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It’s 9:20 and I can already feel it turning into one of those days. Not the kind where everything goes wrong — that would be worse, so I should be counting my blessings — but the ones where a little interruption happens every ten minutes and then it takes me another twenty to get back on track again. For example, at this moment, Z is sitting on the footstool, staring up at the top of my dresser, and I’m finding it hard not to pay most of my attention to her. What does she want up there? What is she trying to tell me? This is after she’s been up, down, in, out, had a nice walk (1.45 miles, knowledge provided courtesy of my silly mileage tracker), had breakfast, had a treat, up, down again… what is she trying to tell me?

I need to decide that the answer is nothing and start ignoring her, but my inability to do so is what makes it one of those kinds of days. Focus is in short supply, brain fog is plentiful.

Hmm, I should note that yesterday I failed to manage diet perfection. I went to Panera to meet a fellow author. I picked Panera because it was a convenient location. But oh, I’ve turned into one of those nightmare people, torturing the wait staff. Panera has a hidden menu that you can ask for items from and I believe that all the items on it are gluten-free. But they’re not nightshade, dairy, nut free. I thought they’d have it written on something that they could hand to me but instead the poor sales clerk had to read through every item on the list. As soon as an item had three things in it that I couldn’t do, I’d reject it and we’d move on, but it still took a while. By the time we were done, I couldn’t handle the drink options, so I took green tea. It turned out to be sweetened. It also turned out that the meal option I took did have something in it that I shouldn’t have been eating — pesto, which has pine nuts and Parmesan in it. (I think of pesto as basil and olive oil, but it is a bit more complicated.) Total bad foods: caffeine, sugar, nuts, and dairy. Ugh. I should have just had a chocolate chip cookie and enjoyed my diet failure.

Anyway, possibly the brain fog, easily distracted, hard to get back on track morning should be attributed to some food that I had yesterday. Ideally, someday I will reach the point where small amounts of foods that are problems for me won’t cause reactions, but first I have to make it through a phase where small amounts cause big reactions. My poor immune system works much too hard.

Some of the distractions were fun, though. Yesterday Grace apparently gained a kayak and Noah turned into someone who used to kayak. I know exactly where that idea comes from — a conversation with a friend a few weeks back that has stuck in my head. We were talking about scuba diving specifically. He used to go diving and hasn’t done it in years. Misses it, but doesn’t make the choices that would bring it back into his life. I feel that way about sailing. I loved sailing when I had the chance to do it in college and post-college. Being on the water was the best. But in the years since, I’ve never tried to prioritize that, never tried to make it part of my life. Now, admittedly, sailing is complicated and expensive and it wouldn’t be easy for me to somehow become a real sailor at this point. But there’s definite romance in the idea of meeting someone who restores something you loved to you. And in the context of the scene I was writing, it felt natural and sort of exciting.

Except I don’t know anything about kayaks. How does one refer to a kayak? If you’re the kayaker, and you’re leaving the house, are you going for a row? A ride? On the river? So one little line in my story turned into a language research project. Now, I have some experience with these language research projects — it’s easy to spend hours and hours online reading and getting confused when a simple conversation with a person with some experience would take five minutes and get you everything you need. Generally, I still wind up doing the hours of research, because when it comes to language exploration, efficiency is not my hallmark trait.

But yesterday, my research led me right away to a place that does kayaking tours in central Florida. Only an hour north. And reasonably priced. And they do manatee tours. And they had openings next week on a day where the weather is supposed to be good. And… and… and… could I really just impulsively go off by myself and go kayaking? While I was mentally debating, feeling very much like I wanted to and equally much like perhaps that was just a little too far outside my comfort zone, I was also texting with Lynda, who said, “Let’s do it.” So yay! Next week, Lynda and I are going kayaking. We will see manatees and birds and probably get wet and possibly be cold and have a good outdoor adventure in FL.

Even more fun, the kayak people asked if we wanted single or tandem kayaks and I went with single. It’s listed as an easy ride and it’s a Florida river, not the ocean or anything, but I’ve never gotten to be the solo person in a boat in my entire life. Next Thursday there will be no yoga — just boat paddling, where I can see whether my yoga muscles actually work in real life!

And speaking of yoga, it’s now time to head to the Y. Oops, no writing spring this morning. I will have to do it/them later on. But maybe I’ll be more awake, then.