Confession:  some days I run just so I can get the post-run high.  When it happens (it doesn’t always), it’s fantastic.  Endorphinized happiness.

Some days, though, the run is just an attempt to avoid complete stabbiness.

Today was (is!) one of those days.

Actually, today started last night, when a writer-friend ripped my novel a new one (notice I didn’t say ripped me a new one, because I’m working very hard on taking my own advice, and NOT taking criticism personally).  What she really did was ask the question that I’ve been trying to answer for six months, without really understanding what the question was, so I’m actually deeply grateful, but it took me a few hours of processing (er . . . all night?) to embrace the constructive part of “constructive criticism.”

Then our local Vespa moron went on a neighborhood tour at 5 am (better than the 3 am tour a couple of weeks ago, but still).  So I might’ve woken up slightly less cheery than usual.

Then we had a more-spectacularly-dramatic-than-usual teen-age meltdown.  You know they say sh** rolls downhill?  At our house it rolls every which way:  up, down, and sideways.  All of which resulted in my having to drive Delaney and the carpool kid to school.  Which is fine–I really like this particular carpool kid (hi Shay!)–but it was unexpected.  I might be just the teensiest bit inflexible sometimes.  Lee, bless his heart, talked me off the ledge afterward, and convinced me not to change the locks before school gets out this afternoon.  But don’t think I wasn’t tempted.

When I got home from the unexpected carpool, the refrigerator was dead.  Dead.  As in, not cooling.  As in, all that tomato sauce and freezer jam and all those bell peppers that I painstakingly peeled . . . all thawing.

So I did what any sensible person would do–I went for a run.  Right. That. Minute.

Because I needed to destress.  I needed those endorphins, and  I needed to get them in before the rain started.  Because me + running + rain usually results in an emergency room visit, and frankly, we’ve had more than enough of that sort of thing lately.*

For the record, that rain that I was trying to avoid?  It held off, if by held off you mean rain wasn’t actually falling from the sky in discrete drops.  Instead it just saturated the atmosphere–warm, swampy humidity.  The kind that makes your shins sweat.

Guess who else was out for a run, along the very same route?  The garbage truck.  Full of garbage.  In that warm, swampy humidity.  Leaving a wide, wet trail of decomposed garbage juice.  Right along my path.  I was fine–albeit wrinkle-nosed–until I had to actually leap over the trail of garbage juice.

That, my friends, was the closest I’ve ever come to actually vomiting in the middle of a run.  I have, on other days, run hard enough to make myself queasy, and I’ve run far enough to be turned off by my warm bottle of sports drink.  But I’ve never actually had to swallow down the heave.

So yeah.  I wasn’t really feeling the runner’s high this morning.  Some days that’s just how it goes.

ps–That rain that I was trying to avoid?  It’s coming–tomorrow.  Right smack in the middle of the high school field trip I’m chaperoning.  The one in which we’ll be tromping in the woods and collecting specimens from the lake.  The forecasters are calling for 80 degrees and flooding.  Anyone have some waders I can borrow?

*I haven’t written about all the gory details , simply because it’s hard to drive up traffic by blogging about one’s husband’s colonoscopy and the ensuing complications.  He’s fine now, but I’d just as soon we were all healthy for a little while.

There’s too much noise in my head lately.

I thought it was just having the children hanging around the house during their summer break.  But then they went back to school, and my head wouldn’t settle down.  I thought it was the drama of the first days of school–we’ve never been all that good at transitions around here.  But that passed, and still I found it hard to center myself.

I thought it was Lee being in the hospital, but he came home and is fine.   Then maybe it was the earthquake (okay, that was a stretch–it was only a little worse than the UPS truck idling in front of our house, but for some reason, it really wound me up).  Then we had a hurricane (again, not much of one here, but it was enough to get my head all tangled up).

By yesterday morning, I was kind of close to losing it, so I went for a long walk in the woods, trying to find my zen.  For the first couple of miles, I debated whether the noise in my head is a result of not having my own car.  Maybe?  Probably not.  So finally I decided maybe I’m just stressed because of the upheaval in our house.

And I realized something really depressing.  That upheaval is here to stay, for a while at least.  De-cluttering a house, downsizing twenty years’ worth of stuff, pushing kids out of the nest–those are all really stressful, distracting time-sucks.  Blah.  I haven’t written a word of fiction in two months.  I haven’t yet figured out how to (mentally) work around the chaos, but I need to get my head on straight so that I can focus.

This morning I woke up long before daylight, having dreamt about Lee’s upcoming colonoscopy, and couldn’t get back to sleep.  Clearly I haven’t yet found the secret to keeping my calm.

Last Friday night I slept for eleven and a half hours.  Straight through.  Deep, blissful slumber.

Now, I’m not your average sleep-deprived American.  I am a little obsessive in my sleep habits, and I get at least 7.5-8 hours of uninterrupted, sound sleep every night.  Honestly, if I had my druthers, it’d be closer to nine hours, but that’s just hard to make happen (especially during the school year).

Even so, I couldn’t believe the difference those 11.5 hours made.  I woke up feeling like a new woman–energized, refreshed, optimistic.  Happy.  I even ran a little faster.

I highly recommend a long, restorative sleep.  Go ahead and schedule one into the weekend.  It’s worth the effort.

In my deep blue funk last week, I decided to paint my toenails bright purple.  It was Kirstin’s idea; she suggested, in a comment on this post, that perking up my hair color might lift my spirits.  I’ve never colored my own hair before, and honestly, I’m not even very good at blow drying it.  At this time of year my hair pretty much looks like the woman in this ad–the one whose hair goes “mad” (at 30 seconds).

But then I hit on the idea of purple toenails.  That might help.  So I went to Ulta and bought four tiny little bottles of nail polish.  Lee was out of town one night, so I put on Downton Abbey (a Masterpiece Theater series that I’m slightly in love with, all about the inhabitants of a stately English home, just before WWI–the twilight of the aristocracy) and made a cup of tea.

When I went to paint my toenails, I twisted up a length of toilet paper and wound it between my toes, like I’ve always done.  And then I realized:  I need a toe wedge.

By the time the weekend rolled around, I had developed a full-fledged obsession.  I went back to Ulta–no luck.  I dragged Lee to the mall–no toe wedges at Sephora (or Nordstrom, for the record–I guess if you can afford to buy your cosmetics at Nordstrom, you probably don’t paint your own toenails).  On Saturday, I toured all the drug stores near our house, plus one grocery store, Target, and a manicure shop.

At the eighth* store, I found it.  A 99-cent pair of toe wedges.  Wal-mart.  Not only did they have toe wedges, they had three different brands!

That kind of blew my mind.  I detest the Wal-mart; I find it disorganized and visually overwhelming.  I avoid it like the plague, but even so, three or four times a year I find I have no choice.  This time, I made Lee go with me for moral support.  The fact that they had those toe wedges?  I’m not really sure what to do with that, except go paint my toenails again.

*Yes, I went to eight stores looking for this ridiculous little frivolity.  I tend to obsess.  This is not news, is it?

This is a bag of egg noodles.  They are in my pantry, taking up space, and I can’t remember why.  I remember buying them.  I even know when I bought them–January 9th.  I stood there in the pasta aisle of the Harris-Teeter, trying to think what we’d eat if I caught Lee’s flu and we got snowed in, and I remembered a recipe I’d just come across, and threw the bag of noodles in the cart.

Now I can’t find the recipe.  I have no idea what I was going to do with those noodles. They’re sitting there on the bottom shelf, taunting me, making me feel like I’ve forgotten where I parked the car.  I hate that feeling.  I spent two hours yesterday–two hours!–going through my bookmarks, my search history, all my favorite blogs–to no avail.

I do this all the time; I buy a grocery item, with an idea in my head for how how to use it, then I forget what I had in mind.  It’s so frustrating.  By dinnertime last night I was so cranky about the egg noodles I could barely see straight.  So I started making a list of pet peeves–things that frustrate me beyond reason.

–The word smirk.  People misuse it all the time, which is annoying enough, but even when used correctly, I hate it.  It’s not a pretty word.  And it refers to a not-pretty expression.

–The dry air in my house.  My knuckles are cracked, my lips are chapped, my nose keeps bleeding, and my heels are a disgrace.  No amount of moisturizer can make up for winter air.

–7 am.  ’Nuff said.

–People who walk through parking lots on the diagonal.  I want to run them over.  If you are one of these morons–stop it!  Stay to one side!  When you amble around in the middle, you block traffic, clogging up the whole parking lot.  Don’t do that! (Do NOT email to tell me that you’re worried someone’s going to back out and hit you–that just makes you sound stupid.  Obviously, DON’T WALK BEHIND A CAR THAT’S BACKING UP!)

–Two-lane round-abouts.  There’s a new one near us, and it confuses my brain.  Two lanes just don’t make sense to me.  A nice, simple, single-lane traffic circle?  Love it.  I’d love to see them everywhere.  But two lanes?  Nope.  Can’t do it.

–All that fine, dry road grit that has accumulated here this winter, with the repeated brining ahead of weather systems.  I come in from a run and feel like it’s embedded in my skin; it’s in my nose, my eyes, my shoes.  (Although, this one is a mixed bag, I suppose.  I fell on Sunday, and the grit caused me to slide forward on my stomach, dispersing the force of the impact.  Instead of broken bones, all I had was some minor road rash.  Maybe I should be grateful to the grit.)

–The fact that Jockey has stopped making my favorite underwear.  Yeah, I know.  Totally a first-world problem.  Nonetheless, it’s irritating the snot out of me at the moment, because the elastic is going in all the pairs I have, and I have no idea how to replace them.

–The fact that I can’t get through winter without gaining weight.  I have dreadful SAD, and all my coping mechanisms involve butter.

–Mumbling.  I hate mumbling.

–This.  Excuse me; I’m 43 years old.  I learned to put two spaces after a period.  Thirty years ago.  I don’t think I can change that habit this late in the game.  Sorry.

–Flickering fluorescent lights; specifically, the one above the desk in my kitchen.

–Fake sincerity.  I’m sure there’s a more accurate word for it, but it’s a very specific category of people who go through life with this sort of Hallmark-card earnestness about them.  I’m sorry; I just don’t trust people who take themselves that seriously.

–Low-flow water-saving toilets.  I know they’re supposed to be better for the planet, but I hate them.  I hate clogged toilets.  I hate having to plunge the toilet.  Yes, I am a princess.

–Technological glitches.  One of these days, I’m going to get a 404 message, or drop a call, or lose all my music, and my head is going to explode.  Truly.

–People who . . . wait.  Maybe I’d better just say people, and leave it at that.  Yes, my misanthropy is showing.  It’s January.  That’s how I roll.

Thanks for letting me vent.  I feel better already.

Everybody knows swimming is good exercise. It’s low-impact, easy on the joints, infinitely customizable. You can swim for strength, for endurance, for aerobic fitness, or just for fun.

Which is what usually draws me to the pool–fun. I find that swimming is even better than running for clearing my head. When I’m feeling really stressed or preoccupied or just unable to concentrate on writing, 30 or 40 minutes in the pool wipes my mind clean and leaves me calm and relaxed and focused.

It’s partly the rhythm of swimming–stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe. Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe. The repetition is hypnotic. The constant focus on breathing is soothing, too–exhale through the nose, inhale through the mouth. Three beats out, one beat in. Repeat.

The black line in the bottom of the pool is also part of the equation. Swimming in open water, while it’s one of my favorite things to do in the whole wide world, is just not as zen–I have to think about navigation, water conditions, wildlife, etc. None of those things are bad, but they’re distractions, and if the goal is to empty my mind, I don’t want distractions.

Mostly, though, it’s the water. I think humans just have some kind of deep instinct that makes us love water. If you don’t love to swim, you probably love a hot tub, or a long soak in the bath. We love the sound of a babbling brook, a waterfall, waves crashing on the beach, rain pattering on the roof.

It seems to be inborn. When my children were tiny, one of my favorite sayings was “Cranky baby? Just add water.” The sound of water running into the sink can calm a fussy newborn. A splash in the tub can soothe an older baby. A big bucket of water can entertain a toddler. It’s just part of being human–water makes us feel better.

So next time your mental wheels are spinning unproductively, or you’re feeling like stabbing your office mate, make your way to the nearest body of water, and see if it doesn’t help.

Good Monday, y’all.

*yawn*

Don’t you hate that feeling?  The Monday morning alarm seems to ring earlier than any other day of the week.

I sleep late on the weekends as often as I can (I have teenagers, so sleeping late is a luxury I can indulge in), but when Monday rolls around, I still don’t want to get up when I have to.  This past weekend, the phone woke me up at 9:30 on Saturday when Lee’s brother called; 5 minutes later, it rang again–when I saw my brother’s number on the caller ID, I thought I’d entered some strange fraternal twilight zone.  That call turned out to be a small child.

I work out 6 days most weeks; my body is getting too old and creaky to go hard for a whole week without a break.  Recovery is the key to athletic longevity, so I’m careful to get at least one day off.  And part of recovery is SLEEP, so I try to get the day off on a day I can sleep late–thus my lazy Saturday mornings.  When the working-out morphs into marathon-training, the need for sleep just escalates.

Athletes, though, aren’t the only people who need to pay attention to sleep habits.  It turns out most Americans are at least a little sleep-deprived.  That whole 8-hours-a-night thing?  It’s not just a myth, invented to make you feel guilty.  It’s the rare person who can function optimally on less than about 8 hours of sleep per night.  Kids (right on up through the teenage years) need considerably more than that.  I know plenty of people who think they’re doing just fine on 6 or 7 hours, but they’re not–and the long-term effects of even minor sleep deprivation are insidious.

One of the major education components of the Healthy Lifestyles program at Duke is teaching kids (and their parents) that they need more sleep.  Sleep deprivation disrupts the body’s endocrine system.  if you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter, you probably remember how funky you felt the next morning–hungry, cold, shaky–that’s your body’s hormones going haywire.  Interestingly, one thing that happens when we don’t get enough sleep is weight gain.  Sleep-deprived brains don’t send and receive messages efficiently, so we don’t always understand the signals that govern our appetites.

If that’s not enough to make you insist on getting your beauty rest, I give up.

These are toes.

These are my toes (and Delaney’s, and her friend’s) at the beach.

Technically, we weren’t playing hooky, because Delaney is out of school.  But we left Lee and Toby at home, doing Useful And Important Things, and we played on the beach for the day.

Playing is good.  Sometimes, when you start to feel your shoulders hovering up around your earlobes, you just need to decompress.  A little bit of goofing off usually does the trick for me.

Bonus points for sand, waves, and a clear blue horizon.

I happened to see a tweet yesterday–Jet Blue was having a sale:  all remaining seats for Tuesday and Wednesday for just ten dollars each.  My first instinct was to call and mention it to Lee, who was at lunch.  He sounded dubious about it, and distracted by whomever he was chatting with (I didn’t ask).

But just out of curiosity, I surfed on over to the Jet Blue website, and sure enough–there was the sale info.  Still just curious, I checked on a Raleigh to New York flight.  I’ve gone to Manhattan for the day several times before–there’s something kind of glamorous (in an utterly exhausting way) about waking up in my bed, having lunch in New York, and being back home to tell the children goodnight.

There they were:  a direct flight out of RDU at 6 am (okay, a little on the early side, but I’d be in the city for breakfast . . .), and a direct flight home at 9:45 pm.  Time enough for an early dinner before heading to the airport.  Brilliant.

And . . . I blinked.  I thought, “Well, that’s interesting.  Whaddaya know, I could go to New York tomorrow.”  And I got up and made myself a salad, and started thinking about how fun that would be.  I called Lee back to see if he’d be interested, and, still distracted, he said sure.  Whatever.

They were gone.  The only cheap seats left involved a five-hour flight with a layover in Boston, which sort of defeats the purpose.  Damn.

Five minutes later, when I thought about how much fun that would have been, I was kicking myself.  A whole day playing hooky in the city, with my one-and-only.  For a grand total of forty dollars!  How could I have let that slip through my fingers??

My disappointment right now is an actual, physical pain.

One of these days, I’m going to grow up and stop hesitating.  I’m going to learn to take a risk–make an executive decision–be spontaneous.

That’s my plan.

I got up this morning with no idea what to write for today’s post.  I’m casting about for an idea for my next novel, so my brain is all tied up in knots.  I have limited bandwidth for deep-thinking activities; trying to pursue two completely different trains of creative thought was just blocking all thought entirely.

So I thought I’d go for a nice long walk in the woods, to clear out the mental cobwebs and get some focus.  I headed over to the nature preserve near our house.  There was a sign at the entrance–watch out for copperheads.  So my peaceful, easy ramble morphed into an exercise in laser-like focus on the ground immediately surrounding my feet.  I walked along in high-alert mode for half an hour or so before I started to relax a bit, having had a grand total of zero good ideas–not for the blog, or the new novel (or anything else, for that matter).  Mostly I just wondered about copperhead nesting habits and camouflage tricks.

Suddenly, after about 45 minutes, I heard a loud crashing in the undergrowth, and caught a flicker of movement off to my left.  I stopped, wondering how snakes could make that much noise, and peered into the dim green shade of the woods.  It took me a minute to realize that I was seeing a deer, paused, perfectly still.  Two more came bounding across the trail from the right, and the three of them just stood, stock-still, watching me watching them.  I’ve never been that close to deer before, out in the wilds of suburbia.

Two more walkers caught up and passed me, and still the deer and I stood there, checking each other out, not moving a muscle.  I had my Blackberry, and thought about whipping it out to try to take a picture, but then I had a small epiphany:  the moment itself was much more interesting–and meaningful–than any photograph would ever be.  Some things can’t really be captured, and just need to be experienced.  It was one of those moments.

I remembered, out of the blue, a revelatory moment  Lee and I witnessed years ago, not long after we were married.  We went on a whale-watching trip in Hawaii–one of those deals where you go out on a boat for the day, and they try to find whales so the customers can catch a glimpse of a broad, dark back rolling through the sea, but they can’t promise, and there are all kinds of disclaimers and policies about the fact that sometimes the whales just don’t show up.  We thought, what the heck.  If we see whales, great, and if we don’t, at least we’ll have had a nice day on a boat.

The whales were amazing.  Stunning.  Breathtaking.  They put on a show right in front of us–rolling, frolicking, blowing up fountains of spray, rocketing out of the water, and smashing their huge bodies back down again.  The most memorable, beautiful moment was when two breached, simultaneously, passing each other in mid-air, and belly-flopped back into the ocean.  We just watched, slack-jawed.

There was a family on the boat–mom, dad, and two older kids.  The kids were bored and mildly seasick, so they had retreated to the tiny cabin below-deck (note:  if you are ever seasick, going below-deck is the single worst thing you can do; I never understood why the parents didn’t just tell them to stay up top and watch the horizon).  Dad was all excited about recording the whole thing on his fancy new video camera (this was the very early 90s).  Mom kept telling him to look, and he kept saying it was okay, he’d watch the video later.  He was so focused on that camera.

When he rewound it to see that double breach?  Nothing.  It hadn’t recorded.  He had missed it.

It’s been almost twenty years, but I remember those two whales vividly.  Hopefully twenty years from now, I’ll remember the deer I saw this morning, and the memory will give me as much peace as the moment did today.  I know that a photo certainly couldn’t have captured it.

The rest of my walk was lovely–I was clear-headed and light-footed, and got home all blissed-out and calm.*

*Too calm, perhaps–I later opened the garage door, so I could take out the garbage, and didn’t notice that the big metal door hadn’t gone all the way up.  I walked smack into it, beaming myself in the head.