I can be uptight sometimes. It’s what I hate the most about myself... I get embarrassed about weird things; like my name being called out in a Fudrucker’s, which, incidentally has caused me to avoid Fudrucker’s indefinitely. And other things, namely those I did to plan to happen at a specific date and time. But I am trying. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to not be so lame on these points.
I know that this may come as a shock to you--my lack of ability to be spontaneous; on paper, I seem so desirable. I seem it live an exciting life... I am a writer, after all. And my life is both interesting and enjoyable to me-it’s scheduled to be that way, of course! What you may be surprised to know is that a writer's life, besides being scheduled to be interesting and then eloquently written about, offers a lot of unpaid downtime that we don’t like to dwell on or talk about, but it’s there nonetheless.
And in that time we pretend to be structured while trying desperately to be busier than humanly possible. Many of us writers, myself included, work at home, and while we might be “writing” a lot, we are also brooding a lot of that time as well. I think watching reality television and cooking (sometimes at the same time) counts as working... and I’m sure that is no surprise as you see me cranking out the recipes on here.
Any-who, when our air conditioning system decided to “off” itself ‘round about Memorial Day weekend, I decided to be nonchalant about it even though it was unexpected and not the fun kind of unexpected. In the end, of course, it all worked out. I got a window unit from my mother and a stand up air conditioning unit from my father, so we were covered over half my house. What was there to complain about?
On the other hand, I was roasting on the other side of my house. It was this weird compartmentalization of my life that has happened whilst I was busy looking busy. Sometimes it was too hot on the one side of house to cook OR watch reality television from the comfort of my couch... so what is a gal to do???
It was this uncanny turn of events that had lead us to the other side of the house--the one less often used for non-coital or waking activities; we had to be more spontaneous. Instead of the standard NBC Nightly News followed by Jeopardy, and then some shared interest programming, my husband came over to the bedroom side and played guitar for me and the doggies while I typed away on the computer.
Or I sat in the chair in our bedroom and watched the sunset while I read. It wasn't planned, of course, so these are just a couple of boring real-world examples. The point is, we can’t predict the weather (try as we might) and so we were forced to bend at it’s whim until we were with full-home central air again, which, thanks everything thankable, came just Saturday!! Now we are sitting a comfy temperature with a new digital-age central air system and it's fabulous.
So maybe you have central air in your exceptionally cool home and you aren’t forced into one-sided hibernation... but you just dumped your boyfriend. Or your husband. Or you lost a job. Or you woke and decided you were plain fed up with your life. Spontaneity doesn’t have to be tied to any one concept. You can apply it an situation.
I am trying... and while I am not letting anyone call out my name at a burger joint, I am getting used to plans being broken and adventures being had. It’s harder, you know, the older you get, especially if it isn’t ingrained in your nature to just go on a whim.
But just because it isn’t ingrained, doesn't mean you can’t enjoy it! Get spontaneous and watch the things that happen. Who knows, you may just end up with your husband playing a strange Ween song to your dogs... or you might find yourself painting your nails in some oddly hipster theme you swore you didn’t think was cool, (but you secretly thought it was cool because it was it was deeply buried in your psyche.)
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