A Boring Day

But look at these Estonian owls!
http://pontu.eenet.ee/player/kakk.html

Excitement: 3, Boredom: 3.

A Magic Cake Does Not a Day Magical Make

This was not an amazing day. I got lots done, I tidied the bedroom which was long overdue, re-potted a thousand plants (I LOVE to exaggerate, so there must have been some twenty plants at most), did the laundry (which is currently getting wetter and wetter on the clothes line outside) and baked a Magic Cake. It was a failure, it flattened down and I know why. It's my oven. I can't possibly bake anything that requires low heat. There were no layers that are supposed to be the essence of this cake, and it tasted like a very eggy vanilla custard. The kids wolfed it down, so it was not a Total Failure, but it's a cake I won't try baking again. Not because of the deflated, pathetic look but because I'm not particularly fond of custard cakes. Enough about the cake. Let me tell you about the hugely exciting thing I did... Ah, but wait. I didn't do anything exciting today. Apart from stumbling on a list of goals. On six lists of goals, to be precise. "A Five Year Plan", "A Ten Year Plan", "A Twenty Year Plan", "An 18 Month Plan", "A Business Plan" and "A Plan for Higher Education Degrees that are Supposed to Make Me Rich, Thin and Fulfilled". You know the type. I reread the plans. I have no idea when I've written them, but that's the bonus of having a poor memory - every little old thing seems fresh and exciting.

As I know that nobody is reading what I write I might just as well include some of those plans here, since they are really good. They even have deadlines. Trouble is, I have no idea of the starting date, so those deadlines might just as well be infinite. The plans must be quite recent - it's a 2013 calendar.

I won't show you my 18-month plan, but it's a great one. It seems like it's been written by another human being (one that still has a handwriting, for that matter), and I think I might really try to do the things that are there. Thinking about me gets me kind of excited.

Actually I'm beginning to think I just have too much sex. Things don't get me as excited as they did when I wasn't married to the sexiest man alive. On the other hand, giving up the daily dose might shake up the things in my life that are already great to begin with. I don't want my husband to "have thoughts", basically that is the reason we have that "daily dose". I could boast we have so much sex because I'm hugely attractive, but unfortunately that's not the case - in fact I am just huge. I insist on sex every day just so that I can feel OK in my own skin and can feel more or less sure of our relationship.

Celibacy seems kind of tempting right now. Just like a diet seems interesting right after you've had a hundred pieces of Magic Cake (I am the queen of exaggerations, but if I told you I had just one, it wouldn't be an exaggeration, it would be a full-blown lie). What if I suggested we should abstain until his birthday? That's on Friday. It's Monday now. Nah, that could never work. Or could it? Suppose I tell my husband of 11 years, the father of my two kids this:

Anyway, all this talk of sex and plans makes me want to work. I'm now translating a German soap called "Wege zum Glueck", and there's a dialogue that runs a little bit like this:
Man: How can you know all my wishes and fears, my desires and whatnot? You lie here naked (almost, it's not THAT kind of soap) in front of me, making me all horny'n'stuff. How do you do that?
Woman: I can guess your darkest secrets... your fantasies... I can fulfill your desires... It's my job. I make my living that way.
Man: OMG, are you a whore?!
Woman (very slowly and seductively): No, I am a psychologist. Police psychologist.

I knew psychologists could read minds and fulfill fantasies! I'm going to be a Psychologist Superheroine, fulfilling fantasies, looking all sexy and naked and stuff! Wait, what? That's a whore?

Excitement: 2, Boredom: 2.

No Progress, No Excitement

As the researchers have found, in order to feel happy we need to know what we want and to feel we are progressing towards that goal. So there are two ways to be unhappy - not to move towards a goal or not to know what we want.
I have to say, I more or less know what I want. However, I've often thought that hard work makes me less happy than rest and relaxation. I must have been quite wrong, and today was a perfect proof of that.
The things I consider my goals are getting thin, rich and fulfilled. The fulfillment goal is kind of vague and hazy, it varies a lot and can depend on many things. Sometimes gardening makes me feel fulfilled, sometimes it's meeting people or doing other things I love. This day, however, was spent on quite mundane tasks, since it was cold and raining outside. I sewed some buttons and hooks, and mended some torn clothes. I replanted a whole lot of tiny lobelia and petunia seedlings, dealt with the dishes and kids, and so on. The only thing even remotely brave and exciting was pruning my poor oleander that was completely out of control. I had been afraid to prune it for months, since it had the new growth which would bloom in summer. But it looked so spindly and weak, and covered in mealybugs that I decided to go against all advice and prune it in spring, not in September after blooming. Here's the "after" picture. I have to say, sorry and pathetic though it looks, it's much much better than before.

That is not my idea of excitement, though, and I didn't do any money work, either.
I'm wasting my time before going to bed now, and I know how I could still make this day exciting in the last hour that's left of it. I have a children's book in the making that's just begging for the second chapter, but for some reason it's been more than 9 months since I wrote the first chapter. I haven't been able to get down to writing because it's so exciting to write that it's utterly overwhelming.
Or I could just go and wash my hair, and deem this day completely unexciting, if not just downright boring.

Excitement: 2, Boredom: 1.