All Day Lawn Party! Who’s Bringing The Snapple?

It is such a beautiful Summer day in Maine, Modern Philosophers!

The sun is out, there’s a nice breeze, and I am enjoying my vacation.  Wish you were here.

In fact, why don’t you come to The House on the Hill for a lawn party?

When I woke up this morning, my eyes were itchy and my nose was running.  Luckily, I still had some allergy medicine.

And it’s a good thing I had those pills, considering where I ended up after my morning run!

It was my sixth consecutive day of running, and even though my body was fine with putting another 3 miles under my Running Toga, once I got back to The House on the Hill, it decided to lodge a formal protest.

As a result, I wound up here…

Yes, Modern Philosophers, that is me sprawled out on the Great Lawn.  It looked so inviting and comfortable, which made it impossible to resist.

Since I was dressed in green, I just looked right at home.

As I relaxed there, staring up at the clouds slowly dancing across the sapphire sky, I realized that I had absolutely no reason to move today.

I’m on vacation.  The world doesn’t need me.  I’m not expected anywhere.

I had mowed my bed, and now I was going to lie on it.  All day if I felt like it.

So let’s have a lawn party.  Who’s bringing the Snapple?

Because it’s really not a Summer party until someone brings the ice cold beverages, am I right, Modern Philosophers?

A Snapple does sound perfect right now.

Even though I’ve run every day of my vacation, I’ve also accomplished other things.  Most importantly, I’ve written 36 pages of a new screenplay!

That came as a total surprise.  While I’d planned to get writing done during my time off, I had nothing new on the screenwriting horizon.  My Deep Thought was that I’d get back to work on the book about The House on the Hill’s origin story, which I’d abandoned after getting off to such a promising start.

As I detailed in my Sunday post, however, an idea came to me in a dream Saturday night, and it quickly took root and blossomed into a full blown screenplay concept.

Screenplays never grow this quickly in my head, but I guess the ground was fertile and just waiting for the seed to be planted.  Maybe it’s all the running I’ve been doing.  I do feel so much healthier and confident, so it would make sense that I’d snatch up a good idea and see where I could take it.

The screenplay pages have just spilled out of my since Sunday afternoon.  As usual, I have no real outline or any idea where the story is going.  Basically, I just plot out the next few scenes on my morning run and then see where that takes me.

So once again, Modern Philosophers, running and writing have come together in a perfect storm to make this a very productive vacation.

The plan today is to read through the 36 pages and do some editing.  Hopefully, that will spark new ideas for propelling the story forward.  It has been a blast to write so far, and I’ve even managed to work running into the plot.

I should have plenty of time to think up new scenes during my lawn party.  After all, relaxing in the Maine sun is a great way to stimulate the creative process.

Not to be totally tangential, but it is a lawn party, and such thinking is not only expected, but encouraged.

Anywho, I am so craving Chinese food right now.  Over the eight weeks of my running program, Chinese is the one food I’ve managed to resist.

Since I’ve run six straight days, I told myself that some Sesame Chicken or General Tso’s Chicken would be the perfect reward for my hard work.  However, I then convinced myself to hold off for just a few more days.

My annual physical is on Monday, and that has been some of the push behind this recent health kick.  It’s given me a goal date to shoot for, but I totally intend to keep up with the running and healthy eating even after my doctor’s visit.

I thought it would make sense to put off the Chinese food until after I’ve had my blood work done.  No need to have all that MSG swimming around with the blood cells.

It’s coming together perfectly for Monday, though.  My doctor’s office is close to my favorite Chinese take out place, it will be the last day of my vacation, and I will have completed eight weeks of my running program.

I’m no psychic, but I do see Chinese food getting into my belly on Monday!

That’s where things stand at The House on the Hill, right now.  The lawn party is in full swing, so grab some Snapple and come join the fun.

Gary has graciously agreed to give free Gargoyle rides to all guests, and it’s a perfect day to soar over the Penobscot River.

Stop by.  I’ll be the sweaty guy writing a screenplay on the Great Lawn…