Wednesday, October 31, 2007
it's the little things
i have been moping around all week. i've been kinda sick, and just plain mope-y for no particular reason. maybe it's seasonal affective something. who knows. anyway, i was going to come on here and blog "mopety mope mope mope" for however many paragraphs until i felt better, but two things happened in the meantime. first, matt (who knows i've been mopey because i moped all over him this morning before dragging my ass out of bed at 8:30 to be quite late to work), texted me a picture of glenwood hot springs because he knows how much blissful fun i had there and he wanted to make me feel better. it worked. my heart got that warm, fuzzy feeling for a minute. and then i went to look at the blog of a woman i went to college with whose blog i look at from time to time, and she had posted a picture where she had carved the mathematical symbol "pi" into a pumpkin! pumpkin pie!! and it was all lit up and glowing. and now i'm smiling again. :)
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
back from vacation
wow, i haven't blogged in over a month! for one thing, my laptop is dying and the "m" key has stopped functioning. for a while, i thought it was an interesting challenge to try to write things without ever using an "m," but that got old fast. then i figured out that if i copied an "m" in text somewhere, i can paste it in, so now all "m"s are produced not by hitting the "m" key, but by pressing "control-v" for paste. now i'm starting to notice the "v" key having problems. shit.
mainly, though, i've been busy working and playing.
work: i have a new supervisor who is extremely "by the books," rather critical, and a bit of a micro-manager. she is also a wealth of knowledge about policy, practice, and law. so i can either panic and get frustrated, or realize this for a great learning opportunity and a chance to hone my skills. i fluctuate between the two daily. i also have a full caseload for the first time since i started in lane county...and it's getting fuller weekly. so i've been consumed by work like i used to be in portland.
play: i also just got back from my pseudo-honeymoon to colorado. i won't blog much about it because "a picture is worth a thousand words" and i have posted the visual equivalent of 33,000 words--along with a handful of actual words--in the "pics" section of my myspace page. i'd encourage you to check it out if you want to read about our trip.
what i do want to talk about here is something i thought about a lot while i was on vacation (particularly when i found myself exhausted at the end of a long day of standing around tasting beer and wanting to go back to the hotel room and make out with my husband rather than following the drunken throng to the bars): the concept of play. it's definitely something that evolves and changes during the course of one's life. babies wave their hands around and make funny faces. toddlers crack themselves up by sticking things in their ears and up their nose. then they discover their reflection in the mirror and that opens up a whole new world of play. by the time they're in school, kids' play gets more complex. imagination is involved in the form of invisible friends, a functioning family of dolls, a working army of lego-men, elaborate schemes to build a fort and take over the neighborhood... complex sets of rules are involved as well, as evidenced in games like kickball, capture-the-flag, (or, in the case of today's obese-kid generation, joining a gang and shooting up the 'hood on the screen in video games). this kind of play is more formal and organized when kids get into high school and are playing jv and varsity sports and on the computer creating their own video games using programming. another kind of play emerges at this time that involves the discovery and pursuit of the opposite (or same) sex: high school dances, sneaking around making out, girls shopping for cute outfits and giggling with friends about who thinks who's hot, guys working on their cars and muscles to impress the girls, etc. in college, play often turns into an adrenaline-fueled full-time party, which hopefully the kids grow out of eventually as they mature into adults. some of this--going out dancing, happy hour with work friends, travelling to other countries all by oneself in attempt to "seize the day"--carries over throughout one's 20's. but so often, in the process of maturing into adults, people lose the concept of play entirely. for myself, i've noticed that in the last year or so i've lost nearly all interest in staying out all night doing tequila shots and dancing my ass off. after careful consideration, i've decided that this has pretty much nothing to do with the fact that i am married to someone who has absolutely no desire to do such things. it's just that it doesn't really do it for me anymore. the last time i went to las vegas with my high school girlfriends for our annual girls' weekend, i was sitting down, taking my high heels off, and rubbing my sore feet as closing time drew near at the club, not shrieking with drunken glee and wondering where the after party was. so am i outgrowing play? am i on the path toward becoming one of those stuck, bored, middle-aged people who go to work, come home, watch some tv, and go to bed with nothing to look forward to the next day except more of the same?
NO. absolutely not. just like school kids who have discovered that dodge ball does it for them a lot more than sticking carrots up their nose, i need to find my new play. i don't really have to look far. i've pretty much found it without looking. lately i have taken a lot of joy in creative pursuits like cooking and photography, in travelling, and especially in moving my body in healthy, sober ways (don't worry, i'm not going all clean-and-sober on your ass or anything crazy like that. ;) not until i'm pregnant anyway...). yoga, swimming, biking, skiing, running. that is my new play. and i'm comforted in knowing that later in life, once my body wears down and isn't as able to handle this new play as it is now, i'll find something else. or it will find me. i'm discovering that possibly my favorite thing about myself is my ability to find the joy.
mainly, though, i've been busy working and playing.
work: i have a new supervisor who is extremely "by the books," rather critical, and a bit of a micro-manager. she is also a wealth of knowledge about policy, practice, and law. so i can either panic and get frustrated, or realize this for a great learning opportunity and a chance to hone my skills. i fluctuate between the two daily. i also have a full caseload for the first time since i started in lane county...and it's getting fuller weekly. so i've been consumed by work like i used to be in portland.
play: i also just got back from my pseudo-honeymoon to colorado. i won't blog much about it because "a picture is worth a thousand words" and i have posted the visual equivalent of 33,000 words--along with a handful of actual words--in the "pics" section of my myspace page. i'd encourage you to check it out if you want to read about our trip.
what i do want to talk about here is something i thought about a lot while i was on vacation (particularly when i found myself exhausted at the end of a long day of standing around tasting beer and wanting to go back to the hotel room and make out with my husband rather than following the drunken throng to the bars): the concept of play. it's definitely something that evolves and changes during the course of one's life. babies wave their hands around and make funny faces. toddlers crack themselves up by sticking things in their ears and up their nose. then they discover their reflection in the mirror and that opens up a whole new world of play. by the time they're in school, kids' play gets more complex. imagination is involved in the form of invisible friends, a functioning family of dolls, a working army of lego-men, elaborate schemes to build a fort and take over the neighborhood... complex sets of rules are involved as well, as evidenced in games like kickball, capture-the-flag, (or, in the case of today's obese-kid generation, joining a gang and shooting up the 'hood on the screen in video games). this kind of play is more formal and organized when kids get into high school and are playing jv and varsity sports and on the computer creating their own video games using programming. another kind of play emerges at this time that involves the discovery and pursuit of the opposite (or same) sex: high school dances, sneaking around making out, girls shopping for cute outfits and giggling with friends about who thinks who's hot, guys working on their cars and muscles to impress the girls, etc. in college, play often turns into an adrenaline-fueled full-time party, which hopefully the kids grow out of eventually as they mature into adults. some of this--going out dancing, happy hour with work friends, travelling to other countries all by oneself in attempt to "seize the day"--carries over throughout one's 20's. but so often, in the process of maturing into adults, people lose the concept of play entirely. for myself, i've noticed that in the last year or so i've lost nearly all interest in staying out all night doing tequila shots and dancing my ass off. after careful consideration, i've decided that this has pretty much nothing to do with the fact that i am married to someone who has absolutely no desire to do such things. it's just that it doesn't really do it for me anymore. the last time i went to las vegas with my high school girlfriends for our annual girls' weekend, i was sitting down, taking my high heels off, and rubbing my sore feet as closing time drew near at the club, not shrieking with drunken glee and wondering where the after party was. so am i outgrowing play? am i on the path toward becoming one of those stuck, bored, middle-aged people who go to work, come home, watch some tv, and go to bed with nothing to look forward to the next day except more of the same?
NO. absolutely not. just like school kids who have discovered that dodge ball does it for them a lot more than sticking carrots up their nose, i need to find my new play. i don't really have to look far. i've pretty much found it without looking. lately i have taken a lot of joy in creative pursuits like cooking and photography, in travelling, and especially in moving my body in healthy, sober ways (don't worry, i'm not going all clean-and-sober on your ass or anything crazy like that. ;) not until i'm pregnant anyway...). yoga, swimming, biking, skiing, running. that is my new play. and i'm comforted in knowing that later in life, once my body wears down and isn't as able to handle this new play as it is now, i'll find something else. or it will find me. i'm discovering that possibly my favorite thing about myself is my ability to find the joy.
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