Slacker.

I have now spent five days unemployed. One glorious week, and it's gone.

While I was in the shower, the clock hit 6 p.m. and like that, my week was up. I am disappointed in myself, disappointed to note that it would appear that I have not contributed one thing to the world in the span of this week. I had so much time, and what have I done with it?

I have not spent time with family. I have not volunteered my time to others. I cringe to realize that I have not cracked open my Rosetta Stone, have not learned a single word of French (sorry, Sir). I have not studied up on my new employer. I have not read anything non-fiction. I have not really written, save for that mediocre bit on the kindness of strangers and my trip to Milwaukee.

But I shouldn't say I've done nothing.

I have slept. Not only have I slept, I've napped, thoroughly. I've eaten an abnormal amount of fresh fruit. I celebrated yet another year cooking dinner with my better half on Valentine's day, our easiest and most successful V-Day dinner thus far. I have limbered up, attending a record-breaking three (three!) yoga classes this week. For the first time in months, my heels grazed the ground today when I hit my final downward-facing dog. I also busted out two spin sessions and a pathetic 2-mile run. I helped my friend the photographer run all over DUMBO shooting the most gorgeous, talented and sweet little ballerina. I did four loads of laundry and cleaned the air filter in the kitchen. I re-read the second Harry Potter novel, and am just about half-way through the third. I took the cat to the vet. I apartment-hunted. I vegetated. And five days later, I am unbelievably blissed-out.

No, I shouldn't say I've done nothing.

In five short days of lounging, I've managed to slough off years of frustration and anger and misery and brought positive energy to the world in the form of just one so-much-happier soul. My contribution this week is in attempting to rid the planet of one more miserable individual, and leave the place a little bit happier than it was last week.

My cousin Allison gave birth today, to a sweet little girl named Riley Jane. I went shopping for a new yoga towel and ended up with hammer pants (and a new yoga towel, and another pair of pants and a jacket).

Sometimes it's your turn to give birth, other times it's your turn to give yourself new life. All things in perspective.

Control freak.

I'm still laughing at myself in regards to post from yesterday. One of my more irritating qualities is that I have never, for a moment in me life, been able to relax and let anything just be. I'm not kidding - my first grade parent-teacher conference centered around how I needed to stop bossing the other kids around at recess (my dad countered that I was building good management skills).

Sir laughs at me, the perfect picture of chill. His laid-back way is incomprehensible to me, brilliance and creativity seeping from his pores as easily as breathing. I seethe with jealousy at how perfectly he embodies it (you know, like a loving, awe-struck jealousy).

Maybe if I try really hard and focus on achieving a specific peaceful end state, I too, can relax. Maybe there are relaxation techniques I could perfect and incorporate into my day-to-day. Maybe I can study relaxation in different cultures, find a way to take it in somewhere else, as the Western world is surely influencing me negatively.

I've just listed out the ways I plan on "achieving" relaxation. The very verb is wrong.

Relaxation aside, I need to give myself some more credit. If I hadn't been so stuck on being in control of My Writing, maybe I could have seen the words pouring from me. I may not have novels flowing from my fingertips, but I am a writer and I have definitely been writing. That was my 100th post. Measly compared to some, I suppose, but it's not a competition.

I need, of course, to repeat this to myself, a little mantra for me to try to own: it's not a competition. It's not a competition. It's not a competition.

I'm not buying it.

Hello, Arcata.

After an entire day of traveling, we finally arrived in Arcata late last night. Let the vacationing begin! I suppose technically it began when we touched down in San Francisco, or when we stopped in Napa and St. Helena for a quick tasting and some grub, but it wasn't until nine hours after touching down in SF that we entered the cool stillness of Humboldt County and truly felt we'd arrived.

Wine tasting at Turnbull Winery.

Shrimp tacos and other yummies at Taylor's Refresher, aka Gott's Roadhouse.

We celebrated our arrival by passing out immediately. An eighteen-hour day of traveling can have that effect.

Cozy toesies.

We got up early and walked to town for breakfast at Los Bagels, where the kind folks of Arcata offered gluten-free bagels for me and my people (the gluten-intolerant). Not used to making bagel decisions, I hastily blurted out that I wanted cream cheese and lox, with onion. Some of the best decisions in life are hastily made; that bagel was definitely one of them.

Then we went to the farmer's market, where a girl was selling poems, written on the spot on a typewriter in a box. In my heart, I felt the unmistakable twinge of someone in Williamsburg, dying of happiness (and maybe jealousy).

We bought beautiful heirloom tomatoes, poblano chiles, jalapeño peppers, an onion, cilantro and some arugula. Oh, and a loaf of gluten-free bread that was described as containing carob and molasses, but pretty much tasted like a really good rye bread.

I read all afternoon in a sunny nook, with a slice of the bread and two big glasses of milk. I read the entire first book of the Hunger Games series. That book was intended to last me for the entire vacation, and instead I read the whole thing on day one. Whoops.

We made chiles rellenos with the poblanos, stuffed with sweet corn and cheese.

Overall, a pretty excellent start to the vacation.