There's Nothing to do
It’s Monday morning. I could have written this column Saturday but while THINKING about writing is great and having WRITTEN is great, writing, actually writing, is exactly like giving Sister Mary Michael three pages on The Mayor of Casterbridge in tenth grade. Sister Mary Michaels’s mouth was always, sort of, wet and now that I’m older, it occurs to me that maybe she was nervous. Maybe about getting papers from me. She used to say that I could say less in three pages than anyone she’d ever known.
But that’s another story.
I can’t stand being bored. I think, more than other people, I over-plan. My mom used to tell me constantly, “You’ve got too much going on, Betty,” when I would be listening to music, talking on the phone, watching TV and making a sandwich at the same time. Chaos—I love it!
But that, too, is another story.
On Friday we were supposed to drive to California, yet again, for the third time in a month and, while I was dreading it, I had thoroughly prepared—probably because I really hated to pass Thompson Springs, Baker, and Barstow and not be able to stop and see these fabulous places once again. My husband will never stop.
I love to stop. I would drive in every exit if I could, meet the people, take pictures of their houses, learn their stories. My last trip alone, I stayed at Arnie’s Royal Hawaiian in Baker for a night. Arnie was in Hawaii during WWII and built the motel himself. He then went to that exit you’ve passed a million times, ZZZYYXX, or whatever, I can’t find it on the map to correctly spell it, where there’s an oasis, and dug up a couple hundred palm trees and replanted them right next to each other around the motel. There must be at least 100 palm trees around his parking lot and I’ll bet there’s not a finger’s worth of space between any of them.
But that’s another story.
Anyway, our trip was canceled suddenly and suddenly Saturday morning, I realized we had absolutely NOTHING to do. Oh my heck! As they say. I panicked—what could we do, what could we do! I had to fix this! Immediately! I grabbed the paper: art exhibits, not interesting enough; theaters, too expensive; eating, too boring unless too expensive; movies, not educational enough. I had to plan something worthy, something enlightening, new, educational. Cheap. Something that we’d look back on as a watershed weekend in our relationship.
I’m trying to come to grips with this aspect of my personality. I decided on a completely revolutionary course of action: take a big breath, relax, ask them what they want to do. I can do this.
My son wanted me to go tanning. Big mistake—it’s four days later and I still have a sun rash on some of my stick-outie parts, the part 16-year-old girls don’t have as much of. But it was fun to go. I’ve never been to a tanning booth since my mother was pretty much “forget cleanliness—godliness is good skin care.” She was from Louisiana where real women don’t get tans.
Then I sat on the couch and just waited. My husband and I actually had a nice talk that was unrelated to bills, kids, or car conditions. That was kind of weird, but fun.
So the whole rest of the weekend, I just waited for things to happen. We watched movies, ate, played games, hung out, talked.
I did some philosophic pondering about why it’s important to me to be busy all the time. Just thinking I might have “nothing to do” sends me into distress mode. I qualify any absence of action by saying, “Well, I had things I could do, I just didn’t want to do them.” I would clean my baseboards with a toothbrush before I’d admit I had “nothing to do.”
So, this relaxing thing—this is a whole new idea. It was good. Sure, I was tense, nervous, scared. But hey, that’s why people go on roller coaster rides, right? Get that buzz from being out of control. And think, I saved all that money not having to go to Lagoon.
The hubby and I even had a couple of romantic moments.
But that’s another story.
But that’s another story.
I can’t stand being bored. I think, more than other people, I over-plan. My mom used to tell me constantly, “You’ve got too much going on, Betty,” when I would be listening to music, talking on the phone, watching TV and making a sandwich at the same time. Chaos—I love it!
But that, too, is another story.
On Friday we were supposed to drive to California, yet again, for the third time in a month and, while I was dreading it, I had thoroughly prepared—probably because I really hated to pass Thompson Springs, Baker, and Barstow and not be able to stop and see these fabulous places once again. My husband will never stop.
I love to stop. I would drive in every exit if I could, meet the people, take pictures of their houses, learn their stories. My last trip alone, I stayed at Arnie’s Royal Hawaiian in Baker for a night. Arnie was in Hawaii during WWII and built the motel himself. He then went to that exit you’ve passed a million times, ZZZYYXX, or whatever, I can’t find it on the map to correctly spell it, where there’s an oasis, and dug up a couple hundred palm trees and replanted them right next to each other around the motel. There must be at least 100 palm trees around his parking lot and I’ll bet there’s not a finger’s worth of space between any of them.
But that’s another story.
Anyway, our trip was canceled suddenly and suddenly Saturday morning, I realized we had absolutely NOTHING to do. Oh my heck! As they say. I panicked—what could we do, what could we do! I had to fix this! Immediately! I grabbed the paper: art exhibits, not interesting enough; theaters, too expensive; eating, too boring unless too expensive; movies, not educational enough. I had to plan something worthy, something enlightening, new, educational. Cheap. Something that we’d look back on as a watershed weekend in our relationship.
I’m trying to come to grips with this aspect of my personality. I decided on a completely revolutionary course of action: take a big breath, relax, ask them what they want to do. I can do this.
My son wanted me to go tanning. Big mistake—it’s four days later and I still have a sun rash on some of my stick-outie parts, the part 16-year-old girls don’t have as much of. But it was fun to go. I’ve never been to a tanning booth since my mother was pretty much “forget cleanliness—godliness is good skin care.” She was from Louisiana where real women don’t get tans.
Then I sat on the couch and just waited. My husband and I actually had a nice talk that was unrelated to bills, kids, or car conditions. That was kind of weird, but fun.
So the whole rest of the weekend, I just waited for things to happen. We watched movies, ate, played games, hung out, talked.
I did some philosophic pondering about why it’s important to me to be busy all the time. Just thinking I might have “nothing to do” sends me into distress mode. I qualify any absence of action by saying, “Well, I had things I could do, I just didn’t want to do them.” I would clean my baseboards with a toothbrush before I’d admit I had “nothing to do.”
So, this relaxing thing—this is a whole new idea. It was good. Sure, I was tense, nervous, scared. But hey, that’s why people go on roller coaster rides, right? Get that buzz from being out of control. And think, I saved all that money not having to go to Lagoon.
The hubby and I even had a couple of romantic moments.
But that’s another story.
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