from time to time

I want to write something articulate and lovely and whimsical, but I'm just too dadgum tired. It's true. I can only think in lists and bullet points right now. So that is what this is.

Today:

brand new character shoes with taps, scored at thrift store for $2. Yes, thank you.

also I bought shorts for $1.79, and found costumes for the play. Done and done. I love my thrift store shorts.

frustration, sheer and not simple frustration at life. said frustration probably produced current headache.

folding laundry + Foyle's War + popcorn = a combination that makes me much too satisfied

130 pounds is 10 more pounds than I want to be. Hello smaller portions and exercise.

waltzing and singing, singing and waltzing, rehearsal. It was in very fact a grand night for singing. I love waltzing. And singing. Put 'em together: happiness.

Welcome-though-too-brief call from Anna E. I like unexpected phone calls.

weariness. keep plowing away or change tactics? neither. I know I'm not trusting.

The sky was too too beautiful at evening, all high thunderclouds and sunlight in the rain.

***

Tomorrow:

blueberries at breakfast, and sleep.

GRE project = 95% done

no work. no rehearsal. deep restful breaths.

a Michael phone call

reading. reading. reading.

writing. writing. writing.

walk. in the sun. with my iPod. with Over the Rhine.

and always the unknown. ask strength for the suffering and eyes to see beauty.

in this moonlit field

Today has been good. That simple. I am off Mondays, so I spent five hours on the freelance project. Two of my favorites, Mr. and Mrs. N., are staying with us this week, so I got to chat with them during lunch and enjoy the silent companionship of working on our own projects. I went on a walk, and swam, and there were two thunderstorms, and then rehearsal tonight was long and tiring but good.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Mondays aren't so bad.

***

So tomorrow is back to the littles. And I wasn't especially looking forward to it til just now, when I remembered I get to see favorites (Jack/Evie/Thomas/Sarah/squeal) and hold them. I like being with the babies. I like it when they want to be held for a while, and so I just sit and hold the warm toddler weight of them and their heads fit into the crook of my neck and I want one for my very own.

Then I change five diapers in a row. And I decide I can wait for a while.

***

On the return - to theatre, that is. The community kind. So, I'm in a play for the first time in 4 years, and it's weird and I feel out of it but the slow excitement and delight are growing in me and really emerged tonight and I am starting to remember why I love corny musical songs and diving into a character. It's State Fair, thank you ma'am, and I get to be Margy Frake this summer. I wanted the part of the seductress singer. Instead I am the fresh-faced, independent farm girl.

Type casting? No comment.

***

In other news: Over the Rhine. Best thing ever. Go buy it now, Drunkard's Prayer. Although it does mean I now own a song with a saxophone solo. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

the high country

Announcement: Earlier this morning, a mysterious white cat was spotted by two members of the household. So far it has managed to avoid the over-exuberant Mo and has left the offering of a very large, very dead rat on the front walk. I think it wants to stay.

***

Memorial weekend was four days lost from civilization in the mountains of North Carolina. We stayed at the gloriously simple Hemlock Inn. It's like someone smushed together a camp and a bed and breakfast and a grandparents' home. There are no computers, no T.V.s, and you unlock the door with a real key, not a piece of plastic. Guests smile at each other and talk, and Mr. White, the husband and father of the inn family, sits down to chat with you before breakfast. There are rows of red rocking chairs, and a swing, and ping pong, and a twisty meandering hiking trail, and a long lovely field that slopes in front of the mountains. At 8:30 am and 6:30 pm, a bell clangs and you rush to the dining room, where Mr. White asks the blessing and then you sit down at a big round table with the other folks. In the center of the table is a lazy susan piled with heaps of amazing food.

And if you are lucky, the family at your table has three awesome kids, two boys and a little girl named Jill wedged in the middle. And then you make friends with them and in the evenings you play pretend and catch fireflies, and Cy, the littlest, looks up at you gravely and says, "Hannah, I love you when you are here," because he always puts an "H" in front of your name. And then his brow furrows fierce, and he says, "You will be here all the time and you have to play with us and I will be the good guy."

Yes, these kids made the trip for me. Jill and I sat by each other at meals, and her toy cat drank coffee from my mug. On Sunday morning, when they were about to leave, Jill and Cy were piled on me and stuck their toys in my pockets and were talking both at once real fast and I thought, forget grad school, I want to be a nanny. A little late for that one.

***

After the kids left, I was ready to go too. Because I'm realizing something, and it's that I can't do rural yet. What I mean is, I need people. I love country and space and quiet, I do, and after two days I was restless and society-hungry. I wanted something to and friends to share it with. I think I will have to stay in civilization a while longer yet.