Selling Sno-Cones at the Beach

spring break redux

When I was working in city planning, although I ended up getting four weeks vacation a year, I could never use it all And when I did take a week off, I noticed this phenomenon:

You can work insane hours at insane tasks for weeks on end, and of course, before you go on vacation, you work even harder trying to clean off your desk and make sure everything will be "covered" while you're gone. This seems totally normal. Then you go away. When you come back, you just don't care; that Type A workaholic thing has vanished and you have no motivation to work late, or work weekends, or even work in the office. You wander around hoping someone will ask questions about your vacation, and you sit at your desk daydreaming about whiling away an afternoon sitting in a cafe drinking local wine and watching the world go by. And THIS seems totally normal.

Anyway, that's my state of mind at the moment. I've lost the flow of managing classes and jobs, squeezing the last bit of usefulness from every single minute. I've started this blog. Next thing you know, I'll probably be writing poetry, or outlining plots for novels.

Thursday nights are good. I've survived another week; my students haven't found out I'm faking it; my teachers haven't ranted about my lack of production. In short, my fraudulence lives to try it again next week.

I am thinking of reading Henry James's The Wings of the Dove this summer. And, as an antidote to the long sentences, perhaps something by Hemingway too. Probably I should read something new, though. Any suggestions for great novels that incorporate notions of place and space? It's depressing how there isn't enough time on the PLANET to read all the good stuff.

And on that happy note - until tomorrow...

Posted by otto0114 at April 8, 2004 11:25 PM