We went with Jeremy and Elizabeth to see The Matrix on Friday. At least six people had told me it was an amazing, awesome movie and that I should go see it. (At least three of these people tried to bribe me with the Star Wars preview, but these people have never worked in movie theaters, so they didn't know what I know - that the theater picks the trailers, not the movie distributors. We did not see the Star Wars trailer.) Anyway, it was a fun movie. Unfortunately, having six people go out of their way to tell me about it - one of them Jeremy, who has been praising it since he saw it for the first time two weeks ago - had me ready for the spectacle of the year. Instead, it was just a fun movie with some stellar special effects. I think if I'd seen it based on just one or two recommendations, I wouldn't have felt quite so nebulous about it. The more I thought about it this weekend, the more I realized that was the case. But on the way home from the movie, I nitpicked at the stuff that bothered me about it, and Matt got irritable at me. (I can't blame him. I once yelled at my mom for the same thing, for a much less worthy movie.) Oh, well.
Saturday we went to KT and Kevin's "Kitchen Sink" party. (So-called because the reasons for the party included at least two birthdays, a house-warming, and an anniversary.) It was laid-back and fun - everyone brought food and we ate and drank and talked until quite late. Matt and I left around midnight only because I was starting to feel tired and our anniversary was Sunday. (If I hadn't felt tired, we'd have stayed longer. If our anniversary wasn't Sunday, we might have stuck around and crashed on the couch.)
Sunday was our first anniversary. Matt's mom, my brother, and Matt's brother all e-mailed to wish us a happy. Our friend Karen sent us an e-card, and my parents dropped by the apartment unexpectedly. We felt very loved. I gave Matt a lot of fun little things, and he gave me a gold necklace to keep my wedding rings on. (I've lost enough weight in the last six months that the rings are quite loose, and I decided I'd rather keep them on a chain until I'm done losing weight, rather than have them resized every six weeks or so.) He was very sweet about it, too - he drove me down to the church where we got married to give it to me. And we went out to dinner last night at the Outback, which was fun. I had a sweet potato instead of a baked potato with my steak, which was really yummy. I should eat more sweet potatoes.
I'm going to be taking Thursday and Friday this week off, so I may not post. I've been feeling burned out and dissatisfied with a lot of things just lately, and I'm going to take some time off to relax and hopefully re-center. I've been waffling over this for a bit - the last time I took a day off it didn't do me a lot of good, because I didn't actually relax. But Saturday night at KT's party, Carl was telling us about his idea of heaven, and how he likes to relax, and while it would take too long to go over the whole thing, his theory was that for real relaxation, you should force yourself to do nothing for a whole day. Maybe several days. An excerpt: "I woke up one morning and wondered what I was going to do that day, and I decided I'd watch the sun come up, and then I'd watch it go down again. So I did." He recommended that I pack a picnic lunch and take a book and go to the park and just sit for the whole day. He said, "You'll go bug-nuts for the first couple of hours with nothing to do. But then you'll be sittin' there reading your book, and a squirrel will run up a tree or somethin' and distract you, and you'll put down your book and watch it. You'll forget about the book and just sit there and watch that damn squirrel until the sun goes down." Now, I'm not a do-nothing kind of person. I can get wrapped up in a book, but even then I usually only read for a few hours before I get restless. So I sortof smiled and nodded at Carl and thought that I was glad it worked for him, but that there was no way I could do any such thing.
But the more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me. Maybe it's what I really need - to force myself not to do anything for a day or so. Matt even agreed that if I took time off and stayed home, I'd probably get all restless and distracted with things that needed to be done. So I'm taking Thursday and Friday off, and on Thursday morning I'll pack myself a picnic lunch and I'll go to the park down the street and find myself a cozy spot to sit, and I'll be there all day. (Assuming the weather cooperates. If it's rainy or too cold, I'll go to my parents' house and borrow their back porch, and I'll sit staring out into the trees behind their house and listen to the rain fall and pet their fat cat.) What I do on Friday depends on how well Thursday works. But either way, I probably won't post.
I feel better just thinking about it, actually.
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