What I did on my summer vacation, minus the summer vacation.

Hi there. Remember me? I used to write posts here on a somewhat regular basis. Some of them even involved full paragraphs and organized story lines, rather than just enumerated lists and such. Perhaps I will even write one of those again some day. Today, however, is not that day.

A few people I know have somehow garnered the ridiculous idea that I'm an inordinately busy person. I've always got plans; I'm always doing something. This is the illusion in their head. I guess they're not so wrong, really... that is, if sitting at home watching movies, reading blogs, and doing laundry can be considered "plans" of note at all.

If the past week or two were a representative sample of my normal and ordinary life, however, I would say those people had a point. Of course, if the past week or two were a representative sample of my normal and ordinary life, I wouldn't actually be talking to any of those people much, because the stress that an introvert by nature feels when faced with such a busy social calendar would have sent me away into hiding by now.

I have lots of stories that I could tell you about what I've been up to the past few weeks, but since I can't muster the focus to elaborate on any specific one of them, this will be another recap in bullet-list form. I refuse to call this mere lazy blogging; consider it a favor to the Internet-A.D.D. sufferers out there! (To anyone self-identified in that group, you're welcome.) Let's go.

In the last "official" days of summer, I have...

• Walked across the Mississippi River at its headwaters.
  
  
  
  
• Visited with old friends and their adorable and near-perfect baby.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Drove three hours (round-trip) on a Tuesday night to eat fresh-baked pizza under a tree in the rain. (That said, it was totally worth it.)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Learned absolutely nothing at a wine-tasting event, but had fun chatting (and drinking) with friends in the process.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• (Speaking of drinking...) Consumed alcohol in some form and quantity on nine out of ten consecutive days. (I am pretty sure that if you squeezed out my liver like a sponge right now, you'd get an unappealing whop concoction of some sort. I am officially in drying-out mode this week.)
  
  
• Received (and declined) an invitation to my ex-boyfriend's wedding. (Um, yeah, good times.)
  
  
• Helped two great friends celebrate their birthdays at one of Minneapolis's favorite dive bars.
  
  
  
  (Jamie, I hate that I didn't get a picture of both of you with the cake... or even both of you in the same shot, for that matter!)
  
  
• Regained the six pounds I recently lost. (See above re: pizza and nine-day drinking bender for possible causes of that.)
  
  
• Survived my parents' annual visit and the concentrated amounts of family time that entails.
  
  
• Saw a family-friendly play in the basement of a suburban chain restaurant and motel. (It was actually a tad more entertaining than I expected, but I'd still consider it little more than a mediocre Saturday Night Live sketch drawn out to 120 minutes.)
  
  
• Went on only my third date in five months. (Clearly I am not the mad-dating machine I was last summer, and interestingly, the only part about it that bothers me is all the cute summer date clothes I have not worn at all this year.)
  
  
• Accidentally flashed the sushi guy at Cub Foods. (This really isn't notable in any way, except that I remembered it while commenting on a post 3Carnations wrote and thus, it is back in my head again. Also, aren't you glad there isn't a photo to accompany this one?)
  
  
• Mowed my lawn for the first time since early June. (Thank you, seemingly unending earth-parching drought. My lawn may have been looking like straw, but at least you've saved me some time on yard work the past two months.)
  

And that about wraps up the explanation for my absence lately. So. What have you done with your last precious days of the worst month of the year?