Update after very nearly a month of married life

This morning I decided to drive instead of take the bus(1), because the forecast was for 97-degree weather today and I didn’t want to walk to/from the bus stop in such heat(2). As it turned out, I drove next to the bus the whole way, and arrived at campus slightly after it did: my punishment for not doing my part today to preserve the environment. At least I got to listen to Etta James for fifty minutes instead of standing on the bus clutching my lunch bag. LA is so weird. The first half of my commute to campus took forty minutes. The second half took ten. Why the difference? I have no idea.

I know I haven’t been writing very much lately, after about a week or so of near-daily updates. I’m sleepy today, so I sort of feel like I should be offering my default excuse — lack of energy — to explain the dearth of updates, except that that’s not really why I haven’t been updating. The true, and extremely novel (for me) reason, is that lately I just haven’t been at my computer as often as I used to be. This is definitely a new development. I’ve been addicted to the internet for so long, I don’t really understand why its charm has started to dissipate, unless it’s that I have — *gasp* — actually begun to grasp the appeal of the real world.

Here’s what a normal week used to look like, for me:
Monday – go to school, come home, surf the internet, do computery things like blog or edit pictures, eat, sleep.
Tuesday – surf the internet, do computery things, eat, go to school, come home, eat, surf the internet, sleep.
Wednesday – repeat Monday’s schedule.
Thursday – surf the internet, do computery things, eat, sleep.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – repeat Thursday’s schedule.

Or something like that.

In the past couple of weeks, this is what has gradually come to replace my internet addiction:
Private Pilates classes.
Walks in Runyon Canyon with Erik and Jackie(3).
Cooking and baking (which I’d stopped doing for a while when I got really busy shindig-planning).(4)
Playing with the kitties.
Running around town piano-shopping with Erik(5).
Running around town furniture-shopping with Erik.
*gasp* Actual research!
*gasp* Actual schoolwork!
Hanging out inside the apartment, rearranging, organizing, and just plain nesting.

It’s been so enjoyable, just moving around and doing more active or more purposeful things, that I can’t say I exactly miss the old days of sitting on my butt and doing nothing. I’m exercising more and sitting less, and this results in me not being as tight or as lethargic as before… which results in my wanting to do more and sit less. It’s a win-win situation all around, and I am loving it!(6)

This is not to say that I’m not still on the computer a lot, but these days when I am, I’m there with a purpose: to resize the shindig pictors Carlo sent us(7), to catch up with news and blogs via RSS feeds, to print out articles for school, etc. I’m not just sitting there playing Spider Solitaire because I know I have lots of stuff to do but just haven’t quite figured out what to do first yet (though there is still a very respectable, or perhaps unrespectable, amount of Spider Solitaire going on).

But yes, the unfortunate side effect of this cheerfully active and purposeful new me is that I don’t get around to writing in my journal as much as I used to. I’ve enjoyed writing this entry, however, so hopefully my life is becoming balanced enough to make room for all the things I want to do, as well as all the ones I have to do.

If this is what marriage does, I highly recommend it.(8)

(1) You should go see An Inconvenient Truth, the new documentary on global warming starring Al Gore, like I did, and then you, too, will be forecasting imminent death for us all and taking public transportation and using reusable grocery bags and recycling for all you’re worth.
(2) As of now, it is still overcast like it was when I got up this morning. The temperature can be described as “muggy” — at worst — definitely not a 97-degree scorcher like Saturday was.
(3) This is partly why I’m so sleepy today. Brisk uphill walks on hot days are really enervating, did you know? As well as energizing?
(4) Which reminds me, sometime I want to share my recipe for Hot and Sour Soup. It’s good for cold days, hot days, any day when it might be nice to have your mouth be on fire!
(5) We found one and it’s going to be delivered on Wednesday!
(6) It’s not just the exercise, though. I do have to thank my Pilates trainer for helping me get realigned — my back, and my shoulders, have never felt better.
(7) 325+ down, 200+ more to go!
(8) Actually I just put that in as a catchy ending line. I don’t think it’s the married life that’s making me so well-balanced, it’s the joy of a school year coming to an end, a partner and all the stability he (and his income, let’s be truly if brutally honest) brings, and the peace and leisure of no longer having the shindig hanging over me. Life is sweet.

[This post was imported on 4/10/14 from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]