sunday morning.

i wake to the fits and spurts of a heater coming to life for the first time this season. it must be cold out, brisk at best. but my room is warm and safe.

i wander into the living room. pull up the blinds. oh how that blue of the sky undoes me. the trees across the way there...heaven. something about that golden glow of an october morning.

into the kitchen, the cold tiles kissing my bare feet. i put on a pot of coffee. there is the smell of fresh paint in there. i wonder who was painting, what was done.

i find my way back into my room. following the grid of wood grain. turning corners. a symphony of creaks. the room smells of sleep. i crack the window. gather my laundry.

down the elevator to the basement. the painted gray cement and slow grumble of the machines.

there's something about sunday mornings. the quiet. the pliable nature of time on this one day. it is restorative. holy. a time trap in which a million possibilities are made manifest. the great gift of the week that simultaneously ends and begins another set of seven days.

i suppose i could write about...

how i've never worked so hard at so many different things as i did this last week.

and how i then proceeded to sleep through the weekend.

or how a new job as me wearing heels for the first time in three, four years, maybe? (my feet are aching).

how my parents brought me a twelve day supply (exactly one case) of pellegrino yesterday.

and how after exactly one brunch in my tiny little corner of northern manhattan with my mother, father, grandfather and a plate of huevos rancheros i am left me feeling unbelievably homesick.

how my living room is now filled with my grandmother's furniture. dark wood. pieces that look just like the stuff i grew up with. a living history in a new location.

or how i slept on a friend's couch last night so i could make it to the early physique class at spring street.

how i've been thinking a lot about love lately. or like. or attraction. and i keep coming back to the wise words of paulo coelho: one is loved because one is loved. no reason is needed for loving. because isn't it funny how what makes one person attractive is simultaneously a turn-off on someone else? thank god love can't ever really be defined. if it could, it probably wouldn't be worth it.

so i could write about all these things.

but i haven't the time.

life's moving so quickly. and i must stick my mahi burger in the oven and answer some emails and put on some heels because i surely don't wanna be late to work.

broken screen

i got home from work thursday night at two in the morning.

and then woke the next morning around 7:30 to find i had shattered my computer screen. yup, shattered. don't ask how.

i then proceeded to sleep twelve hours friday night. and twelve again on saturday.

i've been feeling overwhelmed and stretched and exhausted. the past week has felt like three. and it's been so great because i'm busy and working hard and really taking the time to do good things for myself. but i need to find a balance.

i can't imagine i'll be doing much blogging this week since my computer is in the careful hands of those mac genius guys.

so until then...

for today, a thought.

"Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry."

Catcher in the Rye

it isn't education. it's history. of course. we learn from our own. we learn from others. and we continue on.

(sent my way via the amazing Red Boots; thank you, thank your for this reminder!)

you turn 25 and get creative. (or you turn 25 and find life is still hard and you must get a bit savvier about it).

time is slipping through my fingers.

i leave in the morning and am gone for the day.

and that's it.

there's one job. and then another. and then this exercise class on top of errands and meetings and on and on.

and i couldn't be happier to be busy.

even if my schedule is up-in-the-air at best. even if there's no time to run to my apartment in the middle of the day. even if i'm just slightly, just a wee bit overwhelmed. and feeling stretched in one hundred directions. even if i'm tired. very, very tired.

truly, i'm so thankful to be employed and engaged and active.

but it was tonight in the middle of my third-ever physique 57 that i though, oh. my god. i stink. that smell, that smell! is that me?!

upon natalie's suggestion (and encouraged by her gorgeous figure) my friend victoria and i have signed up for the newcomer's monthly unlimited. and we're determined to get our money's worth. and to strengthen our bodies, yeah, yeah.

so we went tonight. together. had to schedule ourselves for an "open" class (which means all levels) as opposed to a beginner's class (our level). we were assured by the receptionist we'd be fine. we could simply choose the easiest level of each position.

now let me be very clear here: this was the first physique class i was unable to laugh through. nope, no laughing. it moved passed the ridiculous to the holy-mother-of-what-have-i-gotten-myself-into. i was sweating bullets after five minutes. my legs were shaking violently at ten. and twenty minutes in i thought if asked to stand on only one leg, one more time, i might actually collapse. it was the first class in which i wanted to cry. a beginner is not an open class prepared for! (at least not this open class, at least not with my lackluster natural ability {not to mention i'm tall and i think that just makes everything more difficult--more body to deal with, more natural weight, and don't even get me started on flexibility}).

but because i have a partner in crime (vic) i returned home tonight knowing i'd have to return tomorrow and those stinky clothes simply would not do. unfortunately i only have the one pair of new balance black spandex.

so i got creative. gathered up my socks and pants and bra, plugged the bathtub, poured a little detergent in, dumped the clothes, and proceeded to take a nice, long, hot shower. walking and stomping on the clothes all-the-while.

and as i did so, i thought, this is how i know i'm twenty-five and really living the dream.

or the life.

or something. i'm livin' something.