minutiae

After dinner tonight I mentioned to my husband that I hadn't achieved my step goal for the day. At the time I was lying on the couch in my pajamas. He said, Well, you could go to Walgreens and get Dora some cat food.

I thought about it for a long minute, and then I got up and went to change. I left the house a few minutes after 8. It was a little cold but otherwise, a quiet, beautiful night. Walgreens isn't that far; it's about a ten minute walk. About half a block away, my Fitbit buzzed that I had reached my goal. I had only needed 250 steps. I considered turning back and just driving there, but I didn't. 

As I walked, I thought about the clothes I had thrown on: a man's zipper hooded sweatshirt, burgundy, that's too big for me. I bought it when I was pregnant. It's very snuggly. I was also wearing a blue t-shirt, skinny jeans, and my new black converse that desperately need breaking in. Oh, and my canvas backpack from Powell's Bookstore in Oregon. I looked like a very old runaway. 

The whole trip was about 1,300 steps. I'm glad I went. This afternoon I had cake and ice cream at a coworker's goodbye party. 

This post is not titled.

I got home a bit early today, and as I was driving here, had made all sorts of plans for how I would spend this extra time alone. One of the things I wanted to do was practice. Last night, I listened to an old performance with the flute choir from about six years ago, and though that performance wasn't perfect (I never am), I was struck by the difference in my sound from then to now. Hearing the difference really bummed me out. "Bummed me out" is the stupidest phrase for describing what I really felt, but I'm not sure I want to put it all into words. I listened to the performance three times, and I heard the obvious mistakes (a huge, wrongly placed breath, for example), but what I mostly heard was my clear tone, some pretty vibrato, and expressive playing. The piece wasn't anything hard, but I heard me, sounding like me, playing like me: and I don't think I'm playing that way anymore.

This feeling sort of applies to other things I've been thinking about lately - well, maybe not "things" - maybe just my outsides. I was able to express this in conversation with my brother-in-law, and I told him: I'm losing weight, I'm the smallest I've ever been, but I don't feel much better about my body than I did before. He totally got it and gave me some good advice, but the thing is, I still haven't done any of the things he suggested.

So I got here and the house was a bit cluttered and there was laundry to do (Jules had an accident in his bed last night) and so instead, I straightened up a bit, threw the sheets I had washed this morning in the dryer and the rest of the blankets in the washer, put on my sweats, and now I am sitting on the couch with my iPod syncing to iTunes, watching "Mexico One Plate at a Time" on the TV. Patrick will be home with Jules soon and then we are going to go to the grocery store.

Maybe I'll practice later. Maybe I'll go for a walk after dinner. Or maybe I won't.