A Girl's Weekend (And Then Some)

 Lady feet in the water.

Friday afternoon I left the Twin Cities metro area with two of my closest lady friends, Kimi and Tracy. We headed up to northern Wisconsin to Tracy's family cabin, a beautiful house in the middle of the woods with a lake just down the hill from the front door. Internet access was spotty, nearly non-existent. The closest town was barely a town but was home to an amazing Co-op and Eatery that I would go back to right now if it was in my area. We spent our two short days there drinking, eating really good food, swimming and lounging in the lake and on the dock, and just chatting away. (Oh, and we watched The Devil Wears Prada, which is such a horrible movie for women. Just horrible.)

 Lake views.

Wine in the woods.

It was good to get away. It had been a long time. I did miss my husband and dog terribly and I got a little scared the second night when I was maybe a little too sober to sleep alone in a big bed in the most absolute darkness in the middle of the woods. So much so that I had to get up and move to the couch upstairs. But it was good to get away. It is more and more incredibly difficult for me to disconnect from the internet and social media. And it's no fault of those applications. I just cannot tear myself away. But I was forced to and it was good for me.

 Night one. I don't remember taking this picture.

And I actually read a book...well I am reading it. It had been way too long. The Internet and music and dvds keep me from reading. I started it up at the cabin and am still trying to finish it. And it is very much a trying because I'm not really enjoying it very much. It is The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. I loved his two other books (The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex) but this one is incredibly dry and meandering. I feel like I'm reading a term paper disguised as a novel. I can find no plot to speak of. And I normally don't mind books or stories that are just glimpes into the lives of people, but maybe I'm just not enjoying these particular lives. I also feel like I'm missing something, which makes me feel stupid. And nobody likes to feel stupid.

When I finally had internet access again, I learned the results of the Trayvon Martin case, that a woman I know who is very good friends of good friends of mine was hit by car while riding her bicycle and was in critical condition, and that a young actor from Glee died of an apparent drug overdose. Sad news all around. It made me want to go back to being unplugged. Blissful ignorance.

Now I am filled with the post-vacation blues. Trying to figure out what's next and what I can do to make my general life more like vacation life. Isn't that the dream? Not that I want to sit and drink my days away every day, but just to not have the daily obligations and unnecessary stress that comes from not doing exactly what you want to do. I vacation so infrequently (this was my first one in two years and it was only a three day weekend) that it makes it hard to rationalize the work stress and daily grind that I go through that is supposed to make life easier. I work to play, right? I work so I can have money to do the things I want to do. But when I work and work and work and stress and stress and stress and still nothing gets fixed, vacations aren't taken, music isn't made, instrument upgrades aren't purchased, home comforts are left un-bought, one has to wonder what the point of all of the stress and grind is? Because no matter how much I work, I still can't seem to come up with money to buy tickets to go back to London. Or to get a new computer. Or to buy a winter coat.

And there I go again. Complaining. Whining. It just happens. I don't know how to stop it.

But I don't like it.

But I don't know how to fix it.

I need a vacation.