chipotle | Bits and pieces

I set my alarm clock today for the first time in months; I noticed I'd been getting up at 8:15, 8:30 or even 8:45 recently, and decided to see what I'd do with the extra hour-plus given to me by setting the alarm for 7:00. The answer this morning was: hit the snooze bar for an hour. Next week, I work on the going to bed before midnight part of the equation, I guess.

I'm working on a longer entry about last weekend's vacation. In short form, it went well once it got going--I saw places around San Francisco, Berkeley and Sonoma that I hadn't before and feel like I've had a good "mini-tour" of the areas of the Bay that I don't normally get to. (Thanks to a day lost waiting for luggage, the day or so I expected to spend around the South Bay and the Peninsula didn't happen beyond a morning drive through Saratoga and up Skyline Drive.)

There were tense moments--as I suppose all parent-child relationships have, particularly once the child is adult. There's all sorts of essay material here, much of which I'm hesitant to mine. But, I've found myself reflecting on just what "grown up" means: when we get set in our ways, and how our personal tics develop--our phrasing, what we consider funny and what we consider distasteful, and just what we consider our baseline for normality. Is your living room lined with plush toys and sci-fi models, or is do you have a faux-antique piece of furniture displaying carefully arranged ceramic knick-knacks? Are you more comfortable in a house decorated in timeless Out-of-College Clutter, in comfortable Post-Modern Ikea, or in classic Quaint Americana Neurotic?