This afternoon Bonnie and I started hanging curtains at Annie’s Pilates studio. (Are you on the edge of your seats yet?) I say started because we only got them hung in one of the two rooms, since we ran out of time because earlier we decided to 1) sleep, 2) pack to move from one Airbnb to another, and 3) eat tacos instead. Anyway, it’s all coming together. Here’s a picture of the reception area. I’m in love with the colors, as well as that awesome  coffee table and the black bowl on it that holds all the chocolate candy (not pictured).

Yesterday we made two trips to the same store to buy an essential oil diffuser for Annie, but none of us could get it to work today. So we made another trip, and while Bonnie drove, I read one of the five books I’m currently working my way through. When we got to the store, the girl behind the counter looked at us like we were idiots and didn’t know how to operate a machine with only one button on it. “You could always call the company and see if they could help you,” she said.

I immediately wanted to pull my hair out.

No.

I wanted to pull her hair out.

“We just bought this, and it clearly doesn’t work. I personally don’t want to call the company and waste any more time,” I said. So the lady ended up calling the for us, but guess what? The company was closed for the day. So rather than take a dumb store credit, we walked out not only with a broken diffuser, but also with higher blood pressure.

Think of Jesus, Marcus, think of Jesus singing Kumbaya. Come by here–me–come by here.

In need of a break, Bonnie and I checked into our second Airbnb for the week and poured ourselves a couple of beers in the frosted mugs we found in the freezer. (Talk about a classy joint!) But on the serious, this place is super duper cutie pie. (Hi, my name is Marcus, and I talk like a junior high cheerleader.) It’s a bungalow behind a main house, so it sits back off the road.

Here’s a picture of the bed, right as you walk in the door. Notice the lamps on the wall are table lamps that have been mounted sideways. (Everyone should be so lucky.) Anyway, I love creative people.

Here’s my “bedroom,” which is also the dining area. That’s a vintage lamp above the table, and the couch transforms into a bed. Also, the vinyl floor is by Allure and comes from Home Depot, which I only know because I installed one just like it once. (It’s okay if you don’t care. I really don’t either.)

Outside there’s an honest-to-god fish pond with a waterfall, which I can hear running now. It’s beautiful and relaxing, but it’s not helping me stay awake to write.

While Bonnie rested earlier this evening, I read more in The Artist’s Way. I’m currently on week four of twelve, and although I’ve been really pleased with the whole program so far, this week’s assignments include something called “reading deprivation,” which is exactly what it sounds like. No reading–for a week–seven whole days. Uh, wait, but I read all the time. I’m currently reading five different books. I’M AN OVERACHIEVER. I can’t–stop–reading. But I guess that’s the point, to give yourself a break, to focus more on what’s going on in YOUR head rather than someone else’s.

Shit. No more escaping into books.

So after a momentary internal temper tantrum (and finishing the chapter of the book I was reading in the car earlier), I stacked up my books, my Kindle, and even a magazine and shoved them to the other side of the table. Honestly, it felt like locking my own offspring outside in the cold. I’m sorry, Daddy’s got other things to do right now. But he loves you–never forget that–and will be back in a week.

For dinner Bonnie and I walked to a place called Haymaker for sandwiches and drinks. Y’all, my Bloody Mary had a Slim Jim and a piece of cheese in it. How cool is that?

Welcome to Texas!

After dinner I’d planned to attend a swing dance while Bonnie went to the first night of the Kizomba (Latin dancing) festival she’s attending this weekend. However, I was pretty wiped out and decided I could use some time to myself, since asking strangers to dance and meeting a lot of new people can take a lot out of me. So instead I went for a walk, learned a little bit more about the layout of Austin, and came back and took a bubble bath in the most adorable little bathroom you’d ever want to spend time in. Check it out.

I actually spent over an hour in the tub, something I rarely do. I dragged a little cabinet over, set my laptop on top of it, and watched the first episode of Will, TNT’s new series about William Shakespeare. Then I dried off and plopped down on the pull-out couch and watched the second. The show’s pretty good, and apparently Shakespeare was a PILF. (The P stands for playwright. Figure out the rest.) I seriously thought about binge watching all the episodes, but I’ve got this blog thing going on, so I exercised self-restraint. (It does happen occasionally, but it’s not currently happening now with regard to the potato chips I’m eating.)

At one point during the show-watching (not in the bathtub), I picked up my phone and clicked on a couple of articles that had been posted to Facebook. But in the middle of reading the second article, I remembered that I’m not supposed to be reading, so I stopped. This could be harder than I thought.

Actually, I’m kind of looking forward to this not reading thing. As much as I enjoy reading, it’s always on my “to-do” list. I see all the books I own and all the others on my Amazon Wish List, and it feels like I’ll never get them all read. (I hate to break it to you, Marcus, but you probably won’t.) So there’s always a slight amount of internal pressure–read more, learn more, grow more, BE MORE! The thought of shutting that down for a week sounds nice. Plus, it will give me more time to do other things–practice yoga, sing Kumbaya, get mounted sideways.

A girl can dream.

When I first started therapy, my therapist told me she didn’t have any friends with whom she spoke every single day. Even with her best friends, she said, they only spoke once a week, twice tops. “I spend that time with myself,” she said, “I work on myself.” Well, at the time this wisdom was easy enough in theory but harder in practice. I had a number of friends with whom I spoke or communicated with daily, and I couldn’t see that changing. However, eventually, all those relationships failed or morphed into something else. As a consequence, I’ve spent a lot of time alone over the last three years. Sometimes it’s been difficult, of course, but I know myself better now than I ever have. As it turns out, the more you get to know yourself, the more honest you are about what’s actually happening inside of you, the happier you are. If you stay on the right path long enough, I imagine you get to a point when you don’t have to have all the distractions–watching television, texting with friends, reading five books at once. Rather, you simply read the book of yourself, the only book you truly can’t do without.