A few days ago, I broke the handle on my car door. Don't ask me how, these things just seem to happen. Snap. Now every time I want to go somewhere, I have to climb in on the passenger side and clamber over to the driver seat, which is noticeably awkward when I'm wearing a skirt or a date walks me to my car or I park next to the restaurant on Abbot Kinney with sidewalk tables and lots of blasé shiny people. Now I'm wondering if I should get the door fixed or just buy a new car. What? Buying a new car is an eminently reasonable, if fiscally irresponsible, solution. This plan didn't occur to me when my transmission busted, by the way. Or when someone smashed into me and totaled poor Suzi the Suzuki. The insurance company didn't realize that all she needed was a little love and a lot of life support. Luckily, I'm a very persuasive automotive advocate. Until my car gets the equivalent of a hangnail. Then I contemplate sending her to the slaughterhouse.
But I've had Suzi for eleven years now, so I guess I couldn't be accused of flagrant car purchasing were I to consider putting her and her busted door handle out to pasture. Not that I'm morally opposed to flagrant car purchasing, you understand. Everyone has their thing. If that's yours, you have my blessing. Purchase flagrantly away! Mazel tov!
The Moral Imperative of Working For Yourself and Living Ten Minutes from the Beach
For the past few days, my innards have felt like beef carpaccio. Raw and tender, like someone has been beating me enthusiastically with a wooden mallet. Nothing to worry about. Nothing even terribly unusual. I just have a...rich emotional landscape. This week's landscape featured lots of tears and wild arm flailing as I almost fell off the treadmill because I closed my eyes for two damn seconds to feel a feeling before the reality of the present moment reasserted itself in an abrupt but not permanently injurious* manner.
* Injurious absolutely does not seem like a real word. But it is. Don't worry, I looked it up. I often look up words because I'm convinced they're not real words, that my brain created them to fill a paragraph hole in an efficient but inaccurate way. I haven't invented nearly as much of the dictionary as I seem to think.
Anyway
When Nicole and I decided to stop working early to obey our convenient moral imperative as self-employed LA-dwellers to get the hell out of the house and enjoy the February sunshine, she strode off to ravenously absorb Twilight and I drove to the beach.
On Taking a Break, Especially If That Break Can Be Taken Next To The Pacific
If you give yourself permission to step away for an hour or two, your brain calms down. Sitting on the sand in the sun gives you space to remember that just because you feel like the emotional equivalent of an abused pink appetizer doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It may even mean that you're doing it right.
Then you get to feel warm and peaceful and happier than you have in days. As a bonus, no one flinches when you accidentally flash them because you're wearing a sundress and are required by life to do weird things to reach the steering wheel.
The beach tells me I'm doing it right.
Thanks, beach.