The boy and I just returned home from a short weekend in Seattle. On Saturday night, we had made reservations to have a nice dinner. We were finished around 11:30 and, instead of digging up something crazy to do, we both agreed that it would be most lovely to go back to the hotel, watch some crappy cable, and go to bed.

This is not an uncommon turn of events for me (minus the cable).

Of course, sometimes I like to go out and do it up big. Sometimes. Or maybe, more aptly put, occasionally. But, as I stated last week, I like getting enough sleep and getting it during normal sleeping hours.

I am a totally nerdy and uncool person, and so I might as well just get on with it and admit that, yeah, I like to do the dishes. Yeah, I like to clean the house on the weekends. Yeah, I like to eat homemade food. Yeah, I usually would prefer to have people over to play board games or watch a movie instead of going down to the local club.

Yeah, all of those things are true. All those, and so much more. My very dear Londonian friends think I am an easy houseguest because I don’t (usually) want to go see Big Ben or have a guided tour of Buckingham Palace. I want to play video games, have some dinner, take a stroll down to the local urban farm to peek at the animals, and then stay up all night watching reruns of random TV shows (ok, so that’s in direct contrast to my statements about getting sleep, but whatever).

And sometimes I go through a brief mourning period for the totally awesome crazy person that maybe I could have been. But you know what? I already lived the part of my life where I was looking to have experiences just because they would make a good story. And I racked up some good stories while I was at it (be careful what you wish for), and that’s fine. I guess I’m over it – they don’t impress me much.

SO

I was thinking about this, and I realized that my lifestyle is really not so pathetic at all. It was only fairly recently in human history that the concept of such an array of leisure activities even cropped up. People didn’t used to have regular (nightly) outings to various entertainment venues. Outings used to be an occasional treat. (And I’ll bet that gave them a better shot at appreciating those outings.)

But as with many other luxuries – chocolate, butter, heated pools, movie theaters, shopping malls, and so on – we now live in a time and place where it is common to be quite spoiled and self-centered in the way we spend our time and money. We live in a gluttonous bubble.

Perhaps, due to, oh, I don’t know, this, this, or this, we would do well to reign in our high-impact lifestyles and return to slightly simpler pleasures.

And maybe I’m just a little ahead of the game in that department.

Of course, more likely this is just what I tell myself to make me feel better about the fact that I am currently sitting in a (very cozy) fleece mumu in front of my laptop with the daydream of an early bedtime in the back of my mind.

But it doesn’t make my point any less true.

*Tune in later this week for why I don’t actually think my life is boring.

1. One of the companies we use for court reporting sent us a double-decker box of See’s chocolates for Valentine’s Day. Only about half of our (exceedingly small) office was in, and after about three hours, it looked like this:

2. I just found out that a girl I grew up with recently competed in the Miss America pageant.

3. The geek’s cool tool.

4. Takin’ it old-school.

5. Pyimpin:

Getting to this Humpday’s post a bit late in the game, sorry.

I have a good excuse. Yesterday I went to a show. I figured, being that the class I’m taking is about sound engineering, that it would be good to take advantage of opportunities to watch sound-y thing even more often than usual. And would you know that last night I could name at least three of the mics onstage? And would you know that I was nerdtastically excited to note that there was less wind standing three inches from a PA as tall as I am than standing 15 feet from the CD-sized hole in the kick? Man, they push a lot of air.

Everyone we know showed up. And my iphone survived it’s first concert event (though it was a Tuesday night and I had already been at work for eight hours and in lecture for three, so I was not what one might call hyphy):

Because I’m a crabby old lady, things don’t usually seem quite worth it the next day when I’m exhausted and my work day is reduced to making rubber-page-turner finger puppets lip sync to music, but I’m glad I went out last night. It was a great show.

We saw 31 Knots. Check them out if you haven’t heard. They are three: guitar/vocal/headliner, bass player, drummer. The bass player is … blah … because, well, he’s a bass player. How much can you do with a bass (don’t get all in a tizzy – I know you can, but most people don’t)? And the lead guy plays well, writes lyrics that say something he is passionate about, and has a whole act – we’re talking costumes and the works. And his act is sincere; he’s intense and he means every sweaty ounce of the performance he puts on. I studied theater, and I can certainly appreciate a good show, especially when there is passion to back up the message.

But my favorite part of seeing these guys play is the drummer. The bass player can run around and try to get in on the act a bit, but drummer man – he’s just at his kit. And he doesn’t play it cool, and he doesn’t try to charm anyone. He just gets up there, takes a deep breath, and humbly earns it throughout the whole set. He must know these songs so well, his muscles must be so used to the stamina required to complete the set, and yet each time you’re just not sure he’s going to make it. How many people work that hard at their job? It’s spellbinding. I once had an acting teacher who said, “Why do hundreds of people show up for theater and thousands for sporting events? Because athletes don’t hold back – they give one hundred percent.” That’s this dude. The Hundred Percent Drummer.

And if that didn’t make my night, this did:

Friend 1 came up to us and said:
Oh man, some girl just walked into that window because she thought it was a door. It was crazy.

We chat for a second and then make our way to the stage and run into Friend 2 on the way:
Hey! How are you?
I’m good! Except I just walked into the window and I totally am going to have a bump on my head!

We look at each other, and Friend 1 walks up:
That’s the girl!

I know it’s horrible, but how could that not put a smile on your face?

The boy and I were at Kaiser’s pharmacy waiting for my prescription to be filled. There was a waiting area with hideously upholstered chairs. My eyes scanned for an empty seat and stopped on…a loveseat. How cute!

I plopped down and patted the seat next to me:
Me: How cute is this? A loveseat!

The boy shakes his head.

Me: Come on, sit down! It’s a LOVESEAT! LOOK EVERYONE, A LOVESEAT!
The boy rolls his eyes, sits down next to me, slowly leans over, and puts his lips to my ear to whisper:

This is not a love seat. It’s for obese people.

The past two days have brought (midday) temperatures upwards of 50 degrees Fahrenheit. With such stark contrast to the weather even just earlier this week, I nearly thought I was experiencing summer in the tropics. If weather had sexual appeal, the wolf’s tongue would be lolling on the ground, his eyeballs strained four feet from his face, and the aaaaa-OOOOO-ga horns would be a-sounding.

It was still nice on my evening walk to class: