1.20.2003

 

Were today not Martin Luther King, Jr. day, I would dedicate today's efforts to my pal Alfred Pennyworth, who surely is enjoying his day off following a Raiders win yesterday. But today is, in fact, MLK day, and while I have great admiration for Mr. Pennyworth, I do not hesitate to say that Dr. King deserves my dedication today far more than my dear Alfred.

I have chosen to honor Dr. King today by preparing myself for a new semester. I have completed my readings for Day 1, organized myself as best I can and given my living quarters a thorough cleaning on such a level of thoroughness that I might not find it within myself to perform a similarly diligent cleaning until the yet unstarted semester has come to a close.

I know not if I enjoy long vacations away from my daily and weekly routines. I find that while sometimes I return to my life refreshed, more often than not, I am lethargic and unwilling to take any efforts in furtherance of my life. I will sit and complain that I am bored and cannot even swallow the panderings of my television for one more moment, and yet I simultaneously dread restarting my life. If I did not enjoy doing certain things over vacations to such a great extent, such as traveling, diving, hiking, camping having sex until the wee hours of the morning and sleeping, when possible, until the early hours of the afternoon, and such other pursuits, I might cease taking vacations altogether.

We speak of vacations, small breaks and three-day weekends with such reverance, and like any normal person I without fail look forward to these moments at the end of a semester or an end of a year and imagine the great things I will do in lieu of work, class, studying, whatever the current need may be. And yet all too frequently I find myself at the close of these respites wondering if I wish they would continue or have never happened in the first place.

I sit here today with no desire to do much of anything. I have a new video game I could play, new DVDs I could watch, a book which I am thoroughly enjoying that I could read, a guitar I have ignored for too long that I could play, and a blog that gives me so much pleasure I could update. But I do not thrill at the idea of any of these potential activities. My lethargy over the last weeks has bred a contempt for just about everything.

Here's to hoping that tomorrow resumption of activities pulls me by my ass out of this rut.