Category: Words

In the last month, I have had people say things after meeting me for the first time that sort of surprise me. In a good way. In a way that makes me think that all the trouble I’ve taken to try to be more engaged in life might actually be doing some good.  The following terms have been used to describe me. None of these words, I don’t think, have ever been used to describe me before.

1. gregarious
2. outgoing
3. charming
4. extroverted 

Gregarious? Outgoing? Anyone who knows me realizes that I can be very talkative once I get to know someone. The catch has always been that until I get to know them, I have historically been unable to talk at all. That has always made meeting people a challenge. What is different, I guess, is that lately I have been able to talk to strangers too. 

Why?

Practice. Seriously. For two months, every Tuesday I went to the growler store and forced myself to talk to whoever sat next to me and to the servers. Easy, right? They were serving beer. I like to talk about beer! I talked to married men about their wives. I talked to an 75 year old man about his career as a pilot and current job driving a wine tasting party bus. 

It was kind of hard, but fun. I suppose it was good for me.  I was in training for the inevitable dating. 

I suck at dating. 

Or maybe I don’t–after all, I am not introverted/shy/awkward now. I am charming and gregarious. 

Who knew?

I’m lazy, I wanna be lazy,

I long to be out in the sun, with no work to be done.

under that awning they call the sky,

stretching and yawning, and let the world go drifting by..
-Marilyn Monroe/Lazy

There is a fundamental disconnect between night owls and early birds. OK. Several. I mean, there’s the obvious one. We go to sleep and wake up at different times. Which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but can actually be an obstacle. 

Sex? If the night owl’s lover is in bed sound asleep by the time he comes to bed at 2 am, she may not appreciate his amorous intent. She’s frisky in the morning? He’s out cold. They better hope they get the house to themselves in the afternoon when they are both awake!

Not that the two have to be at war, but I find that very often the early risers do not respect those of us who have a slower approach to the morning. 

Wasting the day away. 

They don’t tend to appreciate the work that gets done while the late riser is awake for several hours after they’ve gone to bed, either. 

Which is really beside the point because what I am thinking about is the art of dawdling. In bed, in particular because I love to be in bed. I do. I love to sleep, especially right now because my sleep patterns are all fucked up by personal stress and now the onset of menopause. Nocturnal hot flashes will ruin a perfectly good night’s sleep. Totally. 

So sleep. Sleep is a fantastic thing to do in bed. 

Then there is reading. I have always loved to read while loafing around in bed or a chaise lounge. There is not much that’s better than a trashy novel out on the patio on a Summer day. I’ll read in bed before I fall asleep, in the middle of the night while I’m waiting to cool off after a hot flash or even in the morning before I get up to make coffee. Oh, ideally someone would bring me coffee in bed, but alas I don’t have a someone right now. 

And writing. 

It’s a fact that I write everywhere. I do try not to write in the car while I am driving, but everywhere else yes. If I am doing an extended bit of writing, I try to sit on a chair and do it properly with a keyboard. More and more though, I find myself distracted so I shut myself in my bedroom and do it there. Night. Morning. At night, I am usually finishing something I’ve started. In the morning I am usually making a note about something I dreamed about, or a song I have stuck in my head. This very paragraph was written while I dawdle in bed. 

On weekends, I usually stay in bed for an hour or so after I wake up. Thinking. Reading. Playing Words With Friends. Answering messages. Reading my Twitter feed. Writing. Coffee drives me out eventually. If I had a bedside coffee maker, there is no telling what might become of me!

On the other hand, if I was waking up with someone congenial there is no telling how long a bedded dawdling session might last….and with that, I think I will shut out the light and think about it a little.