Summer Doldrums

When I was seven, I could get away with moaning "I'mmmmmmmm borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrred" in mid-August. But I'm not seven, and I should productively occupy myself. Because a bored mind is prone to flights of self-involved, unevolved thought.

(I'm not like Tan Lucy Pez, link right, who's helping everybody with their vocabulary. Ever wonder what ANALyst really meant? She'll help you with that.)

FOXnews in the background is using Elvis "Nuthin but a Hound dog" as background. Talk about an elegant newscast. Why, why, why do we listen to FOXnews? I believe I covered this: the weather. Well, we've heard the weather, dammit, and I'm changing the channel to CNN. Don't cross me on this. *bares teeth convincingly* [edit: Jim made me add that We Do Not Watch FOXnews, that Rightwing Rag of a Media Conglomerate. Only the local FOX channel, briefly, for the morning weather.]

Maybe coffee will help. *Pads off to carefully measure half cup skim milk, warms up milk in microwave, then artfully pours coffee in so there is an exact one to one ratio of milk to coffee. Pads back to computer. Remember, it's only 8:30 a.m. here, this among the last days of my five year summer vacation.*

Ahh, that's it. My brat mind has wrapped itself around the concept that soon I Will Go Back To School. And Then I Will Go Back To Work, the Land of Constrictive Pantyhose.

Never mind that I've had more leisure in the past five years than most people get in a lifetime.

The wonderful thing about a Mid-Life Hiatus, as opposed to the Recently Out of College Hiatus, is that you have so many fewer illusions. For instance, I'm not tortured with the (dramatically bring hand to brow, as if in despair) I Must be An Artist Syndrome.

Did that. Tortured numerous coworkers in ad agency and marketing communications departments with "I Need More Creative Stimulation." God, there's one -- or two -- in every workplace. Either write the novel, or don't write the novel. But Please Stop Sharing Your Need To Be Creative.

I was always ruminating about "Shouldn't I Be Somewhere Else?" and didn't realize then that co-workers were praying "Oh Please, Let Her Be Somewhere Else."

Let's see, what else am I bored with? Oh, preciousness in all its forms. At one point I was collecting words I swore I'd never use in my writing. Here's some of them: toodle-pip, delish, uber-anything (just used that one the other day), fabu, yummers, buh-bye -- oh, you get the idea.

I need a new focus to my life -- besides perfume, which I will always love. And I think it will be Expensive Lingerie. From this point forward, I will rededicate my life to Expensive Lingerie. Affording it, finding it, fitting in it, handwashing it, storing it in acid-free tissue, continually adding to my what will become extensive collection.

Yes, that's it. Purpose and Meaning. Lingerie.

Fragrance of the day? Agent Provocateur, of course. The sexiest, expensive-lingerie-est enhanced rose around.