Tuesday, December 18, 2007

bored, bored, bored

I leave early today, but that doesn't stop the boring from creeping in. I held on to all the work I was giving yesterday until this morning. It didn't take long to finish. I wandered around the 'net just looking and nothing struck me.

What I really want to do is sit here and read my book, but I don't know if I could get away with that. It's not like high school where the teachers had thirty other students to watch and if one spent the whole hour reading a book, why should they care? Here, there are only a few of us and they expect us to be busy all the time, even though they know that we only get 2/3rds the work we got six months ago and a new person was hired in those last six months.

So, I try to look busy. I shuffle papers around at my desk. I keep a couple of files around. I get up and wander around (although that also helps with my sciatica crap). I type a letter to my parents. I poke around through comic archives. I roll around in my cubie area and grab my stapler as if I'm going to use it, bring the stapler back to my desk and ten minutes later I roll it back to its usual place. I cross off today on the calendar with the symbol I use to mark the short day. I eat a granola bar so I won't take the giant ibuprofen on an empty stomach. I listen to SHTK whine about stupid things and stupid people.

Still, I'm bored.

In my head I start thinking about the future. I start with the near future and the possibility of pizza for dinner. I move on to Friday and the drive to my parents' house and the brother, with his girlie friend, being there; the last time I saw him was a year ago and I've never met her. I wonder if JL and H, among others, will want to game. I skip to New Year's and think about how much I hate that holiday. Then I think farther wonder about people I may meet and places that I'll dream about visiting. I try to picture myself being visited by the spawn of my brothers, which is really hard, for reasons that I don't want to write about. I wander through the house that I'd like to own and I mow the lawn that I always wanted growing up and let much of the land go wild. I tend to an herb garden. I waltz with an old friend at her daughter's wedding. I fall asleep.

And now, along with bored, I'm a little sad, maybe more wistful.

I can't/don't picture what I used to think of as the perfect future for myself anymore. I suppose I don't believe in that movie happy ending.

Still, I'd like to live a day like that Lovin' Spoonful song "Rain of the Roof," just once.

4 comments:

geewits said...

It's too bad you can't read your books on the internet. Then you could read your book and look busy all at once.
Two more days!

Jazz said...

Hang in there Tick. You've almost made it...

ticknart said...

Occasionally, I do read some fan-fiction online, but if it's actually good or so bad it's fun, I get so caught up in it I forget to look busy.

Work's a crazy balancing act.

ticknart said...

Jazz -- Almost made it to what? I still have 30+ years 'til retirement.