box of Jack

My plan for today to go out and pick up some random gifts for people. It would involve a walk down to Pike Place Market and then maybe further walking to South Lake Union. In between, I’d do lunch at the Elliott Bay Bookstore and then grab a latte to go. How delightful and carefree.

Except here I was lying on my couch at noon, wearing a ratty old pair of sweatpants. My blinds were drawn shut because I felt like falling asleep again. I drifted in and out of sleep, having some oddball dream about living with my family inside my tiny apartment instead of the big comfortable house we have. I remember helping my father find which channel Cops was on.

Waking up at 2 in the afternoon, I felt like crap. My head was throbbing, I felt disoriented and there was every temptation to ignore it and go back to sleep. Somewhere in my brain, common sense kicked in and I decided this horrible feeling was dehydration, so I got up and downed a pint of water.

I stared at a blank spot on my wall and I wondered how I could possibly motivate myself to leave my darkened apartment. The errand seemed so pointless, the walk was too far and the weather was not welcoming. Then I figured it out: I have new albums to listen to! I could load up all this new music and walking around would be the perfect excuse to really listen to it all.

See, this is how my brain works. I actually love walking but it’s not something that motivates me. Music does, though. I love music. I remember when we were at Venus Bay and Paul had that music quiz book and five (six?) of us stayed up yelling answers, bursting into song and getting all the Bob Dylan questions wrong. There could not have been a better way to spend a summer night at a beach house. Except if everyone was doing shots in between.

So I got all loaded up on the new album from Stars and the third soundtrack from Grey’s Anatomy (shut up) and suddenly I wanted to go outside! And walk and walk and walk. After walking about 6 miles today, I realized just exactly how trapped I felt being stuck in my apartment with an Xbox. The lack of outdoors is putting up all sorts of mental barriers.