Summer 09

Summer is halfway over and I feel like I just now got a chance to relax. Even though I attended fewer staff developments this year and the training I helped lead didn't involve as much planning as last year, somehow I feel like I’ve spent the first half of this summer working. June felt like it just flew by.

The good news is that I can totally get away with slacking off now if I want. Aside from spending Tuesday conducting interviews with a slew of characters, I spent most of the week just relaxing. Although, when your nose is constantly congested and your hearing is a bit off because of it and you’re living for your next dose of Sudafed, it’s not much of a vacation.

I did manage to get into a little routine in which I live my life in thirty to one hour increments depending on what television show is currently leading my life. Today, I made a conscious choice not to do that. Yesterday, the finale of the Gilmore Girls was re-aired and I’d been waiting for that since Spring Break, or maybe the little break I gave myself in May. Anyway, I mostly laid around reading a manuscript of an upcoming Pinata Books title with the television on something crappy just for background noise.

The good thing is that it doesn’t take much for my obsessions to change. I just have to become involved in the lives of the characters and then it’s like my sunflower seed addiction—don’t stop until you finish the bag…even if you scald your tongue with the salt.

I got like that with My Sister’s Keeper earlier this summer. It was during the three day TALA training that I twitted about. I would stay up until 2 or 3 AM knowing that I had to be at training the next day, but I'd become so obsessed that I was dedicated to finishing it before the week was over. In my mind, I rationalized my reading with being brain dead at the training. I think that’s the only way I made it through that week. Kelley Gallagher said it best, “I was better off sitting in my cubicle staring at my belly button and watching fuzz grow.”

I do have to make a more decent effort at not spending my days wishing I would just get up and shower so that I could sit at Barnes and Noble sipping tea and writing or reading as the afternoon sunlight streams in and causes a golden glow on the table tops. I also really want to check out the renovated main library. Apparently, best coffee shop in the area has a café in there. I should totally go and take advantage of reading smut magazines instead of rushing through them while waiting to check out at Wal Mart.

Next week the Mother arrives so that should be fun. And then after that, I think I have one official week of summer left before my times gets eaten away by the little work caterpillars. I must make the most out of this last bit of summer. Next year isn’t promising anything different and I will need all of the energy and I can gather up.