Home again.

Back after eight glorious days of vacation. A few general conclusions:

• This actually-taking-vacation-and-going-somewhere concept is an excellent one.


• Likewise the sitting and staring at the ocean for hours on end concept, and the seeing of a few wonderful friends.


• Also excellent is taking a day after returning to gently re-enter regular life; catch up on LJ, do laundry, putz around in a low-pressure way.
  

As part of the putzing around, I took some time today to upload a few photos from my trip, and at the same time try out the LJ photo galleries. Not bad so far--upload works smoothly, and one can get larger versions of the pictures, if desired, by clicking them. Let me know if you have difficulty accessing them, or if things look wonky.

I am sustaining my mellow vacation buzz for one more day, by dint of avoiding any thoughts of all the work awaiting me next week. Monday will be here soon enough, and in the meantime I'm wallowing in my ocean memories.

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A few more vacation photos here. Outside it is thunderstorming fiercely, and while mooning over my photos, I remind myself that as much as I love the ocean and the fogbound Pacific Northwest coast, I also love my midwestern thunderstorms, and need not feel so wistful.

And I had an odd experience this evening while buying a few frippery items at Walgreens; the very young female clerk rung me up, handed me my receipt, did the usual "Thanks and have a good evening!", and then added, "And, uh, happy Mother's Day!"

I boggled a moment, trying to formulate an appropriate response -- "Thanks, but as a non-mother, I don't really have any special claim to the day"? Or just a cheery "You too!"? In the end, I nodded, smiled, and headed out the door. I certainly don't take any offense whatsoever at any kind sentiment aimed my way, but it just seemed like such an odd thing to wish someone. Perhaps she assumed that any woman twenty or thirty years her senior had of course reproduced, or perhaps she was merely complying with some corporate edict.

My line has always been that I've never for a moment regretted not having had children, and essentially that's true; I won't utter the traditional "I'd have been a *terrible* mother" because I think I'd actually have done a fairly decent job in the role, but I also know that I'd have felt rancorous thwarted regrets for all the things that having children would have kept me from doing or being. Oddly, though, my Life In Fandom has brought me occasional moments of ... hm. Well, every so often I contemplate a few of the much younger friends I've made in my fannish life (popfantastic would be one, and pearl_o another) and realize that, had I actually borne a child during that brief interlude in my twenties when my want-a-baby engines were revving, that child would be exactly the age of these formidable young women. And then I think how immensely cool it would be to have someone of such brain and character and delight in my immediate personal life, and to have had a hand in her or his making.

And then I reflect that it's a crapshoot and I could have ended up with a materialistic brat or a dullard and that in any event it's not all about *me* and my construing it that way shows my essential unfitness for the maternal role, and that actually I like the concept of friends much better than that of family.

Ah, the storm has passed, everything is peacefully dripping, and though it feels very early to my still-on-West-Coast-time brain and body, I should probably go get some sleep.