Giving myself a good talking to

Oh good people of the Internet, I had no intention of giving you all complexes over the pronounciation of the word "bruschetta". I just happen to be a snotnose brat who spent several of her formative years in bruschetta's home country, and who ordinarily prevents herself from expressing the snotnose brattiness for fear of being labeled as such. It came out just that once, I won't do it anymore, promise! Just don't say "brushetta" until you have given me some and my mouth is too full to protest.

Over the weekend I developed a Smoker's Cough and I'm sort of enjoying it. It makes me sound all sultry like and I wake up with that strange wheezing feeling, which is kind of neat, and all of this without having to actually smoke anything. (For the record, I have never smoked legal or illegal substances in my entire life. And I'm not about to start now, although I sincerely wish I'd tried pot before I implemented the personal no smoking ban. A friend of mine offered to whip me up some pot brownies (how kind of her!) but I've heard that smoking pot can make one a bit, um, paranoid? And Internet, I am already the most highly strung person I know; attempting to become a pothead can lead to no good.)

Hi Mom!

Besides, smoking pot would have disqualified me for the "Special To Us" Summer Olympics which took place yesterday in a deserted North Seattle park. (Did I not tell you there were drug tests? That's what the little paper cups were for.) We played an awesome game of volleyball (LOVE VOLLEYBALL WHO WANTS TO PLAY WITH ME?) and things disintegrated from there, as who had any idea it would take us hours upon hours to score in lawn darts? But three hours later we'd awarded all the medals, eaten our grilled hamburgers during the closing ceremony and Phillip and I found ourselves zonked out on the couch comparing new suntan lines and arguing over whose serving shoulder hurt worse. (Answer: mine.) I'll have pictures up on Flickr in a few days, but for now I've got new pictures of the Sainted Grandchild and the baby shower, which are only interesting for the glimpse into my house, because you are all stalkers and want to know where to find the kitchen knives and the matches for your nefarious purposes.

Anyway. Smoker's Cough! I have no idea how I got it. I am clearing my throat every five minutes like an eighty-three-year-old man. It's pretty gross.

Last Friday I wrote a post about the myriad of things I had to do around the house, just business-of-life type stuff, and how much I didn't want to do those things. How I just wanted to sit on the couch and watch fourteen episodes of House back to back because I am so BUSY and I need some DOWN TIME. Then I decided to be angry instead of whiny. Anyway! But Phillip and I were talking in the car the other day and I realized he was feeling the same thing. We feel like we're doing 800 million things, so when we're home, all we want to do is sit around and ignore the pile of dishes in the sink. But then we asked ourselves: are we really this busy? And neither of us thought so.

It seems like there's what I've been calling a Spirit of Sloth hanging out in our house right now. We're so apathetic to everything. We seriously cannot be bothered to load the dishwasher or start the washer or dust the floors. We gave the house a scrub down before the baby shower two weekends ago, but we won't do the same thing for just ourselves, the people who live there. The mail piles up on the table, the magazines never get recycled, the bank statements go unreconciled, the wall hanging thingy we bought for the blank brown wall sits lonely in the office downstairs, waiting for us to care. And I guess this isn't anything new, but it feels particularly bad right now. We're lazy. We're not accomplishing anything. It's just an overwhelming feeling of BLAH.

My new plan is to go to the library when I get home from work. I have a good two hours between when I get home and when Phillip gets home. I normally spend that time eating everything in the refrigerator, watching TV and not doing the dishes. A new library opened up not far from my house, so I'm going to start bringing my laptop there after work. (I had to ask Phillip if it was okay to bring my laptop to the library and just hang out there. Isn't that a weird question? I think nothing of bringing it to a bookstore or a coffee shop and working and studying for hours, but it seemed wrong to do it at the public library. I am an idiot. And Phillip said, "No, that's where all the Asian kids hung out in high school.") I figure if I don't feel like writing, I can at least browse the shelves. We're going to Costco tonight to load up on Phase 1 food. Then we're going to put up the wall hanging thingy and the Flowers of China prints that have been sitting in a closet for two years. And this morning I loaded the dishwasher (and turned it on, go me!) before I left for work. Phillip rode his bike. This funk must be snapped out of, stat!

And I really want to write something for this. If I can get my act together, that is. There are still House reruns on my TiVo, and that does not bode well for the snapping.

Comments

[lee]

if you are going to have a friend give you marijuana brownies/cookies, don't let them do it when you've been sitting around drinking terminal gravity ipa all afternoon. you will not be happy. (so i hear.)

[Angela]

Oooh, good luck with South Beach!! I used it just to shed a couple of pounds and actually fell in love with a couple of the recipes--the mini eggplant pizzas and the roasted chicken/spinach salad are to DIE for! Mmmm... now my mouth is watering...

But good luck with the Slothiness you've got going on... I've felt like that a lot lately myself. I wonder if it's the summer slump? Anyway, it's possible that once you guys change your diet you'll feel much perkier and more energetic. Or maybe you'll just be annoyed by all of the extra dishes in the sink :)

[baggage]

Oh I hope you can participate! I feel pretty lazy and blah myself. I think it is a cold.

[Christina/Mrs Broccoli Guy]

Just found your blog, thanks to Arwen. So glad I did, you make me laugh out loud... not so easy to do these days. :-}
Consider yourself favorited!

[Rosemary]

Well, yeah, sloth is a big problem. I have it too. . . I was just thinking of the seven deadly sins and how we should think about them more. Turns out I've been recently reintroduced to envy, and it's making life intolerable. I have got to get to confession.

What a pain to have to wait 2 hours for Phillip. Your plan for going to the library sounds great!