i feel as renewed as a library book.

you know those pictures where it's two of the same picture and you have to pick out the differences?

last week on friday i was overly optimisitic about my living room, and most of the house. i had delusions of steam cleaning and amazing house-cleaned-top-to-bottom hallucinations.

in reality, not much happened. i took a walk, called my sister, retrieved the heat gun, and got a good start on peeling paint off my garbage find, the blue-white painted cedar chest...

all today, sunday, the last day of my vacation.

i look at my living room and it's the second half of those two pictures--the coffee table is in the same place; the piles of crap are moved minutely. not a whole lot has changed, in the reality-based series of "Kim's Vacation." i ate, i slept, i lounged. i read some, watched television, played some online games. there was at least one day that i didn't shower, and just stayed home the whole day, in my pajamas.

i suppose that some people might not call that a vacation. there was no sun-warmed island sand, no museum visits, no tequila or chilled beer.

just me, burning incense and being a layabout.

part of the issue was that i never actually got the steam cleaner, due to some miscommunications. and the heat gun dropped into my hands last night, and i got bored this afternoon and decided to give it a whirl. my biggest accomplishment this week was sweeping and mopping the kitchen. and that was strenuous, let me tell you what.

dan took monday off and we bummed around the house. tuesday i met with helene. wednesday and thursday were kind of a tv-computer monitor based blur. friday dan came home for lunch, after his third interview at the same place, and announced that he was employed as of may 1st; i did a pretty wild happy dance, and suddenly the rest of the vacation was just that--a vacation.

it's the little things about him being employed that are the good things--he can purchase his own socks, he can get non-generic soda, he doesn't have to ask for gas money like a sixteen year old bumming it from mom. for dan, it's a renewal of hope; for me, the same.

and a reminder that i don't have to go to jamaica in order to have a vacation.

the little things--being home by myself, listening to my alice in chains "unplugged" cd, having complete run of the remote--that's what made it a vacation. eating chocolate until i was nearly sick of it. (yes, nearly...) having cats fall asleep on me, while i tested and re-tested the sofa.

i suppose it was a vacation. i think the fact that it wasn't the vacation i had originally intended--not much on my actual list of things to do got accomplished--that's what makes me feel less ready to go back to work tomorrow.

or perhaps it's just that it's work, and i know what's waiting for me there. my week off from there was unfettered and loose, unorganized, chaotic, happy. i might not have gotten all the sleep i wanted, but i did something out of the ordinary, at least for me.

nothing.

and it was quite lovely.