Return to the Screen

So I've been avoiding the laptop for a few days. I could feel its single blue-white eye pulsing, watching me through its black nylon bag, but I resisted. The sky was just too blue, the orioles are back and needed observation, as did the hawks gamboling low over our home. Chores needed doing (spring cleaning--windows washed, deck scrubbed and sealed, side yard pulled apart and organized). And M and I needed to spend some quality time together. We watched movies, cooked, smiled at each other knowingly as we polished our respective sides of the windows, filled with domestic bliss. He even came with me to the library sale. We had our separate activities too--I had a happy half-hour in a thrift store, and M visited his clubhouse a couple of times, coming back looking five years younger.


What I didn't do? Work on my essays. Blog, though it was on my list and I had something pithy in mind to set down about death, but it slipped away which I think is all for the best. Visit the beach. Respond to email. Good intentions gone the way of the breeze.

Yeah, sure, the life of the conferences publicist seems glamorous: late nights eating stone-cold south Indian take out in the tub while calling home, or cobbling together dinner from a reception appetizer buffet; making conversation on the tradeshow floor with geeks who wax poetic over the latest database innovations; spending 48 straight hours inside the hotel and convention center, convinced that fresh, non-circulated air must be out there somewhere; partaking gratefully of the stiff cookies and cold milk left in the room on the last night by the hotel staff.
But y'know, it's taking its toll. This was a relatively easy event, and it took me three days to recover. Aging is a bitch.

*****

More evidence of the advantages to having crafty-arty family and friends: The vase my uncle turned and the cracker tray my mom built.


*****

Happy May Day. As I was driving to work today, I passed a man, crowned with flowers and wearing what was apparently a vest made of silk leaves, driving a cherry (condition and color) two-door 1970-ish Impala convertible, bouquets of flowers and what seemed to be a May Pole jutting out of the open trunk. It's also been a day of immigration rights rallies. I wasn't out and about much to observe any firsthand today, but it's gratifying to know that people are coming together peacefully to make a statement.