Girl In Hotel Room: A Self-portrait

That's right. I am a Girl in a hotel room. I've been here for days. I watch tv. I order room service. I take the metro and get lost but pretend that I am very not lost. I smile at homeless men and wish that I lived in a larger city than Salt Lake. I shop at corner stores and wear the same 5 items of clothing. I work out in the scary hotel room that is converted into a makeshift gym. I brush my teeth with a hotel toothbrush and use tiny bottles of soap products. I put out the do not disturb sign so that the maid lady doesn't see the trashy mess I've made of my room. I unfold all of the neatly folded towels and watch them magically appear when I get back from the office. I take off the crusty bedspreads and arrange for a wake-up call. I change my clothes with the curtains wide open because it's a strange city and why not.

Fraggle Rock

This might date me, but does anyone remember "Fraggle Rock"? I loved that stupid puppet show and this might come as a surprise to any of you who know me now and my general disdain for most things puppet (except team america) and talking animal...not that the fraggles were REALLY animals, but you get the point. The coolest part about it was that it was on HBO and we didn't ever have HBO except when there was a free cable preview. Getting to watch Fraggle Rock was like getting to have icecream and potato chips for dinner (which my Mom ACTUALLY did every once in a while when she didn't want to cook).

I even thought Uncle Travelling Matt was the coolest character ever...sending that other little puppet guy post cards all the time about his adventures. Well, I'm travelling again for work. I'm heading out to DC tomorrow morning and I'm tired. I don't want to go ANYWHERE. I just want to stay at home, maybe hit a karaoke bar to soothe my troubled soul and be with my friends. But I have to fly.

I kind of like airports and the in betweeness of it all...not here anymore, not there yet...just in the airport reading a magazine with paris hilton on the cover and drinking a smoothie from "The Grovestand". I also like that I can pretend to be whatever I want in the airport. Want to be a hard core business woman who has a meeting at 4 in NYC? That's you. Want to be a vixen who sleeps around and is hiding 12 tattoos beneath her shirt? That's you. Want to be a bohemian world traveller with sleepy looking eyes and mismatched everything? That's you! Unfortunately, I seem to pick the same persona every time I fly... the lost tourist who can't figure out how to open the overhead compartment while tripping on the overweight business man I'm sharing a seat with? That's ME!!!!!. Oh Oh...there it is! I'm starting to get excited about travelling again. I'm going to send postcards home to all my little fraggles!!!!!!

Ninny B discovers her Moab side

I am a hiker. I hike. And I stop to breathe. And then I hike some more. And then the ambulance arrives. Well, no ambulance (this time anyway) but I did hike a steeply graded rock trail on the moab rim and I did have to stop like every 5 minutes to pretend I was soaking in the view instead of desperately trying to stop myself from passing out from lack of oxygen. Eventually I caught up with everyone and the view really was spectacular!

C and M and I went to the land of redrock this weekend and it was the most fun get-away I've had in forever...I work for an environmental organization and still I forget, sitting behind my desk in the flourescent lights for weeks at a time, that I need to be recharged by the outdoors. We hiked and restored biking trails and removed old trail markers and hauled stuff down from the mountain and got lost on the barren side of the old Moab Adventure Park and I felt just for a moment like one of the Von Trapp children on top of the swiss alps, wandering as C and M lead me to the beaten path that equals safety to a non-adventurer such as myself. We made friends, ate at the local brewery, played pool with some locals and woke up sore and kind of happy the next morning. Church was even more fun in moab...probably because I only felt obligated to sit through sacrament and then we could leave with no fear of shirking our duties. WE HAD NO DUTIES!

I've been wondering if being away from home lets you be just a little less yourself...or maybe it's MORE yourself???? I mean, I was wild just like moab for two days. I slept little, I ate whatever I wanted, I didn't shower until I wanted to and I didn't even use a blow dryer ONCE. I let go of my prescribed ways of living life and just was. M said as we were leaving town that we were heading back to "reality" and anyone who's been to moab in the winter with the wind whipping silently on dead streets can tell you, it's not reality. But what if it's SUPPOSED to be reality? What if I want to come back to moab tomorrow? Could I live in moab or would I go insane???? Maybe if I could always take people like M and C with me, I could live in moab, for sure. Long Live Moab.

Steven R. Covey and MY WILL TO LIVE

"Frustration is a function of our expectation and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities"

SING IT to me, STEVEN R!!!!!! Sing it like a white male from Utah. Sing it like a 28 year old woman who has some sort of autoimmune disfunction that makes her so tired she can't type without wanting to pass out on the floor!

I AM FRUSTRATED. today my head is foggy. I slept 9 hours last night and still I want more and if that weren't enough, MY TOES HAVE STARTED TO GO NUMB AT WEIRD TIMES. to quote my little sister, "MY BOOOOODDDDYYYYY!"

I almost started crying at my computer screen this morning. Why can't they give this disease some name other than a generic nod in the direction of arthritis? Why can't I wake up and know that I am going to feel GOOD all day?

If I applied mr. covey's insightful quote to this particular situation, my frustration exists because I expect my body to actually WORK which doesn't necessarily reflect my own values and priorities...what ARE my priorities then??? Evidently they are Chocolate cake, thai food, arrested development and 14 hours of sleep... in that order. Maybe, just like in my relationships, I should stop expecting so much from my body? Be grateful when it just wakes up and moves and breathes...just like what we expect from the men in our lives (haha). I don't want to spend the rest of my life frustrated by the things that I am unable to do and it looks like fatigue, weird joint pain and random numbness might be here to stay...so I'll just lower my expectations or be more realistic...does that sound fatalistic to anyone else but me????

WAH!

She's a BRICK...HOOOOOOOUUUUUUSEEE

WHen I was a little girl, my mom used to build us playhouses on the back porch. I thought they were so cool because they were so real. We had a couch made out of pillows and a little kitchen area and even a baby doll bedroom. WE would wash dishes and hang doll clothes on the "clothesline" and cook dandelion and mud pies. I loved that house because it felt like it was mine. And I was sure that my mom was MAGIC. She could make anything that she touched become beautiful and real. She could also take it all away as evidenced by the time we left lick-em-ade sugar all over the floor of our "house" and attracted a 40 foot chain of worker ants. Oddly enough, in our play "family", no one wanted to play the part of the hired help who cleans up spilled candy. My mom quickly disassembled the house and relegated us to the back yard to play games that didn't require any housework from her.

So, you can see that I have an honest footing in the area of domestic arts and magic. It's genetic and cultivated from the time I was 3. I think this is why I've recently begun daydreaming about having my own play house. Now you may want to stop me right here and remind me that I don't even have enough money to buy an ipod, so what makes me think I can buy a house/condo/4man tent? hello...I told you I was MAGIC...and I am going to magically apply for a mortgage loan. THe problem is that I could get approved for much more money than I can really afford and I've already found a house that is way outside my price range, but I'm in LOVE with it (or the idea of it). 1915, hardwoods, backyard, gas, bungalow on a corner lot. I went to look at it yesterday and magically, the realtor appeared at the same time and showed me the inside. I'm pretty sure it was God's way of winking his approval. I left with my curiosity satiated but my appetite for a place of my own completely whetted. I realized that I don't want to own a house that owns me, which is probably what would happen if I bought this particular house, but I WANT I WANT I WANT to install my own hardward and ceiling fans. I want to plant things outside in the dirt. I want to call an exterminator when I leave lick-em-ade on the floor and attract a colony of ants.

I told my mom, if I can't have a baby, I WANT A HOUSE. I know that's kind of messed up, but it's my way of indicating movement. I need movement. a next step. And musical equipment and cars are old news. So I've decided to try VERY hard to stay in my price range, but I'm on the lookout for a place that can handle all of my magic.