First, there are so many things I wanted to accomplish but did not. For example, I'm still trudging through Empire Falls, and I was hoping to finish reading that this weekend. I also had a lot of homework goals, and not one of those was even started, much less completed.
Second, even the fun "blowing-off-my-responsibilities" activities turned to crap on me. We went out Friday night, and I ended up in an argument with Brin and having my wallet STOLEN (not lost, stolen. We're sure. I hate the Summit). Saturday, excited to have bounced back (and very excited to have had a backup ID, from when I'd thought I lost it last year), I drank way too much and vomited over a good portion of the second floor of Adrian's duplex, while all of our friends were downstairs semi-sober, waiting to go downtown. I hate getting too drunk, and this was not my first experience with this dilemma. I wake up feeling disgusting the next day, too embarrassed even to allow myself a good cry about it, and the cloud of guilt and mortification hangs over my head for at least two days afterward. Luckily, I'm pretty sure everyone who was here Saturday has graciously forgiven me (including Adrian). After I stopped feeling hungover yesterday (and missed Mass, another black mark on my weekend), Adrian and I decided to go sledding in the schoolyard across from his place. The hill was so slippery that we couldn't walk up it without a running start, so you can imagine the sledding--it was a luge. Unlike the Olympic luge, however, our short, fast run down the hill ended with a chain link fence. We were laughing as we slammed our bodies into the fence, especially at one point when Adrian created a permanent dent in it...then I hit the post instead of the fencing portion. In trying to stop myself by driving a hand into the snow in front of the sled, I had created a fulcrum on which my fully-fed Iowa body could pivot, roughly at the speed of sound, until my outer left thigh came into contact with the fence post. I yelped so loudly I'm positive everyone in the vicinity could hear me. Adrian sledded down to me and tried out some sports medicine techniques he'd seen on the NFL broadcasts, lifting my leg up and whatnot, which were largely futile. Then he just kissed it, in hopes that I'd stop crying so he could drag me across the street without an audience. Today I have a substantial swollen scrape/bruise combo goiter on my leg, plus a cute little limp.
Before the knee pain really kicked in, Adrian and I made a snowman after sledding, Adrian's first ever. He was very excited about it, though between my leg drama and lacking snowman skills, I wasn't being a very helpful teacher. We made her a girl, complete with a grenadine mouth (looks bloody and gross), hair (lovely branches from the shrub in front of the house that we ripped off), and breasts (Adrian took sole responsibility for forming these).
Sadly, the high point of my weekend was probably work on Friday night. I don't even really enjoy my current home health care position all that much, I essentially work as a servant girl for $10/hour while the client pays my company $25/hr. Plus, we only have a few clients who need the help of the aides, so I'm basically going to the same house all the time. Anyways, work was halfway nice because I've been reading aloud to my client lately from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson, his account of his childhood in Des Moines in the 1950's. Pure gold. It was a little weird reading aloud to adults at first, but after awhile it made me feel very Little House on the Prairie. Plus, the book is so funny, whether it's the magazine clippings Bryson included from the period ("More Doctor's Smoke Camels than any other brand of Cigarette!") or the hilarious stories about his family, or even the history lesson about Des Moines (more fascinating than one might think).
Here's to a more successful week, and certainly a more successful weekend.
