I have nothing to write, draft, mark-up or study for, no exams, quizzes or papers due. I am officially stress-free.
And I have no idea what to do with myself.
I walk around the house, dressed in Chinese-print skirts I’ve dragged out of last summer’s wardrobe, my father’s fluffy red sweaters. I update my social networking profiles, check my e-mail obsessively. The last message I got was from a “Mr. Brunior”, the apparent Bill and Exchange Manager of Burkina Faso’s banks, to inform me that a “relative” of mine had recently died and bequeathed to me the sum of three million dollars and a mansion on Burkina Faso’s picturesque coast.
Burkina Faso is landlocked.
It appears that not even spam writers make any effort any more.
Having exhausted all Internet-related activities, I’ll watch my brother’s entire DVD collection. Star Wars, King Kong, even Power Rangers, which proves exactly how depraved I am, that I am able to sit through seventy-five minutes of multi-colored teenagers in Spandex.
Sometimes I’ll draw, paint. Solve my Rubik’s Cube, kick Alex’s butt on Wii Fit, Mario Kart.
But usually I am too lethargic. I’ll lie down, ruminate. I’ll think about how the logical way I have of thinking through every single detail, something I’ve always been proud of, is beginning to backfire. I don’t like fervent, surprise displays of emotion, suffering through things I couldn’t have predicted. It makes me uneasy, the gelatinous pace of my environment, the shift shaping, morphing, moving quality of it. How could I ever have thought the world small enough to manage? I’ve been kidding myself, I suppose, acting like I’ve always been in control.
I will wonder, for a bit, watching the sky darken. I’ll eventually come to the conclusion that I’ll never really figure out a way to be completely in sync with my surroundings, and so I am left with just the possibility of taking these, life’s crazy random happenstances, as they come. I’ll smile – another oh-so-deep thought, courtesy of my whack-job brain. No wonder the family is full of psychiatrists.
Then I’ll go beat Alex’s high score on Rainbow Road.
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