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things to keep the grey at bay
Oct. 20th, 2004 01:40 pmThe internet has been up and down at work today, and the work's been cake. What else to do but stare at my necklace and ponder all the possible configurations of the beads present? Fifty leaves, fifty gold circles, twenty five green orbs and twenty five stars. I completely forgot to buy a clasp, so it's held together by an untidy knot of wire.
In the last days of high school, I would make obsessive charts as to how many hours of chemistry and government and history I had left before I was done. I also randomly invented bizarre forms of Mash to play, inventing alternate futures that had nothing to do with my life at the moment. It gave my hands somehting to do, and the counting required was just enough to keep my mind occupied. (Please, as if the work was hard enough to keep my attention?) Playing it online is good for the immediate sense of gratification and hilarity, but it's a lot more fun with paper. I had weird categories too, like the color of my carpets and the books I would write, or the flavors of cakes alongside which book character or movie star was most interesting at the moment.
Lately I've been making obsessive charts as to how many days of work I have left. Today, it's 87. I don't include weekends in my calculations.
Right now, I would be filling out one of those tedious quizzes to fill time and space except for the fact that I usually hate those things precisely because they are tedious and wasteful. Does anyone really need to know how much I like mint? I get paralyzed by restaraunt menus, afraid of choosing the wrong thing somehow. It took me twenty minutes to make an obvious choice for dinner last night and thank god I started thinking about it before I got in the car or we would have been there all night. Visiting Amy's ice cream is one of those great things in Austin, but I am forever terrified by my inability to make up my mind and those excitable servers. What sweets would I like mixed in with my ice cream?
I could make a list of things I want for Christmas, perhaps. Would it be tacky, or percieved as passive aggressive to write that in my online journal? There's so much that I just never talked about with other people, because I grew up with these old fashioned and peculiar notions on what was acceptable. You never know. Like Newland Archer, I live in a hieroglyphic world and I grope my way carefully over the carved stones.
In the last days of high school, I would make obsessive charts as to how many hours of chemistry and government and history I had left before I was done. I also randomly invented bizarre forms of Mash to play, inventing alternate futures that had nothing to do with my life at the moment. It gave my hands somehting to do, and the counting required was just enough to keep my mind occupied. (Please, as if the work was hard enough to keep my attention?) Playing it online is good for the immediate sense of gratification and hilarity, but it's a lot more fun with paper. I had weird categories too, like the color of my carpets and the books I would write, or the flavors of cakes alongside which book character or movie star was most interesting at the moment.
Lately I've been making obsessive charts as to how many days of work I have left. Today, it's 87. I don't include weekends in my calculations.
Right now, I would be filling out one of those tedious quizzes to fill time and space except for the fact that I usually hate those things precisely because they are tedious and wasteful. Does anyone really need to know how much I like mint? I get paralyzed by restaraunt menus, afraid of choosing the wrong thing somehow. It took me twenty minutes to make an obvious choice for dinner last night and thank god I started thinking about it before I got in the car or we would have been there all night. Visiting Amy's ice cream is one of those great things in Austin, but I am forever terrified by my inability to make up my mind and those excitable servers. What sweets would I like mixed in with my ice cream?
I could make a list of things I want for Christmas, perhaps. Would it be tacky, or percieved as passive aggressive to write that in my online journal? There's so much that I just never talked about with other people, because I grew up with these old fashioned and peculiar notions on what was acceptable. You never know. Like Newland Archer, I live in a hieroglyphic world and I grope my way carefully over the carved stones.