i'd have... time.
...and i'm not saying i haven't had time. i just haven't had shit to do; and the one thing i want to be doing more than anything else, i'm not.
it's become a game of procrastination. i'll sit here for 2 hours spacing out and listening to music before i can even pull it together and take a shower. i get so excited about wanting to write something after i get out, i play (bob) dylan's 'desolation row' (11:24, and one of my absolute favorites of the 10-minute-plus set) to "limit" my shower in favor of productivity. instead, i stand in the shower, gradually getting it as hot i can take (day by day, i've been testing how much heat i can stand in there. make what you want of it, but i made it past half-strength for the first time the other day. !?) given, i think my best ideas hit me when i'm in one of three places: a) lying in bed before i go to sleep; b) traffic; or c) the shower; so 15 minutes later and somewhere near the end of wilco's 'how to fight loneliness,' i get back to my desk and i hurry to get it down. nothing's coming.
it should be noted that i've also discovered i can take full swings with a wedge in my bedroom without destroying anything, so i suppose my swing's coming back a little after not touching a club since july.
here's another example: i'll call it "the traveling blue envelope." i have this blue envelope (see? told you i'm at a loss of creativity) of time-sensitive forms heading back to the unemployment people sitting around since probably last friday; everything's completed and signed, it's just waiting to be mailed in so that in theory, i can start collecting my pittance from the establishment. monday i rummage about for the handful of postage stamps i'm convinced i have (still am), but i can't find them. i figure i'll walk a block to vons, but it just doesn't happen. no sweat, there's always tomorrow. i even bring the envelope with me to dinner with my mom, thinking "sweet, i'll get a free stamp out of it." i forget to ask. tuesday: i bring it along with michael as we run errands. bay cities. rebecca's. guitar center. i end up at home, it's 4:30, but i don't know where the closest mailbox to our place is (note: i've been informed--nine months after moving here--that there's a drop box in our building), so i decide it's best not to rush the block up to vons just to get flustered at the last minute and not be able to find a mailbox. i end up making the trip to vons on wednesday afternoon. there's a mailbox on the same corner; can't be more than a hundred yards. it takes me three days to walk a block, buy a stamp, and mail a single letter-sized envelope.
none of this is typical of me. (edit: i've been procrastinating since i learned to talk.) i'm slipping. i'm not sharp right now; i'm not concise. i'm drawn out all over the place; i'm just doing it calmly. i'm addicted to convenience. i've got hundreds upon hundreds of these little situations, jokes and lines coursing through my body; i'm talking my fucking existence here. the problem? i've got zero--ZERO--drive to make anything tangible of them.
i've had to make plenty of adjustments over the last couple weeks (in addition to the three weeks leading up to our suspension). for one, i was contently at a point where my biggest concerns weren't my health or finances or career, just my inability to find myself in a stable relationship (subconsciously, it's my favorite thing to lose sleep over). i'm not sleeping with anyone for the sake of sleeping with someone, which is a nice change. hell, the last month or so has been the first time in probably four years that i'm not "in love" with one or more people. (quotations due to the fact that 80% of the time, this is unrequited; so for now, let's go with "at the moment, i'm not pining over anyone.")
a few months back, i reconnected with someone from the past (try, well...my first), made myself available, and i got fucked over. i hadn't really been all that bitter about it until lately, but now that i've got all this free time, it's hard to ignore. long story short: a girl who stays with her distant, construction-working stoner boyfriend of several years out of pity, yet doesn't mind blowing you under the sheets in a vegas hotel room with her former sorority sister and your buddy 10 feet away in the other bed, then doing bong rips and fucking your brains out at your place two weeks later (take a breath...) probably isn't gonna stick. i could be wrong. i hope i'm wrong. i try to see the best in people, but maybe sometimes it's not actually there; maybe i'm just enamored with everything these girls evoke from within me. at least i got to try my hand at homewrecking.
on a positive note, i actually talked to a girl i found interesting (very) last night at an ugly christmas sweater party. high point of my week. from what i remember, she probably has a boyfriend. sweet.
oh. i went to dinner at my dad's tonight with this mustache:
i think what's getting under my skin (among other things, of course) is that it's my favorite time of year, yet i'm feeling so completely uninspired.
there. that felt good.
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