The Pleasure of Not Doing Business

i love time off from work. and it is rare these days, my friends. i had today off, though, and i have tomorrow off as well. i am pretty fucking stoked about that, i can tell you.

however, i'm tired, and a side effect of being all topsy-turvy due to work-related issues (and moderately productive on a day off even, thankyouverymuch) is that you don't have much time to blog. or at least, i don't have enough time or mental energy to patch the random events of my life into a coherent narrative. not that my coherent narratives are necessarily that coherent, but you know. i like them to sort of have a flow of some sort.

so i will be establishing a flow as best i can, at the moment, which means writing a list, basically. i like lists. i like lists a lot. they make it so that everything has a place it belongs, and everything is easily visible, and you can go along the list and check tasks off as you complete them, or insert rod a into slot b (hahahaha, i can quote family guy! i truly am just as intelligent as the vast majority of bloggers!), and just generally feel productive about your time.

and god knows but i love feeling productive. its like the greatest aphrodisiac in my life. i get wet when i smell three-ring binders, freshly cut paper, and professional binding machines.

i don't actually want to make a list right now, though. it would be a good way to sift through a lot of information that i've been storing up for when i actually have time to make blog entries about it. i could quickly give you an update on all things josh stone. but it seems cheap. and it seems like a really good way to sell myself short. and i don't want to flirt with either of those. so i think i'll just ramble for a bit, and see where we get.

i've been talking to someone online. its getting to that point where i can't actually tell if i like them or not. apparently, this is a problem that afflicts many INFJs. its amazing. i can talk to someone for ages, and not be sure how i feel about them. then, when i figure out i hate them, a tremendous weight is lifted off me. and when i find out i'm in love with them, its like i've been hit in the face with a frying pan. well, mostly, my current situation has led me to the following conclusions.

any way you slice it, twenty years old is young. its really young. and no matter how mature someone seems, or how grown up they sound, every time you talk, they are going to say something that makes you take a step back and look them up and down while you mutter, "my god, you really are twenty, and that is an amazing thing."

i've also realized, or allowed myself to actually pay attention to, a few facts: a) i graduated from one of the top ten or fifteen universities in the nation. THE NATION. i got in, i went, i learned a shitload, and i graduated. i am smart. b) i applied to three competitive graduate schools in my state, and i got, in, to each, one. all three. accepted. austin was always my first choice, but i had my pick of all three schools that i applied to. i am some kind of smart. i am good. i am smart. i work hard. i succeed. i do not fail. i made a choice to not continue with my graduate schooling, but i did not fail. i succeeded. by all accounts.

i don't read enough. i miss reading. and i miss reading academic texts. i miss reading critical articles about literature and race and class and sexuality. i miss theoretical writing. i miss feeling strong, and smart. the strong, i need to attack from a few new directions, but the smart, i'm feeling a little more, recently. its a good thing to feel.

also, its really hard to blog when you're listening to goldfrapp.

they kind of demand your attention.

and i'm sort of willing to give them my attention. and its a nice change, right now, to feel able to give my attention to something, without having to feel like i'm avoiding something.