Be a Dumb Bell

I’ve been thinking a lot about solitude lately.  How everyone needs a different amount of it.  How your need can change from day to day even.  And how imperative it can be to your happiness to not have too much or too little of it.  It’s a delicate little high wire, isn’t it?

I feel pretty happy with my current level of solitude to be honest.  It’s higher than usual.  But I am enjoying that.  I must be in a period where I just need more of it.

But I talk to a lot of people, women especially, who are not happy with their level of solitude. So, when I have solitude, I think about other people and their solitude.  It’s a kaleidoscope cornucopia extravaganza of solitude thoughts.

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Something weird has happened to my skin.  I have these huge itchy red marks on my face that are not zits, but stay for like weeks at a time.  My mother keeps suggesting that it is hormonal, but I think 34 is just too early for that. So I’m not buying it.

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I have started reading The Book Thief.  At about 3 pages in, I was in love.

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I got an updated Iphone, and so now I have the capability to take self portraits of myself and see how the picture will turn out.  But I often forget that the camera is turned toward me when I turn it on, and so I hold it like under my chin waiting for the image to pop up and am frightened by the amplified (please God let it be amplified) image of my double chin — usually covered in itchy red spots.

It’s not doing wonders for my ego.

But it is funny.

If I am capable of one thing in this world, it is laughing at myself.

And also enjoying Fresca.  I excel at that.

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Tonight, when the boys are done resting, we are making these.  And I’m making my mother in law’s pork tenderloin recipe for dinner tonight.  I had to borrow Worcestershire sauce from my neighbor because I thought I had all the ingredients, but I was wrong.  We’ll probably watch some Lost.  Almost finished. I’ll have to keep nudging Craig with my toe to keep him awake.  He’ll sleep anyway.

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I sometimes feel bad that I don’t have more organized intense theatrical stories to share.  Even though my whole thing is celebrating the joy of ordinary life.  Sometimes, I just want to be able to come here and tell you something amazing.

But then I think of this poem.  The one that was my poem of the day yesterday.  And like an anthem in my head, I recite Be a dumb bell… Be a dumb bell…

And I remember that I like to be a dumb bell.