These are the questions I find myself posing more and more. What should I bring with me? What should I leave behind? They have imposed severe restrictions on baggage, you tell me. I picture a cartoon, the sort that appears in The New Yorker. A man is studying the new regulations. At his side are suitcases labeled "high school", "parents", "first wife" and "drinking problem." His thought bubble reads, "Only one?"

Tags: ][, autobiography, everyday, prose
Current Location: 85721

It's silly, sometimes, what we refuse to surrender. A few minutes ago I was at the kitchen sink, standing on what felt like my last legs of the day, and realized that I wasn't going to get anything else accomplished unless I stirred my heartbeat with a little exercise. A set of pushups or crunches would flood me with enough adrenalin to get another hour of work in. Yet I resisted the impulse to act because I actually liked the way my legs felt, thick with the desire to do no more. The dense red sauce I'd eaten over pasta earlier was still blowing on the embers of my impulse to be useless and I was warmed by the glow. In the end, I managed to motivate myself to go in the bedroom and do a light arm workout with the stretchy yoga device I purchased on clearance from Marshall's. And that's why I'm sitting here at the computer writing instead of languorously ignoring my future on the sofa. But I'm waiting eagerly for that longing for oblivion to return. It's starting to inch its way up from my toes as I type this sentence.

Tags: ][, autobiography, everyday
Current Location: 85704
Muse: a memory of "Jungleland"