Things That I Am Obsessing Over Right Now

Obsessed with my "hawthorne" aloe, which will bloom soon.

Preface: I once made a pact with myself that no matter how late at night it was and how tired I was, I would stay up to write out whatever ideas I had swirling around in my head. I've broken that pact more than I have adhered to it, which is Okay. At the moment, I'm going to go for it. The following format is something I started doing in my old MySpace (MySpace!), and it was stolen from a post that Neko Case wrote on her website. This kind of writing is best done with music that you love playing.

Things That I Am Obsessing Over Right Now

1. "Moving Through Time," Angelo Badalamenti from the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me soundtrack. I first noticed the song while watching the movie on my computer one dragging Saturday afternoon while my old neighbors jumped around like children above me. In the film, it plays while Laura experiences her last evening at home. Rather than describing it to you, I suggest you simply listen to it.

2. I played the above song while soaking in the tub just a bit ago. We didn't have a tub at our old apartment, just a crappy shower stall, as if we were at summer camp or on a boat. Whenever I was in a hotel for that 1.5 years living in that old place, I would always take a bath. It's not even really bathing, it's soaking. You just sit in the cloudy water staring at your feet just under the surface. In Pittsburgh during summer as a teen, I often took the hottest baths I could stand while the humidity all around added to the steam. I created a sauna in the bathroom and listened to the dusk birds call in night. I think all that heat made me lightheaded, but it was pleasant and a little magical.

3. During that bath, I thought about the things I would write in this list, one of them being my essay that is due in less than two weeks. I'm just 1000 words shy of it being the minimum length, but it needs about a billion bits of editing, I know. I feel like I'm not connecting all the important facets of the topic, one of the missing ones being the personal connection that I and other fans of Audrey make with the character. Of course, I don't want to dwell on that too much, because it's an essay about her wardrobe. Or is it? Are the owls what they seem?

3a. What I'm trying to get at is, I was feeling obsessed with my identification with Audrey, much like a lot of the bloggers I stumbled upon in my research. Like her, I sometimes wandered around school being aloof and a loner, preferring to eavesdrop and spy on the adults around me. Why would anyone with a personality actually be interested in the kinds of day to day things that people like Donna Hayward experience? I miss being as overconfident and naive as Audrey is, but I also never ran off to a Canadian brothel only to be held hostage by the madame and her Canuck partner and shot up with drugs. But then again, I've also never been rescued by a dashing and dorky FBI agent who gets more enthralling by every regulation and self-imposed moral rule he quotes. Though, even Special Agent Dale Cooper can't escape the Black Lodge.



4. My Plants. So lucky are we to not only have a tub, but a fair-sized front porch to keep plants. I have cacti, aloe, a starfish plant, other misc. succulents, a polka dot plant, a spearmint, a chamomile, two trays of snap peas just starting to sprout, and now two heirloom tomato plants. In about a month, some of the succulents will bloom. I love to poke around and examine my plants when coming home from work or after a run.

5. Running. Both Jeremy and I have eased ourselves back into marathon training, though I'm doing a modest 5K and he's able for a half. Go, Jeremy, go! I've been walking from my place up to Church and 30th Street, where I begin my job up to Clipper and back again. The loop equals about a mile, and I can do that in about 8 to 10 minutes, which is good. I got new shoes after being convinced by both Jeremy and our running buddy Sarah, and that was a very good choice. Not only do I not have pain in my shins and knees anymore, but I now have purple shoes with hot pink laces.

5a. Part of running means that I get up early. This is a life change for me. I actually get out of bed in the single digits during the weekends now. I have been, actually, for about four or five months now. It started in the old place when Jeremy didn't work on weekends anymore. I needed "me" time. Thinking back to when my mom would get up early to have tea and toast, to read, weed the garden, or just go out somewhere and come back in time to shake us up at 11, I started doing it, too. I have tea, I work a little online, I watch nature shows, then I go for my run. I accomplish all this before noon, sometimes even 11. On the weekdays, I sleep in my running clothes, which double as PJs, and jump out of bed at fucking 6:30 AM and do the routine in an abbreviated fashion. Again, I accomplish all this by 8, 8:30 and then I get ready for work. I feel like I had a whole other day in there, and it makes being at work until 6 or later more Okay.

Afterward: So, now it's time for bed.

What are you obsessed with right now?