September 30, 2004 ~ I
Thursday.
I am writing this entry for WordGoddess. Every paragraph is supposed to begin with "I" and be entirely about me.
I am having difficulty with this prompt, to be honest. I don't want to talk about myself, right now. I am trying to turn outward, instead. I've spent too much time in my head, the last two months or so. I know it's not healthy.
I have a cold... kind of. It's been a long, long time since I've actually come down with an illness. I usually catch them before they start with my natural remedy concoction (Morgan likes to call it "The Devil's Smoothy" as it is a blended drink that contains things like raw garlic and ginger root and has a base of lemon juice and pure, unsweetened cranberry juice--it has quite a kick to it), but I took it too late. So I didn't catch the illness before it started. Now I'm in this state of quasi-illness where I feel like I'm getting over a cold that I never had. It feels weird. Of course, it didn't help that:
I stayed up late last night, out in the cold and the mist, completing work on one of the new pens at the wolf rescue. We got it done, but now I'm thinking that perhaps it wasn't the best of ideas to stay out late on a work night in the cold doing heavy physical labor when one is getting ill and one has thrown out one's back. Ouch.
I just want to curl up with a book and ignore everything, but I know that I can't.
I am going to watch the presidential debates tonight, however. At first, I was ambivalent. I know whom I'm going to vote for. I've been following the news and all of the statements and the written transcripts of their speeches. I know what issues are important to me, and where the candidates stand. The debates are not going to change my mind, and I doubt that anything will surprise me. But I decided that I didn't want to just read a transcript tomorrow and miss the nuances. I didn't want to have to rely on the interpretations of others, on descriptions from news stories. I want to judge for myself, and I want to understand what the rest of the country has seen. So I will watch.
I do not have a television, however. We're going to have to rig the computer to play it. I expect it will be interesting, for someone like me who hasn't watched TV for the last six years--save for a few minutes on September 11th--to see a long and sustained video of Kerry and Bush speaking. I've only seen small internet clips here and there. (I didn't even know what Bush sounded like, until September 11th, when I, like many people, became much more politically aware and started paying closer attention, started actually watching clips online).
I sometimes wonder if I am now *too* politically aware. Sometimes the amount of news that I read gets a little ridiculous.
I keep avoiding the main issue:
I am exhausted. Worn out. Emotionally. Spiritually. So is Morgan. So much bad news lately, and so much responsibility on top of it. We need a break, desperately, which is why:
I can't wait until the week of October 18th. We have a vacation planned. We haven't gone on vacation since that trip to London in college, almost three years ago, and that was a group trip. After three years, I think we're due for some time off together. Now that we both work at the college, we can get paid time off, and at the same time! Miracle of miracles. We're hoping to go to the North Carolina Outer Banks. A small trip. Manageable on our budget. Provided another hurricane doesn't strike. I haven't seen an ocean since January of 2000, when we visited back in Oregon. It's been far too long. It will be so nice, just the two of us together, in a place where no one knows us and will expect nothing of us. We never did take a honeymoon, and it's high time that we made up for that.
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