Static Malaise

Where do I begin? Instead of trying to tie this all together with a theme, I’ll just tell you things. Updates. Brain droppings. An improvisatory blog post.

Halloween snuck up on me, so I decided to start the Christmas season early in my mind, lest it too sneak up on me and nearly escape my notice. I wanted to savor the best parts of the season this year, so I decided, “Heck with it—I’ll just start Christmas after Halloween, otherwise I’ll get too busy and won’t get to have any fun with it before it’s gone.”

Well, it backfired. Now I have Acute Early Onset Holiday Blues. This occurred once I realized there was no way I’d be able to be home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. The world continues to be unaccommodating. This malaise progressed to advanced stages once I further realized that since the only people I know in Texas are Baha’i and therefore don’t even celebrate Christmas, I was truly not going to have a Christmas this year. That’s when the notorious, annual Holiday Blues finally defeated me. Humbug.

I did finish my Christmas shopping a week ago, though. That’s pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. A new record. I’ve completely “beaten the rush.” Now, all I have to do is pay for shipping and handling, which will probably equal the cost of the actual gifts. Great.

Holiday Blues. So this is just one more manifestation of the blackness of my spirit these days. General malaise is another. Anger at grave injustices is yet another. It’s a cocktail, really. A disquiet follows my soul.

My frustration is reaching critical mass with regards to the physical element I mentioned in the post “Rise of the Warrior Bard.” I must get more exercise. I must get more control. I must get more discipline. I must get more, more, more.

I simply don’t feel like myself. Not even physically.

On a lighter note, I finished off my Lord of the Rings marathon last week by watching The Return of the King on my laptop at Scooter’s, which always makes me extra reflective for some reason. I finally investigated the hiking/biking trail I used to always pass on the way to Scooter’s, which is admittedly way out of the way just for a coffee shop sanctuary. I walked the trail, thinking about Frodo and stuff.

Every city I’ve lived in, I’ve found a good trail or two as a recluse. It has become a timeless escape; walking this trail, I could have easily forgotten I wasn’t in Columbia, MO, about to follow up my hike with a trip to a microbrewery with some friends (except for the cacti that occasionally intruded in order to keep me grounded in the reality that I was, yes, still in Texas).

Ephemeral pleasures. Life’s fleeting moments of respite.

Walking along Brushy Creek Trail, I pondered two things. First, I pondered how lousy my shoes were, how they were more than likely contributing to my overall feeling of brittleness and fatigue that compounded my already overpowering self-frustration. I need new shoes. I hate shoe shopping.

Second, I pondered an abstract ideal I had long forgotten, a vague outline of what I had once described as “the perfect day.” Martial arts in the morning, a nice long, adventurous, exploratory hike in the afternoon, and then a majestically refreshing shower, followed by a run to the coffee shop and then a night out on the town with true companions.

Part of the enjoyment of the hike, therefore, is the knowledge in the back of your mind that the fun doesn’t stop there. A vastly disparate setting awaits you, the polar variety of outdoor adventure and urban frolicking lending a certain epic feeling to your day.

And there’s something about taking a shower in late afternoon, when your muscles are dead tired from a workout, that just feels fantastic.

The order of these steps is important. Martial arts in the morning, then a quick, light lunch, then a long hike on the trails, then come back and shower, then an hour or so at your favorite coffee shop to catch up on a few things online while letting your spirits soar with the music you listen to on iTunes, then pack up and head to a sports bar for dinner and drinks with your posse. From there, see where the night takes you. The “perfect day,” I used to think.

I still do.

You’d think it would be easily attainable on a weekly basis. You’d think that being a man of such simple pleasures would ensure happiness.

You would think.

I suppose the blog isn’t doing much these days to encourage repeat visits, huh?

Things will pick up, I hope.

I have a busy week ahead. We’re doing some sort of Wednesday Thanksgiving thing in Austin, for which I’ve bought a few tasty treats. I am struggling to budget a trip to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I in the real theater, instead of waiting three months to see it in the discount theater. I also have an intense desire to buy the CD score to that movie as well as Halo: Reach, but I digress.

The whole self-employment thing is not working out, but it would be excellent secondary income, since I make my own schedule for bookkeeping, and piano lessons are in the evenings anyway. A guy I know contacted me out of nowhere to schedule a job interview because he just fired someone. The position is third shift, 10 PM to 6 AM, so I can still do piano lessons and bookkeeping. I’ll be a busy man with a Vitamin D deficiency, but it’s only a few hours off of my sleep schedule anyway.

Then again, there are no guarantees. I just feel optimistic about it for a change. Maybe that itself is the surest sign of desperation.

I’m sick of stress, dread, panic, poverty, fear and hopelessness. I’m sick of worrying about a baleful future while lamenting a doleful present. I'm sick of this millstone of vexation.

Whether or not I get this part-time graveyard shift, things are going to change around here. Lots of things…

Maybe I'll even have a cheerful blog post. Ha.