::Shoreleave
Money can, in fact, buy happiness. I know, I just laid out for a week’s worth.
Four days in St Petersburg was just what this lumphead needed. We arrived to a torrential spring thunderstorm. All buckets-of-rain and hurtling-wind and growly-thunder. Which was sound and fury and over in an hour, leaving us the rest of the time to reach for the clock and turn it backward to try and remember who we were before, and fiddle with the buttons and finally throw it off the balcony into the frothing mess at the end of the world:
Soothing, rushing, tumbling infinity.
The rest gets summed up in bullet points:
– Sunshine and green leaves on all the trees = exactly what we needed to put us back together. I got a wee sunburn, even.
– NOM NOM NOMMY never-frozen seafood. Grouper filet as thick as my wrist. SO GOOD.
– Serious debate about why we stay in the Midwest and the pros and cons of moving across the country to be in the subtropics near the sea.
– Basically a three-day-long date where we ate what we wanted, fucked nearly at will, slept in, went to the zoo, to the Salvador Dali Museum, laid around and read books and failed at really hard crossword puzzles, and reveled in being grownups without tantrums to weather and diapers to change.
– Wished it had been just a little warmer, so I could have gotten more than just my feet in the water, but what can you do? It still beat the 8-inch snowstorm we dodged at home…. we flew out just as it started falling, and it was all gone the night we got back. HAR HAR HAR, nature!
– Saw wild dolphins hunting from the pier. One of them chased a fish not 30 feet from us. A riveting, powerful missile through the water, twisting in a dogfight. Magnificence.
I’m drawn more and more to the sea every time I visit it. Staring out from our room over the endless horizon, feeling very strongly about being at the nexus of infinities… endless water below, endless space above. Wanting to set sail and become a tiny, bobbing dot, to see what else has been spirited away into the yin-yang of sea and air. While I stood with my toes in the cooling sand and the salt stinging on my ankles, I stared out over the waves — and everything that sucked was BEHIND ME. Just where it belongs.
Coming back to work this week was difficult. Dreaming of being idly wealthy and having a Gulf house to retreat to when the times get tough. Of endless weeks of exploring and frivolity and yeah. Not happening. But money bought us a week of happiness. It changed everything for a while.
I love this entry. From the Faulkner/Adams references to your description of the feelings the sea engenders in you. Beautiful.
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I f-ing love money. It’s definitely one of my biggest loves…and no matter what anyone else says…the shit DOES buy happiness. I’m sick of being poor.
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Going back to work is always the worst. The going back to reality part sucks.. but I’m glad you were able to get away from it for a while.
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Sometimes we need a reminder of who we were pre-kids … it helps us remember what we’re fighting to maintain until the circumstances change again. I’m really glad you had such a good time, and that you were able to reconnect.
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I’m glad you guys had a lovely time. It sounded beautiful. *
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🙂 I’m glad for your peace. I am wildly envious of the seafood meals. And you have just made me look forward to that week in Maine SO MUCH MORE.
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When people are like, “You need a vacation,” I get pissy because it seems like such a bullshit, overly simple answer to complicated emotional problems. But then it always helps. A lot.
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Tiny bit envious, but overwhelmingly glad it was good for you guys.
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Glad that you had a good time. Sounds like this refresher is just what you guys needed.
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I often felt the same way when I lived in Long Beach just a couple blocks from the beach.
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I am so glad you had a nice trip. I hope you take solace in that, and I’m really glad you had the conversation about moving. I hope it comes to fruition. 🙂
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“thinking about him day and night,” hahaha. No. Just at work, pretty much. But I happen to be at work when I write my entries, so. Oh also, that NIN/Carly mashup you sent me is my favorite thing ever, pretty much.
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RYN: I just got to Comstock House. Am I close to the end? The suspense is killing me! We have an on-again, off-again group. Generally, we’ll game once a week or so for awhile, then real life will get in the way and we drift away from gaming for a couple of months, then we’ll re-form the group for a new campaign. There’s about six of us, although individuals come and go depending on theirsituations. Sophia started as a character in our very first campaign, back in November of 2004. When it became obvious that the group was going in a different direction, we spun off the character into her own 1-on-1 campaign. Occasionally, that campaign intersects with the group one, but not often. But I’ve been playing her consistently for going on nine years, that’s why she’s so high-level. It’s just funny that I spun her off because she was a neutral good cleric in a group of neutral-to-evil cutthroat types, and now she’s next door to evil herself. ^_^
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By the way, I got some fantastic pictures at the Garbage concert! I’ll post them in the next entry.
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RYN again: wow, I’m scatterbrained today. Left this out of my first note. Now, at level 30, Sophia mostly adventures alone, but that’s a new development. Up until recently she adventured with a party of NPC’s. Brendan and I split the running of them. It helped to have a party for those natural 1’s!
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Sounds like you and the lady had a much needed magical respite.
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RYN – Huh… I wonder why I’m not popping up on bookmarks? That’s very odd. Thank you for letting me know! Looks like I’ll have to bookmark myself 😉
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RYN: Oh, they will be totally fine–I’m the one who’s a needy, clingy spaz in this scenario.
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RYN: Thanks for the note. My feelings are that if I had the choice, keep it as it is or have it turn into Microsoft Facebook 2: Electric Boogaloo, I’d keep it as it is. If I wanted to use facebook or twitter, I’d use facebook or twitter.
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R: “Scumbag” might be a little harsh, but he’s definitely not 100% honest in his relationship. Which is something I require even from casual fuckbuddies. If it becomes apparent that bullshitting his spouse is something he actually, actively does, then he’s not going anywhere near my ladybits. And obvs not relationship material in ANY universe.
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Good news, sailor: people who go out and have adventures have substantially less risk of developing Alzheimers. And they’re fun, too!
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