love letters from my 34th summer

Since I have been back on land, I have had the opportunity to really get in touch with my lazy side. While it has always been my pleasure to wear the slacker badge with some degree of pride, I have not before now experienced the blissful paralysis that is sloth. 

I trace society’s distaste for all things slothful all the way back to Brad Pitt and the movie Se7en. Now I have heard it was a Deadly Sin even before that, but I don’t think the average Joe was really bothered by sloth until Brad Pitt got involved. Before that movie sloth, or as I like to call it, extreme relaxing, was admired. Siestas were celebrated; the four-day weekend was cheered; and sleeping in was a little reward people gave themselves for being good people. If you have the opportunity to wallow sleepily for weeks at a time in bed in chip crumbs and read and unread books, I recommend you grab this opportunity.

Since I have been back on land, all has not been as easy as the title of this post makes it seem. I have traveled to New Orleans (where I lost my wallet and had my credit cards used against my will), Asheville (where I threw myself a coming home party attended by sixty of my closest friends), Milwaukee (where I first began to experiment with different types of sloth), and to Naples, Florida (where my experimentation became full blown).

Alf and Greg have been my fellow travelers down this road filled with constant rest stops. I thank them for their companionship with all things slack. Need some sloth examples? Try these:

Last Wednesday I bought a bocce ball set. We are staying in a condo right off the beach in Naples, Florida, and I thought it might be nice to play some bocce ball on the beach. We have only made it outside to play bocce ball (not a particular difficult game) once. And we almost woke up to late that day to make it happen. That’s right. We have to plan to play bocce ball. We thought about doing it on Saturday, but by the time we woke up at two, watched three hours of reality television, went out to eat pizza, it was dark, and our bocce ball dreams were put on hold for another day. So as we watched the sun go down that day, we all looked at each other and promised that we would make it out to the beach the next day to play bocce. We even scheduled a time, four o’clock. Sunday came and at four o’clock we found ourselves eating pizza and reading The Daily Mail (a splendid London news rag that has no equal in America) out loud to each other. But we persevered and at six o’clock, using all the determination we could muster, we made it out to the beach, and Greg won a grueling one hour round-robin match. Alf and I still owe him ten dollars. The next day we rewarded ourselves by sleeping in to five o’clock in the afternoon.

As I write this I can see our club’s courtyard and swimming pool out our windows. I have only made it out to the swimming pool to repose on the deck chairs three times in the week-and-a-half I have been staying here. You see, one flight of stairs and twenty steps must be traveled in order to lounge around the pool. And then we have to remember to take sunscreen and beach towels and the proper reading matter and the correct poolside liquid refreshment. Frankly, just thinking about all that makes me want to go back to bed. So we sit, paralyzed, here in our air-conditioned condo, sometimes looking at the pool but without much intent.

We have managed to get some reading done. We watched the entire first season of Entourage. We have lazily cheered on some hockey teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and sleep never came so easily as after that emotional and physical investment. We get Chinese food delivered to our door in large quantities then nibble on it for days.

Last night we made a small break through. We went bowling. But we only bowled one game and called it quits after that. Greg and I tied, bowling a not-to-difficult 85. Alf owes us five dollars each. I feel tightness in my right shoulder today from that brief outing. I have learned my lesson. Today will be spent recovering.

Even as I write this post I have been forced to take multiple breaks to hydrate, nap, and stare briefly at the deeply tanned septuagenarians lounging by our pool. They are waiting to die or finally be devoured by the sun leaving only SPF-30 and their frilly skirt bathing suits on the deck chair where they had once tried to become living, breathing Beef Jerky. A lesser person would feel guilty about not getting a better tan while living on the beach, or for not seeing the sights, or for losing entire days watching Lisa Loeb try to find true love, but I am enjoying doing nothing. I just hope when the time comes I’ll remember how to get out of bed and do some sort of work to support my lifestyle…but only when the time comes.