Gray day thoughts

I have become a dull and uninteresting blogger. I don't know when this happened...I used to think about blogging in my head, deciding on opening sentences for my posts, ending them with funny quotes that people I loved had said in the past few days, wondering how people would react to my more serious topics. But suddenly I'm just not doing it. And it shows. The amount of blogging I've done this year is significantly less than before--and I am certainly less busy than I was when I was in college. What's going on? Does life become an uninteresting blur of sameness after college? Am I just noticing and observing less? Am I stuck in a rut? I'm not sure. (Well, ok, I am here to tell you that life is not an uninteresting blur of sameness--that's just Northern Indiana.)

It's not that things aren't happening to me. Today I woke naturally without an alarm intruding on my dreams. I biked downtown when it was sunny this morning to run errands. A book I've been wanting to read for awhile (Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo) was innocently waiting on the new books shelf for me at the library. Organic strawberries, bulk walnuts, and free expired hummus awaited me at the co-op. I returned home and whipped up some killer chocolate chip and walnut banana bread in honour of my lovely housemate Kirsten's day of birth. I biked down the mill race a bit for a picnic with James under a bland, gray sky. He pointed out birds that I could not see without my glasses. We consumed an entire carton of organic strawberries, the last of a bar of quality dark chocolate, and homemade bread with smoked gouda cheese. We saw our cousins who go to Bethany walking on the millrace with their biology class--they are freshmen in high school mind you--and both acknowledged our presence, one yelling hello to James and one waving with quite large hand motions. This is big news, my friends, publicly demonstrative freshmen boys are few and hard to find. We came home and drank tea while completing crossword puzzles as housemate Kimberly groaned at our obsession, but still pitched in to complete a few clues. An afternoon of errand running turned nostalgic when I bought the children's book George and Martha at the library for 25 cents. I eagerly anticipate a homemade dinner by Alana, and The Office season finale on NBC this evening.

Earlier this week I played fashion consultant with two other women in order to clothe my clothing-challenged boyfriend in suitable clothes for wearing outside the Goshen world. I often regret that this Goshen world is not universal. Today I went out to run errands in my Merry Lea pants, a pair covered with mysterious stains gained from a worm classification/soil research project and a stream classification/identification project two May terms ago, and didn't even blink an eye. A wedding etiquette book told us (The Spain) today that it is a faux pas to spend less than $50 for a wedding gift. For all the weddings of friends that I have attended, I have split a $50 gift between several people. Goshen culture is good, but not readily accepted in all parts of our society. Thus, I own "professional" or "teacher" clothes for work that I rarely wear outside of that setting. These clothes are often a little less "me" than I would like. So I take my current opportunities to look grungy seriously.

Hm. Perhaps my problem is that I do not allow myself the time to sit down and ramble in text in the new post box. It reminds me of a chain of stream of consciousness emails that Veloris, Drew Herstam, and I sent to each other during my second year of college. Giving yourself the space and time to ramble allows you to end up with surprising things.