Because I'm as Sick of that Last Post as You Are

I will write on this blog. Someday. Right now a lot of factors--including a busy-ness that doesn't even leave me time to read and the frustrating fact that life in the city, especially during this most disgusting stage of frozen-over, tends to harden my brain against inspiration--have coalesced into an almost complete disinterest in writing for pleasure. So until the day (and it will come) when I'm not filled with anxiety at the thought of giving my mind over, for as long as it takes, to an activity that no one is demanding of me and that will make me no money, here are some pictures from the very relaxing trip we took to Duluth two weeks ago:

Luxury. Eric and I agreed that this hotel room
was about the same size as our whole apartment.

The view from our private patio.

Ducks in the canal. Lots of them.

Eric with the Rasputin burrito from Burrito Union. It's huge.

Good TV.

To Those Who Have Recently Taken My Money:

Health Insurance Company, please enjoy your 2009 profits. I don't know what you expect them to come to, but since you're raising my premium and my deductible and have shifted all of my prescription medications to the highest possible tier, I imagine they'll be rather nice.

Officer, I know it's technically against the law, but no other cop--even in this city--would actually put a ticket on a car parked eight feet from the crosswalk on a residential street. I think your sense of duty is smothering your sense of basic human decency. You might want to call it off.

Ann Taylor Loft, American Eagle, New York & Company, Eddie Bauer, J. Jill, and Aerosoles, your wares are entirely worth it. Thank you for the shocking sales and the lovely new wardrobe. As you can see, I've been kind of tightly wound lately, and I needed the pick-me-up.

Dear Ridiculous Customer,

In response to your parting comment ("It's too bad people have to be so bitchy and mean just to get what they want."):

You'd have to pay me a lot more than 35 bucks in store credit to act like that.

Gradually, A Milestone

Yesterday I bought a wedding dress. A "taffeta A-line tank," if you believe the description on my receipt. But I swear it's pretty. And now, after going through the tortured crazy-woman stages of being underwhelmed and then second-guessing my decision, I'm so excited I can't stop pulling up the crappy picture of it on the designer's website. If you've ever read wedding magazines, you know that you're supposed to know it the minute you put on Your Wedding Dress, and late last night I realized (and this brought me out of my funk once and for all) that I did know. And the three lovely ladies (mom, sister, aunt) who were with me knew, too. But because it was only the second dress I'd tried on (out of probably 15), and because we're all pretty level-headed (we mocked the people crying and saying "It's sooooo pretty!" in the next room over), the moment passed without much more fanfare than a collective intake of breath.

I can't wait.

Break for Spirit

I just finished wrapping (almost) the last of the Christmas presents and arranged them artfully under the tiny twinkly tree. Then, with the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas still playing, I poured myself a glass of egg nog (Straight up--it's a little early for brandy.... I'm not that kind of writer.) and parted the living room blinds to watch snowflakes rush through the blue-gray evening sky past street lamps and bare tree branches and the snow-capped bird feeder Eric erected in our building's front yard.

And now...

Back to dishes and laundry and manic writing.

Because If Cybill Shepherd's Worth It, So Am I

I'm breaking my writer's block-driven blogging strike to announce that the $40 I gave to a hairstylist today was entirely well-spent, even in light of the fact that we have nothing but lint in our pockets these days. In fact, it would take huge units of measure, like tons and eons and miles, to quantify how much better I feel. This is a truth I started to suspect while paying attention to some of my students, who I know make less money than I do and have two, three, four, five kids besides, but still show up to class with brand new hair weaves and professionally groomed eyebrows. I, in contrast, tend to dispense with my personal appearance first when money is tight, until it all melts down into a puddle of I-can't-remember-the-last-time-I-bought-a-new-shirt-and-I-have-to-pin-my-bangs-back-when-I-eat-so-they-don't-go-in-my-mouth. And then I go crazy. So I'm starting to develop a strategy for taking care of myself that doesn't involve credit cards or having to occasionally skip paying the electric bill. The haircut I couldn't really afford was step one.

Also, on a totally unrelated note, since I'm still refusing to get a Twitter account: over the last few days, I think my downstairs neighbor has given up on recording music and switched to recording industrial noise.

Umbilically Attached to Our Stuff

Okay, so I enjoy giving (or receiving) the perfect gift just as much as the next American, and I would never suggest to anyone that you-know-who is the reason for the season. But I do think we've lost track of something huge (our humanity, maybe?) when a crowd is so focused on getting at the Cheap Stuff They Want that they inadvertently kill a person on their way into a store, and everyone just keeps on shopping. In fact, screw our humanity: at this point, even our animal instincts toward self-preservation are being dangerously misused.