cherishing the normal

yesterday, I went to work. I had a busy-ish day filled with meetings, though I managed to steal a few moments to catch up on the news and my favorite blogs. I had a breakfast of diet coke (um... oops), some homemade pasta salad for lunch, and an afternoon snack of all-natural microwave popcorn. the day ended on a positive note when we saw some new creative concepts that were fantastic.

after work, I put on my brand-new sneakers, clipped on my ipod and went for a run along town lake. I tried not to get too jealous when I ran past the dog park ("I want a dog! oh, wait, that's a lot of work. hmm... crap. plus I know nothing about raising dogs. hmm... crap. plus my job has unpredictable hours and random trips out of town. hmm... crap"), and I tried not to stare too hard when I jogged past a cute guy. I admired how my new sneakers made it feel like I was running on clouds, and I mentally thanked my parents for the birthday $ they gave me that paid for these new sneakers (which I had desperately needed).

when I got home, I took a quick shower and then ambled next door to Doc's, a great neighborhood bar with a huge outdoor patio. I sat at a picnic table with an ice-cold greyhound (vodka grapefruit) and a huge salad and laughed at my buddy Jordan as he told hilarious stories about his horrible new job. then I went home, watched some old Sex and the City episodes on DVD, and went to bed.

with advance apologies for the uber-cheesiness of the following statement, it's days like this that make me realize how fortunate I am. ordinarily I would have tried to write a funny blog post about how boring my day was, how you'd never think this was from a girl who considers herself reasonably adventurous and will climb wet rocks to go waterfall-jumping in Costa Rica or go spelunking with human skeletons in Belize. day of meetings? yawn. you spent your birthday money on new sneakers? dude, what about some Manolo Blahniks? and great new creative concepts? you ad geek.

but sometimes? I think about all the people who would kill to have this level of normalcy in their daily lives -- just one day in which you don't have to worry about some international hunger crisis, or deal with hate crimes, or wonder whether your family is safe, or hope your health would improve to the point where you could go for a jog, or be afraid that your cancer will spread -- and I realize that you know what? sometimes a boringly normal day is just what the doctor ordered.

(okay I'm SOOOO done with the cheeeeeese. sorry people. I'll try and write something super-cycnical next time. how about chronicles of my dating life? heh. that'll be good and cynical. but also way too personal for blog material, so maybe not. hmm. well I'll come up with something.)