Again. With the blur. But here’s the thing. I’m happy and that makes it hard to write. Words pour out like so much gasoline when my insides are in knots. But when they aren’t, calm takes me to something else for a while. Painting usually. And I offer up proof. That’s me up above. My first ever self-portrait. Baby blue with pink ribbons blowing on the inside. Pretty like the plastic bag in American Beauty. Plain like the orange you had for lunch.
I first wrote elf-portrait. Then I fixed it. Hee!
I’m in Bandon, Oregon. The vacation is needed. I could feel my Friday afternoon grumpiness fade away as the Space Needle did. It’s on the cost. Right on it. A short walk through some picky beach grass and you are toe to tide with the ocean. I love how moody and dark the northern Pacific is. It has personality unlike it’s southern self that’s all postcards and toddlers in one piece swim suits with ruffles round their hips. It’s not always anything here. Sunny. Cloudy. Perfect. Dreadful. It’s temperamental. Like your sometimes best friend. I’m gonna buy a house here. I have a pocket full of beach rocks. My feet are smooth from the sand.
It’s late and I’m typing away in the almost dark. The girls I’m with are sleeping in the blue glow of the TV. My keyboard is almost silent, mostly quiet. I feel like the naughty girl at camp.
The Honey Bunches of Oats commercial just told me that Honey Bunches of Oats is the cereal I’d make if I made cereal. Not true. If I made cereal, it would be giant Cocoa Puffs, so big that only one would fit in the bowl. You would maybe need a knife. You’d surely need to apply milk in doses. They could double as kick balls in a pinch. Maybe I’ll write them a letter. Maybe not.
Tomorrow we go back and I mentally prepare to be hit with the storm that is a special issue in the media world. I’ll eat ads for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then have some ads for dessert and if I’m lucky enough to find myself at a happy hour, I’ll drink up a few ads then, too. It’s the most stressful week ever and come the final deadline when there is nothing left to do, you stand in a daze with your two dozen or so co-workers and stare silently into the fluorescent lights hanging over everyone’s cubes. After a few days the cleaning people shake us up and send us home. Ahhh. That’s why we get the big paychecks. Or something like that.
I wanna go into the happy. But I can’t. I can’t because I’m tired and the sound of the ocean is slowly but surely putting me to sleep. And I can’t because I don’t wanna jinx it. I want to keep it wrapped up in the fancy box with the big bow for a little bit longer. Keep it hidden away under my bed for just a couple weeks more. It’s good though. It’s smiles and ocean and fog. And not always needing a map. It’s the best thing to happen in a long long time.
