Category: writing prompts

Take a shower
I really don’t feel awake or human until I’ve had my shower. I also like my shower for thinking time, something about being alone with nothing to distract? In college, I sometimes took showers in the middle of the afternoon, in between classes, just to get the thinking time.

My adolescence coincided with the then-worst-ever drought in southern California. (I gather it’s been surpassed since then.) So water stinginess was the order of the day. One of the things that blew me away when I got to Washington was the water: the rain, the rivers, everything. I used to joke that I moved here to be able to take a really long shower.

Which was one of the reasons we got a tankless water heater, by the way. Our old water heater was awful. Couldn’t even muster enough hot water to fill the bathtub. The tankless just keeps going and going and going. Delightful.

Weigh myself
It’s a big part of how I lost 60 pounds: weighing myself every morning and tracking it on a graph. I don’t do the graphing anymore, but the daily weigh-in keeps me honest. (I’ve gained some back, honestly, but at least I’m 100% aware of it, and can track upticks and downticks based on hormones, biking, and eating habits.) The morning routine in generally is really important to me. If I follow my usual pattern, I feel like I’ve got enough of my bearings to get the day rolling properly.

Write in a journal
I’ve kept a journal since I was nine years old, but this specific daily habit came from an assignment from a therapist. She had me write every day “what worked” that day right before bed. That way my last thought was always of a success or a pleasurable experience, rather than whatever horrid thing I’d been thinking about before that. It worked wonders; still does.

Now I have a lovely moleskine datebook: in the morning I record my weight (see above), and at night I record my bike miles/time if any, as well as “what worked.” Occasionally I add some details about the weather, since there’s a cute spot to do that at the bottom of each page.

(I’m such a cheapskate that I didn’t buy 2010’s book until March. :\ Until then I was writing in another micro notebook!)

I enthusiastically recommend the journaling habit, by the way, especially if one is prone to see the glass as half-empty!

It’s the perfect Olympia place: delicious food in a funky/surly atmosphere. I can’t imagine any Olympians who have NOT been there, so for the out-of-towners:

A brick storefront between a vintage store & a beat-up parking lot; on the parking lot side, a mural of superheros (mostly). Inside, the walls are covered with posters & other random flat things from the late 70s and 80s, many with specific northwest significance; but it doesn’t have that “crazy crap on the walls” feel of a TGIFriday’s, because it’s genuinely shabby & time-worn, as are the vinyl booths & stools, the vintage video games, etc. Curiously, there’s an enormous aquarium in the front window. The queuing space is cramped and awkward, and sometimes splits off towards both of the two doors. Staff tends towards the usual Oly-style punks, so some tattoos, some oddball hair, a little short/surly but not excessively so.

The pizza itself is mostly of the thin enormous slice variety. (They added a “Sicilian style” pizza a while ago, but I don’t ever get it.) Great crust, a bit of a crunch but not too crispy. The basic varieties are rock solid, but I have a fondness for some of the oddball versions, particularly anything without sauce: the Greek (iirc), which includes spinach & feta — we usually add sausage if getting a whole pie, and the Al Green, just cheeses and broccoli. No, seriously, the broccoli is really good. Eating there, a single slice is enough to fill me up most of the time. When we get a pizza to go, I have to be careful not to scarf down WAY too much.

I just wish they delivered. (I did once bring home a pizza on the Xtracycle. In the rain. It was AWESOME.)

Everything wakes up after the long dark of winter.

I think this is my third spring commuting on the bike trail, and I’m getting to know the rhythm of the seasons. Right now the Indian Plums are blooming & leafing out and the flowering cherries (?) are in bloom. There’s one with astonishing white flowers that will start covering the trail in petals like snowfall or a ticker-tape parade.

Later this month and next month, nearly every other plant starts bursting into leaf, turning the trail into a glorious green tunnel — with breaks to vistas of open fields and the expanse of Chambers Lake. The lake, too, comes alive with water lilies.

Already the frogs and the birds are starting up their chatter, the birds shouting down at me from the tops of the trees now that I’m out in daylight instead of darkness. In this little sliver of time right before the switch to DST, I’m catching sunrises and sunsets both; next week morning will be back in mostly darkness, but the evening will be entirely light, and gradually the sunrise will come back.

I have yet to see any bunnies, but they’ll be back soon as well, along with the aforementioned frogs, lizards, little snakes, house cats and the occasional raccoon.

After the long dark, I find the arrival of spring an immense relief, even if it comes in fits and starts. (There’s a very slim chance of snow overnight!)