Saturday, November 8, 2008

Sisyphus Gets a Rain Day

I am taking a Rain Day from work at the nursery today. While I was having breakfast, I was pondering what I would do with my day and came up with a list of the usual suspects: housecleaning, errands, and obligations.

I caught myself up short- where was the fun? I tried to come up with something fun to do... hmmm... still thinking, still thinking... aha! um, no, not really... then it struck me: I haven't the foggiest idea of what is fun for me. And I mean real fun- not glee which is the twisted joy of inflicting a small amount of pain on someone else (Karl Rove comes to mind as a gleeful person;) not hysteria, somewhat resembles joy but is actually fear-based (me on a roller-coaster;) not contentment, but fun- the kind of fun that refreshes one's innermost being, that unplugs and drains the sludgy recesses of one's psychic oil-pan. In the old-fashioned parlance: good, clean fun.

I have always enjoyed going to flea-markets (see the ur-bowl story below, March 27th entry) but I really don't need any thing and I don't want to spend the money, and heck, its November, not too many flea markets around here this time of year. But, that is a starting point... So, what does a flea market have that I like? (Besides, large pottery bowls that connect to my semiotic desires like a fork-wielding two-year old to a wall socket.)


  • People: But I usually am at these things alone, so it is people at a distance. Would I prefer to be flea-marketing with friends? Yes, being alone wore thin quite a while ago.
  • Eye-candy: lots of textures, unexpected juxtapositions, colors. Okay, that seems non-toxic.
  • Road-trip: Aha, a critical ingredient! When I was a child, my father would announce on a Saturday or Sunday that we were going to go on a Mystery Trip. Sometimes it was just the immediate family, sometimes it would involve a caravan of other families and friends; but it was always someplace fascinating that my father had found. It also usually involved a picnic or stopping for lunch at a diner- a rare and exotic treat for us. I loved those days.

So, these are the ingredients I want- going someplace far enough way to necessitate a road-trip, a place or event full of interesting things and opportunities, with friends and stopping on the way for lunch...

Then again, dancing around the apartment to the music of Abba sounds like a possibility, too...

1 comment:

gberke said...

Pondering just this very thing. What is fun? And looking at all the things I do and the notion that it is not fun, and why that is so?
Reason and emotion are not separable. And having fun should not require going for a ride in the car (using yours since I don't know what mine is)
(obviously, I am able to foil that little test that is supposed to thwart comments from non humans)