For My Birthday

I requested the day off work, and I'm pointedly ignoring all of the things I need to do (around the house, for PhD applications, for last-minute Christmas shopping). But it's tough to push back the hint of frustration that's building in my gut. Today I'm doing all of the things I never have time for, but it's an artificial kind of self-indulgence, because I can't quite trick myself into believing that I can afford the idleness. I'm getting all this free time but none of the satisfaction of crossing off lists.

So I'm trying to make a different kind of list in my head, of things I don't have to do, but deserve to do: I slept in this morning (well, until 9:30), and got up just in time to eat the breakfast Eric had gotten up early to make for me. Just now, I spent a few untimed hours playing with the Sims 2 Pets expansion pack my mom gave me. (Our two cats and our friend Nils's dog and two cats have gone down in Sims history.) Now I'm going to lie on the couch with a fleecy blanket, a book, and some tea. It's highly likely that I will take a nap. And later tonight, after Eric gets home from work, we'll go out with friends, hopefully to the cool bowling alley (I'm really not making that up), where they will serve me the gin martini with an olive I've been fantasizing about all week, and I won't even think about how expensive drinks are in this city. Because that is how a cheapskate workaholic celebrates her birthday.