I’m now into week three of my hiatus and I haven’t published anything in a while because I’ve been on a mental vacation from any and all things expected of me… and it’s been pretty kick-ass wonderful.

Here’s a recap of my indolence:

• I hid away in total solitude at my parents’ Galveston beach house for a couple of days and let me just say, solitude is highly under-rated. While I understand not seeing or speaking to anyone for three days isn’t for everyone, it has, and always will be, the most delightful and inexpensive pseudo vacation for me. While some people pay thousands of dollars to wait in line for hours with sticky, screaming children in Disneyland; I just close the door, turn off the cell phone, and enter the enchanting world of Simoneland. In Simoneland, you never have to wait in line (unless you count waiting for the Chinese food delivery guy), the only sticky, screaming children are those in my nightmares, and every day is a Magical Day when when you don’t answer your phone. It’s not that I don’t like seeing or speaking to my loved ones, but sometimes it’s good to just stick your head in the sand and pretend the world has gone away. This may also be an effect of my narcissism, because who would an egocentric narcissist rather spend time with than herself?!
• I hosted two small dinner parities. Which forced me to clean my house top to bottom – and it has miraculously stayed that way despite all efforts by two obsessive compulsive cats, a psycho puppy, and a husband whose laundry system consists of a dirty pile, a clean pile, and the oh so scary in-between pile!?! (Explain to me how a thirty year old married man outside of college still has an in-between pile!)
• I went to the grocery store on a Wednesday morning. – Now, this may not sound noteworthy to most, but  it was the highlight of my week. Let me explain. For someone who has spent the last eight years having a short window of time on the weekends be her only chance for running errands, being able to go to the grocery store at 11am on a Wednesday was hard to wrap my brain around. I kept turning to Husband with this wide eyed look on my face, hitting him in arm (as if I were trying to wake myself up, but why cause myself pain) and saying “This is sooo cool!” The place was practically empty. Husband and I didn’t even have to implement our strategic grocery shopping survival procedure (where one of us guards and steers the cart while the other moves nimbly through the horde to hunt and gather food).
• Surprisingly, I’ve also been spending my time working out. I’ve been averaging about five days a week which is impressive for someone who loathes it so much I can’t come up with a suitable analogy for my level of hate. We’ll see how long it lasts. The one thing I’ve got going for me is that it’s slightly easier to work out after having spent eight hours with your butt parked on the couch watching TV rather than having spent eight hours with your butt in a chair, wearing high heels, answering inane questions and staring at a computer screen until your eyes are so red and dry you look stoned. I think the other reason I may be working out more is that I read the book Spark. Basically it talks about how exercising not only improves the body, but it also improves the brain. The only reason I exercise is because I’m vain about looking close to our current cultural ideal, and if someone can show me scientific evidence that exercising can also improve the other area I’m vain about (my intelligence) then by god, that just might be an argument that can overcome my deep seated hate of treadmills. But odds are this new positive reinforcer will be as short lived as as an all bacon diet.

Until my next moment of productivity, over and out.

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