Oh, I'm a Rambler...

::pant pant pant:: I KNOW I'm late and I should have scheduled this post before I left a week ago, but ::pant pant pant:: it's not Monday yet! Did I make it?

And honestly? My REASON for being late ties in quite naturally to this week's theme. What can't I live without? Well, among all the other great things mentioned by my fellow Alliteratis...

TRAVEL.

I spent the week in Hawaii to attend a friend's wedding. And beautiful ceremony aside, the best part of the week was driving around and sighing every few minutes: "I could really live here. I could. I would be okay with that."

I love seeing how other people live. I love getting away from the big resorts and wending into small towns and meeting locals. I spent time relaxing, sure, but I spent the other half of my vacation puzzling out the logistics of how to MOVE there and what I would do once I did. It's like that movie, Sliding Doors: I feel like my life splits every time I travel somewhere and a small part of my brain never comes back to real life. Bad for someone who needs every bit of her brain at all times, but GREAT for a writer.

So I'm back to real life...a little late, but still here. And here's to finding that perfect opening line for the new 1940's epic surfer girl biopic that's been rattling around in my notebook since Thursday.

 

Don't tell me my bidness, kitty. My ideas are GREAT.

What I Can't Live Without: People

This is kind of a strange "something" for me to choose since I am typically a very pronounced recluse (read as crabby person who likes to shut herself in her room and lock the door) but the more I think about it the more I realize it is true.

I need people to survive.

I don't just mean the obvious reasons either (I can't grow and hunt all my own food or build my own shelter etc.). Humans are a very social animal. We need other people for basic survival, yes, but we also need them for support, inspiration, and keeping life interesting.

I think that may be one of the many reason I am drawn to fiction. I love how people make life interesting. Books take you inside the mind of two people; the character(s) and the author.

Here are some of the important people in my life.

For support


(Christmas 2011)

For inspiration


(Author, Ursula LeGuin)


(Poet, John Keats)


(Robin Hood!)

For keeping life interesting

(See all of the above. Particularly the first one. They keep things in my life pretty crazy in a frusteratingly wonderful kind of way.)

So who are the important people in your life? How do they make life interesting?

Something I Can't Live Without

To be honest, the first thing I thought of when presented with this week's theme "Something I can't live without" was cheese.

Yes, cheese. The wonder food.

It's so scrummy (scrumptious and yummy). Second thing I thought of was the Hubs (I'm so ashamed I didn't think of him first).

But after some more thought (and a slice of cheese), the one thing I can't live without is water and sunlight (OK, two things). When I say water and sunlight, it's not for the obvious reasons, like a plant needs it to do it's thing with the chlorophyll or something. I need water and sunlight for my sanity.

I've lived in San Diego my whole life. The sea and the sun are part of me. Just the idea of living in the middle of dry land makes me claustrophobic. Trapped. Suffocated.

The sun has an amazing power over my mood. What's funny is that I love a gray, rainy day too (probably because of the water!) but I can only take a few days of it before I have to feel the sun's warmth. My happiest day is on some tropical beach with the Hubs, snorkeling in the warm water and then lounging in the sun. Preferably with a plate of cheese and fruit.

Two very basic things, but two things I must have to survive. What can't you live without?

Give me ______, or give me death!

We all have stuff we can't survive without. For some, it's coffee. For others, oxygen.

This week's theme asks us what we need to live. Perhaps we'll give you some tongue-in-cheek responses, perhaps serious ones. But either way, we want to know what, exactly, makes us tick.

For me, it's not something I can easily narrow down . In fact, mine's more of a laundry list than a thing. But here goes; the things I cannot survive without:

Animals: Quite literally, if there were no animals on this planet, I would be a very, very depressed person. 99% of my life revolves around animals in some form and the other 1% is only occupied by subconscious brain activity like breathing, and digestion.

My husband: The rock to my crazy scissors. He keeps me on an even keel and brings me back down to earth when my britches fill with air and threaten to carry me away, but he also always reaches out a hand when I need someone to hold onto.

Ibuprofen: Oh, man. If there is a wonder drug, it is ibuprofen. It cures most of my ills, to the point where I sometimes wonder if I have a placebo effect reaction to it. Of course, that's not counting the damage it's doing to my stomach, but I figure by the time that's actually an issue modern medicine will have a solution. I, uh, can quit any time.

Down time: I can't stress this one enough. I call them my "hermit days" and yes, I need a WHOLE DAY. I am not the "an hour here, an hour there" type of relaxation person. No, it's got to be a whole day of laziness or I am not counting it as restful. Unfortunately, I rarely have entire days to do nothing, so I am pretty much always "exhausted."

Quotation marks: What would I "do" without them? How would I "emphasize" "words" on the page if I couldn't "use quotes" around them?

My friends: You know who you are. I love you guys.

A sense of accomplishment: I am so goal driven it's not funny. No, seriously. Quit laughing. That's not nice.

Sugar: Yeah. I think this one explains itself. It might also explain why I get so many headaches that I have to take ibuprofen for. Ah well. I regret nothing.

Writing: I, uh, have a confession to make. In the first draft of this post, I FORGOT TO PUT THIS ONE IN THERE. I know, lame, right? Maybe because I was writing when I wrote it so I didn't think about it. (Yeah, that made total sense). Anyway, I really can't live without writing. Guess what I typically spend most of my hermit days doing??

So those are my things! What are yours??