The Snow is Suffocating Me

It's 8:30 am. I just worked out and feel sufficiently exhausted. I would love to cool down with a walk outside. Just an easy stroll down the street, let the heart rate slow, breathe in some fresh air. The problem? There's two feet of snow on the ground. I'd have to shovel a path to even attempt to walk and that would not exactly slow my heart rate. So instead I'm inside. Now the snow is beautiful, it really is, but it's driving me insane. It has been a near constant for the last 7 weeks. I miss the sun, I miss warmth and grass and anything green other than pine trees. I'm sick of looking out to a sky that matches the ground exactly. But on a positive note, the snow can be good for writing because it's nearly impossible to get motivated to leave the house. I stretch the days between grocery shopping, I workout at home and incidentally I log a lot more computer time. Nevertheless I am ready for Spring or a vacation very soon.

To All That is New - Including the Year

It is 2009! I have given up waiting for such supposedly important things to sink in. Like birthdays, anniversaries, even deaths. Each so fraught with meaning and yet they never seem to fully penetrate the psyche. Instead we just trudge along, gushing about out daily nuisances and hardly aware that we have entered an entirely new year of our lives. Everything that happens for the next 360 days will be punctuated by "in 2009", not 2008 or 2001 or any of the other years that have come before. No this is the year of 2009. Wow - that was completely anticlimactic. I mean really, I said it like it was important, but I felt absolutely nothing. In fact, some days I feel as if I have not registered the changing of a year since high school, back when years actually felt like years and not like a series of stressful weeks tied to together with a fraying rubber band. I am generally not a fan of New Year's resolutions, I prefer to be a person who believes that I change when I choose to change, not simply because people are speeding to the store to stock up on recumbent bikes and protein powder. Despite, this denial of resolutions I often find myself making them. Not out loud really, just little sidelines to myself. Like I am absolutely publishing a book in 2009 or I vow to cook more this year and miscellaneous other plans that somehow feel do-able because I have an entirely new year in which to do them. So I guess that is what this post is all about. My New Years Non-Resolutions. 1). Publish a book - even if this means writing for a target audience of two year olds. 2). Cook food that does not have a layer of black on the bottom, does not stick to the pan like adhesive and someone other than I will eat. 3). Take vitamins - in so many areas I'm good, I'll workout, I get in the veggies and water, but the vitamins are an endless challenge. 4). Do Not Return to my Job- this is a big one, I left to write full time, which means me writing daily and actually making money, no writing at 7pm after I'm so stressed from rush hour traffic that I'm double fisting a bottle of Vodka and a can of whip cream. Okay that's it - 2009 here I come...