Day 316– February 17, 2015

I’m bored. Sadly, boredom is one of my most pernicious traits, a catalyst to destroy, upheave, and otherwise change, often just for difference’s sake.

I quit work last April – so long ago – because I got so bored of work routines: the drive to work, the regularly scheduled meetings, and the same lab projects with the same people. I had mastered the job and was not improving. Time to quit.

I set new domestic routines this year, starting late because of so much travel, projects, and churn. Now mid-February, I have figured out how and when to cook granola for my morning breakfast with espresso and two slices of toast, sometimes a bagel instead for variety. I run three times a week, once a long eleven miles to the ocean to visit the prophetic buffalo and twice shorter runs with push-ups in the park, either by Stowe Lake or further below by my rock.

Poor Greg got ground up in the gears of my need for different. I couldn’t bear anymore our gentle, complacent relationship so I broke up with him (again!). I got then exciting tortured drama and despair. Why can I not let the good lie without poking a stick at it? Will I ever be happy with the same, day after day?

I am working, but not for pay, on writing, electronics projects, and sewing. I’ve figured out this funemployment, so I no longer savor this time off and perversely take it for granted.

I ought instead to concoct crazy travel and leisure schemes. If I could do anything, what could I do? Drive to Disneyland? Get lost in the desert? Smoke Peyote for days with the Navaho? Build an Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks?

Trouble is, I’m loath to drive for fear of traffic and parking. Almost all my friends work regular hours making my getaways almost always solitary. Entertainment has become typical late-night, weekend parties, not reptile rituals or balloon journeys.

Nonetheless, I will try to do something different every day this week. Right now, I do laundry – not different at all and back to my regularly-scheduled routine.