vacations =/= holidays

[ontology]

First off, I would like to state that I am rapturously in love with the phrase 'mad as a box of frogs'. I am setting it down here so as not to forget it and therefore to use it in conversation eventually.

Second off: I'm going away again. Argh. Shall be back sometime Sunday, I think; Dad's taken it into his head to go to a yurt for the weekend. My idea of fun and relaxation is not necessarily being in a small, enclosed space with my entire family and no privacy for a day and a half with little to do but read. I love reading, and I love reading for hours sometimes (particularly if I really get lost in something--usually it's a new book, or a book I've only read once or twice, but occasionally an old favourite sucks me in so deeply that I "can't put it down", to be momentarily cliched)--but I also like to read in private, and I don't generally like to have almost nothing else to do. Also, this is the second weekend I haven't been able to run about downtown. Grar.

Sometimes I think I need a vacation from vacations.

Well, hopefully I can beat some writing into shape, but I need solitude for writing, too, and if it's not raining I suppose I can play my guitar... It's mostly that Dad and I have a very different idea of what constitues a refreshing vacation. He likes to very little: read, write, admire nature. I like to do those things too, but too much quiet drives me mad. I like to get out and do things, see things, see people. My kind of vacation involves museums and citywandering and other people. The thing is, I can't write, usually, without getting out and doing things first. I have more things in my mind to write about. How could I write poetry, for example, if I spent my life in a bedroom? It would all be the same poetry, just with different words.

Bloody plagure. And I don't even have time to write about the play and by the time I get home I will have forgotten everything important.

Comments

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about the reading. Last summer I was in China, staying at a little out-of-the-way place for a week, and I have nothing to do but read (I can't speak the language very competently). So I read, and it was nice for a while, but it gets incredibly boring after a while -- the lack of stimulation can drive a person insane. :( I'm sorry you're being dragged off by your family.

I have to ask, though -- what is a "yurt"? O.o

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

This (http://www.rdrop.com/~glacier/yurtPages/yurt.10.98.002.jpg) is a yurt. The modern ones are sort of like one-room cabins, except made of thick canvas. Ours had a cooking range, refridgerator, and cupboards (as well as beds), but no running water. Dad loves camping, I'm beginning to dislike it more and more (wet! cold! lack of proper bathrooms! no privacy! did I mention the wet? it always seems to rain when we go camping; I think it follows us), and Mum and Dad are beginning to really hate sleeping on the ground, so we've been staying in yurts.

Yurts (also referred to as gers) are Mongolian in origin--sort of like teepees. The modern ones, however, are not in any way portable. (Or made of horse-parts. At least, I think the felt is horse--it might be camel.)

Er, yes, cultural lesson of the day. :) If you couldn't tell, I was using my mother's schoolteacher voice.

-

And yeah, the problem with Reading Constantly is that I get so awfully restless and want to go places. This is probably why reading is so much more enjoyable on wet, dreary days when one can't really go anyplace (unless they're me...I love rain; bicycling in it is heavenly). I have read while walking, though. In my last house, I used to walk this circular road around our semi-rural neighbourhood while reading. Now, reading in Wal-Mart is another story altogether! (Yes, I've done that too; rather came to grief in Affairs of the Shopping Cart as well! :p)

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

Ehehe, thank you very much for the lesson on the yurt. You learn something new every day. :) I assume that there is some sort of place where you can rent yurts? I have to admit that we've done quite a bit of camping/travelling in the area (British Columbia & Alberta in Canada), and I've never heard of these yurt things.

I would very much prefer sleeping in a yurt to sleeping on the cold, hard ground, though. I dislike the wet and the lack of a nice private bathroom, also. (And is it just me or are the tent walls always wet with condensation when you wake up?)

Aah, reading while walking. :) We should start a club in that... my skills have improved, lately. I can navigate the halls of my high school while immersed in a book, which is quite an accomplishment, considering the traffic jams we have.

Have you ever noticed, though, that when you read while walking, people tend to be careful around you? I.e. they see that you're not paying any attention to your surroundings, so they take extra care not to run into you. It comes in very handy; you expend less energy that way. :)