you're gonna love my nuts

It's been a long time since I sat in my Couch Jedi outfit at a kitchen table covered with crap and ate gruel a la nuts for dinner. But it's raining (again, still), I haven't had a day off in over a week (which to a Couch Jedi is like not having a day off for almost a year), and our apartment is a veritable sty (the place looks like it's been burglarized and then abandoned and then squatted in: Dirty laundry, random pieces of paper, weeks worth of mail, and other random items spilling from drawers, strewn across furniture, and stacked haphazardly on every available surface; actual piles of dirt, in addition to the customary tufts of dog hair, in all the corners, and a buildup of dust so thick we're gonna need a shovel to get it up; bathrooms the conditions of which I dare not speak).

A normal person would have come home from her ten-hour day (which to a Couch Jedi is like working an eighteen-hour day. In a coalmine.), picked up the house, gone for a jog, made something fresh and summery for dinner, and then spent the evening at the piano playing show tunes while her husband sang along. A Couch Jedi, on the other hand, would strike this normal person down with a light saber, pull on a pair of fleece pants, make gruel a la nuts for dinner, and then retire to the couch for an evening of television watching.


The perfect dessert, of course, would be a nice little serving of Chuck Bass, but the yachtsman isn't having it. He wants to watch a British documentary television program from the nineties about squirrels. Which to a Couch Jedi is like being forced to watch My Dinner With Andre twenty times in a row while being hit in the head with a brick.

sunburn. without a view. unless you count the tv.

I would like to regale you with stories of my 4th of July weekend -- the hours spent reading a trashy murder mystery; the capsized sailboat (the yachtsman blames me, but he was the captain, and I was just following orders); the post-capsize swim in my underwear; the easy, delicious pasta we made for dinner; my wonderful, funny, generous family of in-laws.

But instead I sit here with a freezer pack on top of each thigh, so sunburned I cannot think straight. Or walk straight. Or take these freaking ice packs from my legs. Literally, I remove the ice packs and my thighs are on FIRE. Have I mentioned that I cannot walk? I predict there will be blisters. I am considering stealing some of my dog's pain medication.

So instead of stories, a few photos:

Roasted beet salad with a view

The yachtsman with a view

Tea with a view

BLT with a view (thanks, Sue!)

Couch jedi with a view

workin' hard or hardly workin'?

That is for me to know and you probably never to find out, unless I ever finish The Thing, in which case I will use this as my author photo. Because my feet don't look too heinous in it -- I actually got a pedicure last week at Excellent Nails by Trang. But those sweatpants are hiding some frighteningly pale legs. When I sat down in the massage chair for my pedi, Trang pointed at my legs and said, "You no tan!" and then laughed hysterically while she ran the foot bath. I considered getting back at her by stealing the huge cinnamon-crumble-topped muffin from the shrine to Buddha that sat on the floor, but decided Buddha should not have to suffer for Trang's cruel sense of humor.

By the way, did you know Buddha is a smoker? In addition to incense and a massive muffin, he'd been offered several cigarettes. If I had a household shrine, I would offer Buddha a slice of peanut butter toast, a glass of pink wine, and a laptop, and all I would ask in exchange is that he smite Trang and finish writing this stupid novel.

it's not pretty

Signs I'm getting old:

1. I've changed the settings on my internet browser and in Word to enlarge the text so I can read without squinting my eyes and straining my neck.
2. Chris opened a kitchen cupboard the other day and found my sunglasses on the lazy Susan.
3. My bursitis has been acting up.

Shall I go on?

4. We were going to see a friend play music last night but could not stay up.
5. Chris is worried I'm going to damage the floor shuffling around in my slippers.


6. I wear slippers. All the time. And my Couch Jedi outfit is so comfortable, I may skip the mom jeans and go straight to granny pants. That's right: I'm starting to think elastic waistbands are a viable sartorial option.
7. I play bridge. Like someone with dementia.

I blame all of this on moving back to Vermont. And raising all these kids (your mind just goes!). And, um, the drugs? I think I'm going to start doing drugs.

grueling day at the office

I wore a power suit to work today (please note that the socks match the sweatpants), and on the off chance that location is my problem, I tried working on the couch instead of at my desk. Yesterday, also hoping for a geographical cure, I left the house entirely and camped out at the lovely Sapa teahouse.

It actually sort of worked, though I had to put on what I call "street pants" (jeans), which was a little more effort than I could exert today.

the student becomes the master

For once in our lives, Chris actually had to come to me for tech support yesterday. I may not be able to synch my iPod or change channels on our TV, and sometimes my e-mail just "disappears" and I need Chris to find it, but in some areas my technological expertise exceeds his. For example, I know exactly where to place a stamp on a envelope. iPhone Boy, not so much.

Chris had to pay a bill using an actual check and the Pony Express, which required lots of pieces of paper that he didn't have. Lucky for him, I could provide the piece of paper that is a check, the specially folded piece of paper that is an envelope, and the little tiny piece of paper with glue on the back that is a stamp. He does appear to know how to use a pen, but when it came to placing the stamp, he got confused.

Chris [holding the stamp uncertainly above the envelope]: "Where do I put this thing?"

Me: "You're kidding me."

Chris: "Here?" [Holds stamp in the air above the upper-left-hand corner.]

Me: "Wait, are you serious?"

Chris: "It's here, right?" [About to put the stamp where the return address does.]

Me: "Oh my god, really?"

Chris: [Moves the stamp to the spot where people have been pasting stamps since 1840] "Here?"

Me: [Mouth ajar, speechless.]

Chris: "Never mind. I'll google it."

synchronicity

While I was honing my Couch Jedi skills this afternoon, Chris was at the hardware store buying a squeegee to clean the very windows I was taking photos of from the couch. And instead of peeling me a grape when he got home, Chris actually washed those windows.


Lucky for all of us here at Gruel for Dinner, I was able to take that photo without stepping off the Millennium Falcon that is my couch (I'm going to work this metaphor to the bone), although I did have to pause my show.

I was finally forced off the mothership when Chris stuck his head in the window (at this point he was out on the roof washing the south-facing windows) and requested that I go ask the neighbor if she wanted her windows washed (who is this man, and how did I convince him to marry me? In my world, neighbors are people you pretend you don't see when you're standing next to them in the elevator). Out of some misplaced sense of guilt I did as he asked, completely forgetting that I WAS WEARING MY JEDI OUTFIT.

In case it's unclear, I just knocked on my neighbor's door wearing high-water orange fleece pants; striped socks; clogs that are at least two sizes too small, forcing me to walk in a shuffle; and a stained pink sweater with gaping holes in the armpits. The neighbor actually looked scared when she answered.

There goes the neighborhood.

couch with a view

I was planning today to upload before-and-after photos of our apartment, but this would require that I (a) get off the couch and take the "after" photos and (b) get off the couch, find the jump drive, and move the "before" photos from Chris's computer to my computer. And I just don't think all of this getting-off-the-couch business is going to happen. The urge to lie here is strong in me, much like the Force was strong in young Luke Skywalker. I'm not lazy, I'm a Couch Jedi, and like Luke, who used his power to fight the Dark Side, I, too, am using my innate gifts, namely to lie here with the computer on my stomach while I download an episode of Gossip Girl.

So instead of the before-and-after tour, I offer you the following, photos I was able to take without disrupting my Couch Jedi training.

Views out two of our windows (the Flynn Theater sign is one of my favorite things about this apartment...



though I also love the geometry of fire escapes and duct work and roof lines out the window next to it).


And while I know that with this photo I will have exposed myself as a Crazy Pet Lady, I am woman enough to acknowledge that I am both a Crazy Pet Lady and a Couch Jedi.


My Couch Jedi Master Gossip Girl is ready now, and I dare not keep her waiting.