone still buy CDs?  Do they still make CDs?), and I shake my fist at skateboarders swerving all over the sidewalk.  I do say the F word a lot, if that counts for anything.  So while I re-find my voice, if I ever had one to begin with, I'm borrowing this writing prompt from one of my favorite blogs, Sometimes Sweet.

Feeling so very hungry.  Perhaps even bordering on hangry territory.  I have often joked that I probably have a tapeworm, because I feel the need to eat constantly.  Can we please make feedbags for humans a thing?  As I am writing this, it's 12:38.  That's about 1 hour and 38 minutes past my usual lunchtime, and about 5 hours and 38 minutes after I started to feel hungry.  If you are excellent at basic math, you know that means that at 7 this morning, I was hungry.  For context, I put my oatmeal bowl in the dishwasher around 6:58.  Truth.

Watching streaming news coverage of this Boston Marathon bombing...what is WRONG with people? Before that happened, I was going to have a jubilant answer for 'watching,' because season 6 of Mad Men has been intense and wonderful during the first two episodes thus far.  It gives me the oddest sensation of desperately anticipating Sunday evening, which is a feeling no working person should ever have.

Reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.  I picked up a bookjacket-less hardcover copy from a pile of free books at work a few months ago, and just rediscovered it on my nightstand.  I really enjoyed Franzen's Freedom so I had high hopes for this one, but some of the characters' despair and poor life choices are bringing me down right now.

Also, the new issue of O Magazine arrived, and I'm devouring it with the same guilty pleasure I felt when I was 14 and would rush home from the bus stop to mix up my cookie pudding* so I could lay on the couch and watch every titillating minute of Oprah.  The racy episodes about feminine hygiene with Dr. Oz**, MTF transsexuals, and men on the "down low" were the best.  The "Oprah's Favorite Things" episodes were just unnecessary, though.  Oh, you're rich and love expensive things?  Shocking.  The magazine is a little more toned down, and a lot more "hey you all should buy this $300 free range fair trade cruelty free soy candle that smells like gardenias and success," but it doesn't disappoint.  I still feel a little like a naughty and/or weird child reading it, though.  Shouldn't I still be tearing JTT centerfolds out of Teen Beat?

*Cookie pudding was a sickening, shameful mixture of 3-5 Keebler's E.L. Fudge cookies dissolved in a glass of milk.  After an appropriate soaking period, the excess milk is sipped off the top and the soggy cookies are muddled with a spoon and eaten.  Repeat as necessary.  For best results, prepare in a primary-colored Tupperware sippy cup (lid optional).  

**Dr. Oz taught me, among other things, that "the vagina is a self-cleaning oven."  Direct quote.

Thinking about my next meal.  Obviously.

Looking forward to this weekend!  We're flying back East for a good friend's wedding and my grandmom's surprise 80th birthday celebration.  She really hates surprises, and was kind of angry (but secretly touched) when we did this for her 75th birthday.  I feel confident that she doesn't read this blog, so it isn't blowing the surprise to reveal it to the internets.  If she ever does stumble upon this here piece of internet real estate, she might disown me, so here's hoping.

Drinking apple cider vinegar water.  If drinking vinegar is wrong, I don't want to be right.  I started doing it right after Christmas, because after all the holiday binge-eating and airport traveling, I weighed 500 pounds, I was getting high every day, and I was washing my dishes in the bathtub was sick, bloated, and on the verge of a major skin meltdown.  I read that ACV has antibacterial and pro-digestive properties that would combat all of the above, so I gave it a whirl.  At first I was just doing shots of it (1-2 TBSPs, 2-3 times a day) but that was a little intense.  Now I mix the same amount in a tall glass of water, or, if I'm feeling fancy, a tall glass of seltzer.

This might be having a greenwashing effect on me, where I believe it is delicious and perceive that it is doing something amazing because of the purported health benefits, but I think it's actually working.  Can I be real with you?  Of course.  Real talk:  I've noticed that if I drink my vinegar water with a meal, I don't get that gross bloated feeling when I'm done eating, like I have been instantly impregnated with a food baby of approximately 8 months gestation.  Also, I haven't had a major breakout or any life-interrupting illness since I jumped on the vinegar train, so that's cool, too.

Word to your mother - to get any benefits from drinking vinegar, you most definitely want to be drinking the raw kind with the 'mother,' because you need the strands of beneficial bacteria.  Bragg's is a good option and the only one sold at my usual grocery haunt, but I'm sure there are plenty of others.

Listening to Joy the Baker podcasts.  I just can't get enough of them.  It feels like I'm hanging out with my own friends, just listening to their banter.  I want to be friends with them, and participate in this witty banter.  I must have listened to 4 straight podcasts yesterday.  Two while I was cleaning out the office area of my kitchen (it was out of control), one while running, and another while putting away laundry.  Andy made fun of me several times, because he can't wrap his head around it when I derive enjoyment from anything that he thinks is pointless (because Gold Rush and Bering Sea Gold and Pawn Stars are most certainly not pointless and are, in fact, helping you to grow as a person, Andrew).

Sidenote:  I have never tried listening to podcasts while running, because I thought anything other than uptempo music would slow down my stride.  I think I like it, though.  It will definitely help with the boredom factor on rainy days when the dreadmill is the only option.  Except we live in a desert, so it kind of hardly ever rains.

Speaking of dreading:

Dreading venturing outside.  Apparently it is snowing.  On April 15th.  I have no words.  Oh no, wait.  Now the sun is out.  All evidence of snow has disappeared.  But in the time it took me to type those sentences, it has again become cloudy.  This is some volatile business, and I wholeheartedly disapprove.