Snow day in my comfort zone

I've got my mood lighting on, the television and Netflix playing at the same time, and I ate sweet potato pie for breakfast. Sundays are my sloth days, and I'm taking advantage of the snow piled up in mushy heaps outside to catch up on my sitting around time.

Sometimes I feel weird that I get so much enjoyment out of hiding in my den and not partaking of the banquet of life just outside my front door. In Honolulu, I lived three blocks away from the most famous beach in the world but preferred to spend my weekends lying around on the floor, reading whatever library books I'd stashed under the bed. And now, I live in the most exciting city in the world, pay an exorbitant amount of money for the privilege, and I still consider a day I don't leave my tiny apartment to be a rousing success.


My co-worker A and I were discussing the television show "Girls" the other day, the episode where Hannah gets a freelance gig from an editor who tells her to take a bunch of cocaine because it would make a good article.

What? It's a great show.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I've lived a certain portion of my life like that--or at least, I've justified some shitty experiences to myself by saying that they'll make a good story later. I suspect a lot of people do that, and that the "good story" line is often justification for circumstances you can't control rather than motivation for experiences you want to have. It's been easier for me to get through periods of desperation and indignity by convincing myself that this was all going to seem much more impressive later on, when I'd moved on to my real, better life.

My next post is going to be my 200th post. As I comb through the archives looking for the high and low points to showcase for the occasion, thinking about where I've been and what I've been doing since I started this site, I look at that image from "Girls" of the comfort zone and the area outside of it. I look at it very closely. I experienced some interesting things outside of my comfort zone, as we'll all reminisce about in Wednesday's post. And some of those things fell into that little circle of magic. But some of them crashed and died horrible, fiery deaths in the negative space around that shining gold frame.

I think comfort zones are underrated. There's a reason they're called "comfort" zones, after all, and not "discomfort" zones: they make you comfortable. Comfort isn't an easy achievement, nor one to take for granted. A good comfort zone takes time and effort to build up and maintain, to make sure that there's enough money to keep the fridge stocked, and enough time and organization to keep ahead of the library fines before they don't let you check out any more books. Comfort zones allow you to have pets, stable relationships, regularly scheduled blog posts, good sex without injuries you have to lie about on your insurance forms, and clean toilets.

Maybe I've exposed myself as terminally uncool at this point, but I ain't give a damn. It's Sunday, my cartoons are on, I haven't worn a bra for 24 hours, and I think it's time for night cheese.

My life is right where I want it to be.