Escape to the Wild Rumpus

At the end of each summer the husband and I escape reality for one weekend.  We and hundreds of other unusual individuals don historical costumes, speak in strange (and sometimes very BAD) accents, and spend the weekend in the past. Historical and fantasy faires are common throughout the western world and I've delighted in attending them since I was very young.  Now the real delight for me comes from taking on the persona of a person from the past. You see it's more that just a great weekend get away, we perform for the public and as such are forced into holding character and presenting yourself as an entirely different person.  Slipping into my costume is like slipping into another persons skin.  I'm instantly changed in every important way.  How I speak, move, interact, and think is all at once altered.  Though the rules of conduct are more restrictive it is also freeing to be this other person for a weekend.  I can forget about computers, science, and higher learning and just exist in a simple way for a short while.

Anon!

Other methods of relaxation

Last Sunday the husband and I took a few hours to brew a batch of beer.  Our first batch in much to long a time.  A honey cream ale which we brewed outside on my canning stove.  First time for the cream ale and the outdoor brewing.  It was lovely.  I was just downloading research pictures I took this morning in the greenhouse and was pleasantly surprised by the presence of pictures of our brew.

The boiling wort after the addition of Perle and Mt. Hood hops.

(It tasted very sweet and delightfully hopy.)

Sometimes I yell.

I have various ways of releasing pent-up emotion and stress.  Lately I've been yelling.

Not at people, or pets, other drivers, or really anything in particular.  It's not really even a yell per-say.  More of a guttural noise.  An expulsion of air from the diaphragm releasing a primal bellow.  

Some people like to cry to release pent-up emotion, especially when it is frustration.  I find exercise or excessive house cleaning is good for frustration.  (By the state of my home anyone could guess that I haven't been using the latter for releasing frustration).  I know that crying does release some good chemicals  into the brain, you can feel it when it happens.  A release and a slight cooling sensation.  I find the yelling (or grunting, as it may be more appropriately described) to have similar effect and much easier to call forth.  

Tonight I topped off a healthy bout of yelling, with a long session of hand watering in the garden.  Not really necessary due to the soaker hoses we've installed, but pleasant and appropriately cathartic none the less.

Relaxation update

Looks like the hammock is out for this week.  We're having an unusually cold and rainy June here in Oregon.  Last nights exercise in relaxation was a wash.  Had a very nice pub dinner followed by  a really bad rental flick.  I'll have to try again tonight, perhaps a Kim Stanley Robinson novel, chips and salsa, and a cool beer.

The end is nye

Just need to drop off my Stats term paper and I'll have wrapped up my first year of grad school. At the end of fall term I toasted with Champagne and Guinness.

At the end of winter term I spent a week in Vancouver, drinking the best beer BC could offer.

And now for spring term I feel an anti-climax.  I kinda just want to have a relaxing swing in the hammock and read a book.  Sounds lame, but a guilt free evening that includes reading for entertainment is unattainable during the school year, and can truly only be found during this brief transitional period where the stress of classes wane and the stress of research has yet to build.