Nice

I just got out of bed after laying there for a while listening to H.'s breathing. First time in a while that I haven't had to set an alarm to wake me up for work or some other commitment (like leaving early to go watch Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective at Stern Grove a couple weekends ago). It always feels nice to just be able to wake up on your own, without a loud ringing in your ear, and get up when you feel like it.

I walked into the kitchen to make my daily cup of Chinese herbal tea, and looked at the clock: 10:01am. Damn. I haven't slept in this late in--I can't even remember when. Most days I get up by 7:30am, even in the Philippines when I was on vacation, because it was too damn hot to sleep past 7am. I recall the 'old days' when I was living the carefree college life in Berkeley, how some days when I wasn't holding down a weekend job (really just the last year that i was doing organizing on campus and no longer attending classes), I would sleep 'til noon, 2pm, 3pm, after having gone out the night before or stayed up late talking to my roommates (who had their own crazy hours and lives).Now, at 35 years of age, I'm shocked when I don't get up 'til 10am.

I'm not sure whether that's sad or interesting or cool. It just is nice right now to have a little time to myself, and to not have a million things to do today that I wake up knowing I won't be able to finish. I've also been traveling a lot this year, for work and family and personal stuff. On my flight to Portland last weekend for a conference at which I helped train with GIFT, I tallied up the number of trips requiring plane travel that I'd taken thusfar in 2007. It came to about once a month, or seven trips. Ugh. Travel is wearying, especially when it's required for work or when your flights are longer than 3 hours a leg or entail having long-ass layovers (which many of my flights this year did).

So suffice it to say that it feels good to not plan on traveling anywhere requiring a plane flight for the rest of the year--unless we decide to take a funder trip to New York at some point in the fall, that is--and to know that for the next few weekends I have a little more time to settle in at home, clean my house, organize my home office, finish filing my taxes (almost done! Just have to send them some money), and work on my writing. And spend some time with friends and family, which I've been doing a little more of lately, trying to take advantage of the nice weather.

Today, I have a whole day uninterrupted to do all these things. I may have plans later this evening, but it's all good. Although waking up later does leave you with less daylight hours to accomplish all the things on your to-do list. But the extra sleep was obviously needed.

Speaking of taking advantage of (what I hope turns out to be) a pretty day and good weather, any of y'all in the Oakland area should come by to the "Taste of Park" block party at the little rec center across the street from the Parkway Theater on Park Boulevard and 3rd Avenue, today and tomorrow. My baby DJ Hen10 will be playing a quick set today in the park, and I'm guessing there'll be lots of families with kids and fun things to do. I'll either be out there checking out the vibe and eating some food, or holed up in a cafe across the street getting writing done or mopping my floors at home. Call me if you wanna meet up.

Peace,
Rona