Refreshed and Returned

After a really lovely vacation in San Antonio, I am back safe and sound in College Station, ready to dive back into science.  It had been a long time since I had an adult vacation, one where the wine is poured early and often.  Today I am feeling remarkably focused on work—it’s amazing how a vacation can restore your intellectual faculties!  Nevertheless, I have a short list of random thoughts that are noteworthy.  There’s never any shortage of randomness around here!

I think my taste buds have grown tired of oatmeal for breakfast, at least in soaked-oat form.  San Antonio has left me craving granola.  For breakfast, Matt and I went to Sip, a groovy little coffeehouse, because he knows I require breakfast and I’m fond of granola (which he loathes!).  But we went there twice for breakfast and there was no granola to be had!  So now I can’t stop fantasizing about a bowl of cereal mixed with some granola and topped with milk and maybe some fresh fruit.  Yum.

This morning I had no power at home, and I was utterly baffled by the problem.  But it did let me put my candles to good use!  And there’s nothing like candlelight to make you feel beautiful—it’s like nature’s concealer.

Texas is a ginormous state.  It’s easy for me to forget this in my everyday hustle and bustle, trying to be scientifically productive.  But how awesome is it to be just a few hours’ drive from Texas hill country, with its sweeping views of rolling hills and ridges.  It’s pretty awesome.

Sometimes I think intimacy in a long-term relationship is a paradox.  I can be simultaneously charmed and alarmed by the pervasiveness of Matt’s influence on my life: what I read, what I eat, the music I enjoy.  The way I think.  Am I losing myself in this relationship?  Sometimes I feel I know him so well that he is an extension of my heart.  And I worry that this intimacy is more fragile than I realize, and I take it for granted.

Then again, if I am as good to him as I am to myself, maybe there’s nothing to worry about.

But I’ll never offer him any granola.  And I just smile and laugh when he orders dessert for breakfast.  Because it’s kinda cute, right?  It certainly makes me want to bake old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies for his next visit.

I like any excuse to bake chocolate chip cookies.  Or any excuse to drink wine.  Maybe that’s the key to our happiness.  We’re just a pair of hedonists.

Yes, I think that’s it.

I’ll be back soon with more to say about San Antonio.  Soon, soon.  Happy November, all.