Balance, Logic, Fudge

Blogging has been difficult for me lately. It requires a certain amount of uninterrupted thought and for the last three weeks I haven’t been able to generate a complete sentence without someone asking me to make them some jelly toast or if we can go to the pool now.

Yesterday it had gotten to the point where I knew if I didn’t put together a blog post immediately, I just never would again and I would become constipated by my own thoughts until they eventually shriveled up and died inside me, poisoning my insides. (That’s what happens when you keep your thoughts trapped inside you.) So I sucked it up and put a post out, but I’m out of practice, so the process was plodding and painful.

I’ve decided the only solution is to force myself to produce until things feel a little bit more natural again. It’s the prune juice for my creative process. I just need to get it all moving until I’m regular, right?

So I’m just going to blog the inside of my head for awhile until things start to spark on their own again and I’m back in the groove (or some other defecation metaphor, if you prefer consistency). Feel free to move along if that’s not your thing. I’ll get back to attempting to construct coherent narratives eventually.

The inside of my head this morning:

Yesterday evening I took a hand-balancing workshop taught by a traveling circus couple. They were amazing. He’s Cuban and English is clearly not his first language (balancing actually might be his first language) and she’s sweet, blonde, voluptuous and bendy. He had us kick up into handstands endlessly and hold them as long as we could while he poked our legs from either side to help us stay up and demanded we stay tight or use our fingers more. She would then explain the technique and tricks in more detail while he demonstrated things that seemed scientifically impossible, but were really just the result of insane strength and coordination.

They taught us a trick called a crocodile, on two posts, that I don’t have a picture of us working on, but the result looks like this:

I didn’t get my hand off the second post, but I did manage to balance with my legs and chest up for a few seconds after working on it for twenty minutes and I was pretty fucking proud of myself for it. That chick is making it look way easier than I was, but that’s definitely what I looked like in my head. With a little more shaking and sweating.

Last night I dreamed I joined a professional rollerskating performance troupe. Obviously my own psyche thinks I’m kind of insane, also.

I woke up this morning to aching arms, shoulders and abs, but I had a plan for this week and that plan included running Monday, Wednesday AND Friday morning, so I dragged myself outside even though it was already hot, humid and miserable at 5:30AM.

But the world was beautiful:

And Pandora rewarded me with my one of my favorite songs right as I set out, I Will Follow You into the Dark. Have you ever seen the video? I Youtubed it a few months ago and it managed to make me love that song and Death Cab for Cutie even more than I did before (which was like a really super lot already):

Death Cab for Cutie is one of those things that speaks to me. The songs just make sense in a simple, analytical, beautiful way. I feel that way about Alton Brown, too. You know, the chef? The way he explains The Why of food preparation by celebrating the science behind it while still appreciating the beauty of flavor just really makes me want to make-out with him. Even the 51 year old balding him. I strongly believe the powerful nature of logic does nothing but support the wonder and beauty of the world and I <3 those guys and gals who regularly turn that concept into art.

I got through my four miles a little faster than I had all week despite the heat, which just goes to prove, once again, that running is so much about your state of mind.

Today I’m doing a final walkthrough on a house I feel a little bittersweet about selling. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here before or only on Facebook and I’m too lazy to go back and look, but it’s my best friend’s childhood home. I helped her parents purchase a new home, a little further south, with a more comfortable layout for them and we’re closing on the sale of the old one next week.

You know how you always have that one friend who has a house everyone ends up hanging out at? The house that always has snacks and good places to sit and the parents don’t hassle you or roll their eyes when you come over and watch TV and drink all the sodas out of their garage fridge? That was this house. I can’t even count the number of times I spent the night or dances we got picked up by our dates from at this house. There was the one summer the cockroaches were particularly bad in Dobson Ranch, so Rebecca and I would take the rolly chairs from the kitchen table and race the creatures across the floor when we spotted one. Or the time I hosted a Ouija Board seance by candlelight (because I’m the most dramatic) and we’re pretty sure we contacted the spirit of River Phoenix. Her mom even threw me a baby shower there when I was pregnant with Ben.

So I’m a little sad to see it sold, and I think the rest of the family feels the same. But I know the new home will make my friend’s parents happy and a new family will make memories in the old house. I hope they remember to always have lemon bars and fudge in the pantry.