a day of reminiscing

In honor of the fall return of my favorite TV shows, here's a picture of a sign I found at Home Depot last year and slapped up above the door to our "office". When I saw it, I couldn't resist it. (if you watch The Office, it makes sense)

Contrary to my pathetic worship of season premiers, I have vowed to have a tube-free Saturday. Husband and little Mr. Trouble Maker are out for the day, so I'm enjoying the time to catch up on all those monkeys on my back (laundry, dirty carpet tiles, mucky aquarium, bills, outgrown baby clothes to sort and organize). I've gotten into this awful habit of turning the TV on when I'm home alone - it could be a show I've seen a dozen times before - but I turn it on and inevitably find myself sitting down to watch...rather than having it on simply as background noise (which is always my initial intent). So no distractions today.

Something about puttering around the house today reminds me of my weekends while I was living alone in a studio apartment during graduate school. I only had a tiny TV with no cable, so if I had the tube on it tended to be an old movie on tape I'd seen a hundred times. I used to love driving home from my last class on Fridays. I'd hit the grocery store, maybe pick up a few movie rentals and then lock myself inside for the whole weekend. (it sounds pathetic, but believe me...I spent all week looking forward to complete isolation) I'd spend the time working on school projects, tending to my little garden on the balcony, cooking and baking, taking long bubble baths, spying on the other tenants as they came and went and writing letters to friends. This was before e-mail. Hard to even imagine a time without e-mail! Writing letters was my preferred method of correspondence. I've never been much of a phone gabber. Communication comes out much easier in written form for me. At night, if it was warm, I'd sit out on my tiny balcony (made even smaller by my potted garden - even a potted oak tree!) with a glass (okay...who am I kidding? with a bottle of) wine. Stars? Maybe a couple. Mostly there was just an orange glow in the L.A. sky with an occasional ghetto bird (or, helicopter, for those not lucky enough to have experienced the thrill of police helicopters hovering overhead) and the gentle buzz of the nearby freeway. Good times. Good times.

I think I've written about all this before. As it's coming out, it sounds very very familiar. I don't know why memories of that place come out the way they do, when they do. Funny. I listened to a lot of Lisa Loeb during that phase of my life. Play list today is all Lisa. Isn't it great how music can transport you to a different time and place like that?