Scrambled Brain (not a recipe post)

I turned on my television tonight for the first time in what feels like a century. Lunch today was the first time this week I read the newspaper. I visited Twitter, Facebook, and Reader, too - the real things, not just the mobile versions. Here's a sign of how hectic things are right now: my astrology app (yes, I have this) (even though I have sworn off psychics) (a story I may tell in 2012) told me that December would be my biggest career month of the year. I thought that was sort of impossible, since I'll be on vacation for half of December... but I think the damn app might be on to something. Since job-blogging is for the birds - very, very dimwitted birds - we'll skip over that currently enormous portion of my life and just say that things are swell.

So what are we left with, then? We're left with a still-unplanned trip to Europe. The logic there is that because our goals consist not of Louvre sightings but instead of belly fillage and sensory overload, planning isn't really required. I'd simply like to step off the plane and be swept away in a Paris whirlwind, with my favorite partner in crime there to help me pronounce things. This is me, simplifying.

We're also left with a Christmas tree-less house. You all were right that it would've been worth it to get one. And if I could've cloned myself to get a tree and decorate it that very day, I would have. But a week went by without a chance to breathe, and suddenly we'd only have a week with said tree before leaving it, and oh by the way where is that clone again, because the next three nights were already booked solid, and then we have only a few days with the tree. So yeah. There's been some minimal holiday decorating around la casa, but that's it. And it's the best that I can do this year... I am accepting that reality. This is me, simplifying.

A funny thing about simplifying is that I forget how much better I am at it when I'm really busy than when I'm not. My head does a better job of balancing when it has more things to sort. When I'm not busy enough, too many little items sit in my head in a mess, twisted and tangled and hopeless. Being busy is the great prioritizer of my head space. It's like the mental conditioner that turns my tangles into shiny, manageable thoughts.

It's also possible that I've been working from home a little too much for a little too long, so this change has been good. Meetings and people and reading books on the train and lunches away from my home office desk are good things. Back to Basics at its best. I still love my home office and its perks, but I think I love having the option of multiple workplaces even better. It takes one to appreciate the other.

This might just be me in a past-midnight sort of mood, but I swear this photo I took of eggs from my sister's chickens looks exactly the way I want my mental space to look. Okay, maybe there are still a lot of eggs in there. But it's me... Ms. More Is More, after all. In this picture, mental conditioner is flowing. Do you see how calm those eggs look, how they're full and lively in that pie pan but not too crowded, how there is a quiet yet charmingly irregular semblance of order?

I'm calling it right now: my resolution for 2012 is for my brain to embody this photograph. Or to start some sort of mental clarity hair product line.