To Do

I've been traveling a lot lately. Little, I guess, compared to some people, but relatively a lot--no, the most--for me. It wasn't that I was gone longer than I've been before, but the actual travel, the process of transmitting between destinations, and then the, and I have come to think of it as a kind of psycho-spiritual activity, or process, or whatever you will have it--just know that I think that it involves a lot of spirit to do-- the experience of adjusting to a new place, has been taking a lot out of me. That's the travel that I mean. Three different, or four more like, it locations this summer alone, plus Philadelphia before that, and even, if transitions are counting, finishing up the school semester. It feels like quite a load, and I feel great from having it, but also really, really great to be back in a stable, err, back home. But I'm not. I'm at my sister's house. Landed in SA and here to spend two nights before going home. I didn't plan it, and I don't think that I could have planned it better either. This is a more relaxing lifestyle than I afford myself at home. They use their AC. They have nice things and staying with them has the air of security that staying with my parents has. Plus they have a new baby, my niece, and I've been wanting to come down here to spend some time with her for a while now. I know this doesn't count, as far as points for intentional thoughtfulness go, but in reality, excluding the politics of human interaction, I get the experience of hanging out with my sister, her husband, and the baby. 'm very glad that this happened (wonder if you have to capitalize the letter at the beginning of a sentence if it is contracted? That breaks grammar rules anyways, so how do you know?).

The point of this post:

Coming back on the airplane I was really, really tired. Not a single night of full sleep in chicago, overly full days of walking, plus drinking nights and aggregate sleep demand from long time ago. Then, for some reason I, or some unthinking bottom part of me, decided that I didn't want to sleep on the plane. But I was too tired to read, or, rather, would fall asleep as soon as I started to read. And this is the point of this post, my neurotic tracking of the events, actions, and slippages that signify the slow transition of me, cool, independent, aware individual, into my father. Couldn't sleep, got bored, and so my mind began to compulsively compile and arrange lists of future chores for myself once I had finally arrived back at home. Anyways, the compulsion wouldn't be satiated, couldn't be satiated until I had written the things down.

• Paint shelves and relocate, plus acquire board to place across top of both shelves
• Put up pictures
• Plan brewery tour
• Visit Bookstores, Triftstores, Art Galleries, and Toystores in Austin
• Grocery shopping
• Disappear into Texas
• Watch all of the movies that I ever wanted to see
• Finish I.J.
• Complete my Google Map of neat things to do in Austin/Reminder of cool should do's
• Volunteer @ Ransom Center
• Exercise
• Buy V & myself stainless steel water bottles
• Start drinking espresso at home
• Get a basket for recycling-must fit inside the shelf thing that will leave my room, check Big Blue goodwill by the house that Luke suggested
• Put something decorative and cool up on the wall by the bed
• Make a shelf that will hang from the board suspended over my desk from either shelves that will flank the desk out of a shoebox to hold pens, tape, etc (See fig. 1 Harpers Magazine July 2009 p. 33)
• Look (for a cabenet for the kitchen to replace one of the shelves that will move to my room (Andrew might can supply this)
• Go to Home Depot to quote a price on installing lights in the board that will go over my desk
• New Rug for bedroom
• Get/Find shoehorn
• Find where I wrote down what I will need to research to write the 3 articles (Chicago gays, Irish Coffee, School Food)
• Ride TXState Bus to Austin from SA
• Check into the viability of traversing West Coast via moped, visiting San Diego spring, Colorado Winter, and when New England?
• Acquire a pint of liquor--Cognac?--for the box in my room.
• Clean Out Luke's closet
• Take boxes of stuff to the thrift store
• Look up: Gay Culture in New Yorker & Harpers 1st, History of Pride Parades--Wikipedia will do for this--and Google Chicago Pride, locate other gay culture resources. Look up Inteligencia and the Barista World Championships. Atlantic Monthly, notes in the margin of an article about school food.
• Go through the pictures on my computer and arrange them
• Move the shelf at the top of the stairs down into the kitchen pantry
• Find some new shoes
• Blog about my travels

Also, a brief through on how I can imagine a perfect day. Since I can imagine this changing daily, it would be fun to make a list of the perfect day from time to time, and eventually compare the lists.

• Wake up w/o alarm
• get out of bed immediately
• (write)
• postpone 1st cigarete
• coffee in a well lit room, staring
• (write)
• food, not cereal. Not eggy, not dairy.
• (write)
• 15 minutes of mindless task in my room, not requiring much brain processing or physical activity but using my hands
• (write)
• maybe meditating for 15 minutes
• read an article of some sort
• write--() denotes passive writing. W/o means w/ intent
• water the plants, 1st cigarette
• read for a couple of hours--Books, Literature.
• edit,
• Bike ride
• Swimming
• Retail experience--thrift store, record store, toy store, art gallery. Something exciting, stimulating, interesting.
• Coffee Shop
• Write
• Social interaction, Love. This may very well take up the rest of my day, and the evening. Movie
• Make a list of all of the ideas that I had, perhaps a catalogue, impressions, inspirations, insights, things that I saw and things that seemed interesting, and anything else that can fit into a list format
• Go to sleep sober, and not tired, but ready.