Sometimes I Wish I Would Just Wander Off And Get Lost

As much as the title basically sums up my thoughts I think I'm going to rant a bit anyway.
'Cause mostly I'm just sick of myself. I seem to be stuck in these patterns of behavior which serve me not. Try as I might I just can't think my way out of them...
I read once this quote: " You can act your way into right thinking, but you can't think your way into right action." Or some such anyway, that probably wasn't exactly how it was said, it is however the exact idea. Anyway, I'm keep on being stuck with being me.
I'm in my fourth semester of college now and am reminded of being a young adult. In those days a year and a half of being at the same job, looking at the same four walls, would make me want to cry every morning. Eventually I escaped this dilemma by moving into the construction field where everything changes all the time. But it seems that now that I am back in school this rule still applies. I am hopelessly unmotivated.
When I look at the prize at the end I still conclude that all this suffering will be worth it. Although teaching will potentially place me in a position where I could end up stuck in the same place year after year it will also present an ever changing cast of personalities and challenges as well as opportunities to travel abroad and summer breaks enough for recouping purposes, I hope.
Which helps not at all with my current crisis. I have accepted that I am a collection of particular characteristics. What I really need is to morph those into something that isn't so totally sabotaging to my higher goals. I am frustrating myself almost beyond endurance.
I have seen people change. Once or twice anyway. How does this happen?

The Latest Plan...Hunting

My boyfriend and I have come up with an idea for summer frolicking...we are going to host a scavenger hunt party. The idea is that we will charge a modest entrance fee because the party portion will include a huge barbeque and the scavenger hunt part is going to include t-shirts printed with the list on one side and some sort of "Official Hunter" message on the other. I want to blog about this because we are working up our list of hunting items and I'm fishing for comments and ideas. We are thinking there will be categories of items and hunters will have to come up with a requisite number of items in that category and maybe there will be points assigned to various items. Prizes will be given for fastest group, coolest items and other things. See what you think...

1 lb. soil from outside of a graveyard (with picture documenting it's source)
a globe
an oversize letter or number (3')
a rotary telephone
an Atari cartridge
a prisoner (some one picked up randomly who will at least come to the party to be checked in and is then welcome to hang out)
a tool (bonus points if your prisoner will also admit to being a tool)
a ridiculously oversized item
a "What-the-fuck?" item (extra points for creativity)
a live animal that is not a pet
a kitchen sink
a toilet seat
points for a $20 donation to the party
a strangers underwear (bagged please)
a large bone
a beach ball
a softball bat, glove, and ball (so we can play at the party)
a frisbee
the bumper from a car (must be detached)
the phone number of a man over 70 (and permission to call to verify)
a superhero kite
a pumpkin
a love letter composed by the team
a sticker or collector card from a policeman
homework from a summer school kid
a t-shirt from a local bar
a paint ball hit on a team member's shirt
a bottle of liquor or a case of beer
a halloween mask
a cowpie
a bike rim and tire
a christmas light bulb from a house with it's lights still up
a traffic cone, hard hat, or safety vest
a yard gnome
a movie poster
a lego airplane
a portrait of the god of your choice
an adult magazine dated 1990 or earlier
10 red ants or 4 daddy long legs in a jar
a picture of a team member in a compromising position with a stranger
a paddle

So we plan to sort through and amend this list as the planning goes on. We are trying to keep the lawbreaking to a minimum. We would love to have your feedback. Thanks

I Have Found Heaven - It's in Portland.

I recently took a trip to Portland, Oregon. Portland has the good fortune to shelter the largest new and used bookstore in the world. Imagine, one full city block going four stories up, all devoted to the commerce of the written word. It is well organized and boasts a coffee shop in one corner. As you walk in you smell paper and coffee. This is it. Nirvana achieved.
Portland has many other lovely features, but for money this was it's shining glory. Well, Voodoo Doughnuts was up there too. Really, how often does your pastry allow you to simulate pagan death magic? But it's the bookstore that makes me all squishy inside.

The Clam Before the Storm

Yep, you read that correctly. It is my down time, for a moment, between semesters. I am the clam. I am shut up in my little world, bounded by my house and my boyfriend's arms. This is my warm, happy place and I am so very content, that I can hardly be pried out of here.
For activities, I am kid swapping with my sister-in-law, reading to my boyfriend, and cleaning house. A couple of months ago I took a full trailer load of garbage out of my house, mostly assorted chattels that were either broken or had potential that would never be realized in my household. For Christmas I had a stroke of genius. My brother was wishing for a gift certificate to Home Depot and so I returned to Home Depot two brand new doors that fit no doorways in my house and gave him the store credit. I can't explain how they came to be, but they are gone now. Of the six separate spaces in my house, five are no longer in complete chaos. I can see my kitchen table. All of it. I am freakin amazing.
There are parts of me who just want to be a clam forever.

The Contagion Spreads

So my sister has contacted me by text message to say that her depression is kicking her ass. I asked her, in my reply, what she was willing to do about it. It turns out that her off the cuff answer was apparently the true answer. She replied "curl up in a ball." She asked if had any better ideas, but apparently I don't. What do I know, I've only been through it and reached what I feel was a successful resolution. I guess it just goes to show that people have to find their own way through these things.
Not that I'm unsympathetic. If she wanted a shoulder to cry on I could give her that, I have in fact. But in the end I always seem to come back to the "What are you willing to do about it?" question, which tends to put off the average depressed person. I can relate to that. I currently have issues in my life I'm not quite willing to take the appropriate action for. I know that when I reached the point where anything else was better than being depressed anymore I did something about it. I wasn't ready before that, didn't hurt enough yet, was still comfortable being sad. It really only took 10 years for me to get tired of being depressed.
So I'm content to just hang out until she gets tired of it. Hope she doesn't die first, that really would piss me off.

Don't Tell Anyone...

But I am the calm calm center of the universe. Nothing will penetrate my cool and calm exterior. Nothing!!!

Science and...Emotion?

In my youth I started on a path destined to seriously retard my growth as an adult person. My method involved excessive amounts of psychotropic substances and was very effective, thank you. I am constantly amazed at how much I grow now that I'm no longer chemically challenged. Today's epiphany relates to getting my son to school on time. A couple of years ago he was considered truant because he was late an average of three times a week. This year he has only been late three times. Yeah, me!
All of that aside, what is interesting to me this week is the idea that emotion could be subject to the first law of thermodynamics, that energy is neither created or destroyed. Is it possible that you can catch a funk like a cold? Maybe just by brushing up against the karmically challenged you could pick up the blues? Do a positive outlook and work you love act like an immune system to protect you from these negative influences? Can you pick up happiness the way you can give someone a smile? Maybe human emotion isn't the natural state of man, maybe it's a disease we picked up from the sun and haven't yet developed an immunity to.
I developed this idea after visiting my friend last weekend. After fully appreciating his life circumstance I was feeling very heavy, almost panicked. I spent three days feeling this way before it finally lifted. That's suspiciously similar to the length of the average cold, don't you think? Hmmm...