Sunday, July 26, 2009

how i spent my summer vacation

What I was supposed to do this weekend was proofread. What I did do was lie on the couch watching four episodes of Gossip Girl in the middle of a beautiful, sunny day, and clean the house.

Here's what happened: I got up nice and early Saturday morning so I could go to the farmers market before I started working. It began innocently enough -- baby artichokes and heirloom greens, cheese to bring to Mojie's for dinner and samosas for the yachtsman. But I started to feel like there was something missing. Something I wanted but could not name. I wandered from stand to stand looking for it. I bought bok choy and carrots and new potatoes. I sampled spicy pretzels and basil hummus. And yet I was still full of want. I continued to wander, thinking that when I saw the thing I longed for I would know what it was.

But while contemplating a pint of sour cherries, I realized what I was missing was fruit. Not blueberries or raspberries or sour cherries. F*ck sour cherries. What I wanted was a peach. A juicy, sink-your-teeth-in, juice-dribbling-down-your-chin peach. I wanted to eat that peach, and then I wanted to eat another. I wanted to eat a peach every day for a month. I wanted to eat peaches until I was sick of peaches.

But there are no peaches in Vermont. There are berries and there are sour cherries. There are sad little plums. So I bought a chocolate frosted donut.


Which made me feel ill. And not just sick to my stomach or full. I was depressed. When I got home I tried to go into my office and work, but it was like there was a forcefield between me and that red pen. And there was also a Siren calling me to the couch. So at 10:00 on Saturday morning, I put on my Couch Jedi outfit, laid down on the couch, and proceeded to watch the last four episodes of Season 2 of Gossip Girl.

You may call it lazy procrastination; I call it a vision quest. There were low points where I questioned the meaning of life (for example the '80s flashback episode, which was so bad I had to fast forward through most of it). There were moments where I thought I could do anything -- wear headbands, live in New York, play basketball in a velour sweatsuit. But on a bathroom break during the season finale as I tripped over the yachtsman's winter boots, which were wrapped in a plastic garbage bag because they'd recently been sprayed with a fire extinguisher, I had a realization: I'd spent the first sunny day in weeks watching TV, and we were living in actual squalor. So I saw Blair and Chuck and Serena and Dan through their senior year, and then I cleaned the house.

I still want a peach.

4 comments:

  1. The Pennsylvania peaches at Healthy Living are completely delicious right now. And although not local, they do not require fuel to get here because they are hauled on the backs of squirrels heading to my birdfeeder.

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  2. That donut looks delicious, but then again the plums were delicious too - so probably anything non-peach would depress you! This Junior Jedi is following in your footsteps this evening, though, and will hopefully be watching several, consecutive GG episodes! I'm inspired by your vision quest.

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  3. Shaman Chuck Bass will guide you to life fulfillment and the answers to all of your spiritual questions. That's how it worked for me, anyway.

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  4. I gotta tell you, that donut seems to thick. Too fluffy. I like either a cake donut or to cut the donut part in half so it's not so fluffy.

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