Very Bored, I Think (And Hope)

This morning was a tad brtual. I woke up checked my mail and then went back to bed. I read a few chapters of David Gilmour's A Perfect Night to Go to China. Here's a perfect excerpt on how I felt at the time:

"It was a long weekend, and just thinking about all that empty, unstructured time put me into a panic...It was a friendly enough world; there just didn't seem to be anyone in it. A tall kid on a bicycle rode slowly down the street; you could tell he was just killing time, too. Waiting for Monday morning. No, worse, Tuesday morning. I forgot. There was another day of this. I looked at my watch. It seemed to have stopped; maybe it was slow. I looked at the second hand. It was moving. But how could only fifteen minutes have lapsed? It seemed so much longer" (70-71).

I have two more days before I'm back to work, and I didn't think that I would get to this point but I am so anxious to go back and be busy that I think that I just might go in tomorrow.

I finished reading and as I lay staring up at the ceiling I began to notice the crooked paint line. I noticed the bumps in the plaster and the nail holes I hadn't patched. My eyes glazed over into sleep and I closed my eyes. There wasn't anything that I was going to do about the walls or the paintjob. I could see the grey-red of the lamplight through my closed eyelids and I took comfort in knowing that I was going to fall asleep with the light on. I would wake up with a collar moist from sweat and a groggy and swimming head.

As I was about to drift off, opened my eyes in a fit. "What are you doing, you idiot? It's 11:36 in the morning. You can't be napping at 11:36! Get your lazy, sorry-for-yourself ass up and out of bed. You've got to get out of this house and do something or you're going to regret it and feel even worse. Moron!"

So I decided to get up. I knew that I wouldn't be able to accomplish anything if I stayed in my apartment. I was not going to go upstairs and work on renovations by myself for the day. I have one more unit of my course to finish so I decided that I would work on that and get it out of the way. It is due on the 23rd, but I didn't want it hanging over me anymore.

So it was decided. I'd sit down and work. I walked to my computer but before I got into the room, I knew that I couldn't face it. I knew that I would get up every six minutes and wander through the apartment. I'd open up the fridge, not find anything interesting, and then wander back. What I needed was to go out and feel like I was at least doing something. I knew that I had to leave. Where? I didn't want to bother anyone. I needed an Internet connection and a quiet place to read and think. I didn't want to pay to sit at an Internet cafe and be a nerd. I decided that I would go to work. No one would care. I knew that one of my coworkers was working today, but she wouldn't care if I was at my desk.

I needed to work, but mostly I needed to not be by myself in my apartment. I needed to know that I was in a place with other people. I didn't intend to talk to any of them but I needed to know that there were other people somewhere.

I packed my papers up and walked to work. There wasn't any problem getting into the building; my security card gets me in everywhere. At the last second, though, I thought about not going into the office. I didn't know what I would say when I would be asked, "What are you doing here?" On my way back to the elevator I thought, "Come on, you just walked for 45 minutes to get here and now you're going to run away because you don't want anyone to know that you can't work at home and need to feel like you're accomplishing something? Just make something up, Mr Creative."

I did just that. I knew that she didn't know me very well and wouldn't be able to tell that I was lying. I walked in said hello and said, "I have to work on my online course and my Internet is down. It's due tomorrow. I didn't know what else to do."

She smiled and nodded, but I know she thinks I'm crazy for going to work when I don't have to be there. I don't care what she thinks. Well I do, but I'm comfortable enough with my quirks to not care if she thinks I'm strange. She was nice about it and I went to my desk and started working. I finished 4 units, but because The Ministry of Education's website wasn't working I wasn't able to finish Unit 5. Unit 6 was a final course reflection and I figured that I should wait until the end of the course to actually write it. In all I worked for about 3 hours. It wasn't glamourous, but I did get something done. I did get out of the house, I did get some sunshine, and was able to walk around outside without a jacket.

It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when George rented a movie to watch at Jerry's house: "When I watch a movie at home, I don't feel like I'm doing anything. This way I'm out of the house; I'm doing something."

When I got back home, I sent some emails and started cooking up a batch of chili. I resisted the temptation to get french fries and greasy food, and thought that I should cook a meal for myself. I watched Pulp Fiction during the prepartation, eating, and cleanup.

I caught the last moments of the CBC miniseries, Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story. If you watched it you would have seen George Stroumboulopoulos hosting. I captioned all of his segments. I took some satisfaction from seeing my work on national television.