Of bike rides, and bad jobs

Been wasting my life playing around at flickr. Between that and watching old documentaries that I download, I manage to stay up all night on my nights off, sleeping completely through my days off.

But I have to be at work tomorrow at 8:00 AM. It is now 2:00 AM.

I have six hours left of 2 days off. During this time I haven’t bought milk which I have needed–I’m putting old eggnog in my coffee. I haven’t bought bread, which I have also been out of. I haven’t written the letter of reference which my friend needs me to send to her potential college by February 1. This means I have to do it tomorrow night, or Thursday night–or more than likely, on both nights because I am a perfectionist–in order to send it in the mail on Friday.

During both days off, I have not been outside in sunlight at all; in fact I haven’t even been awake during sunlight for more than two hours total during both days off. Now that I think about it, I have avoided all face to face contact with people, and most of any other kind of contact as well. aloner

If, instead of getting up to go to work every day, I were riding my bike on a long journey (which I did once), then I would know what to do and when to do it. The ‘how’ of it I would figure out. I did, once. Actually, much more than once.

Engaged in the journey, I would have no qualms, no internal conflicts about my occupation, as I do now. I would, as I once did, face fears and challenges with aplomb. Now I respond to tedious fears and drudging challenges with sprays of venom in all directions; these days, I harbor a contempt for everything and it oozes from me like paint-stripping jelly onto every encounter I have.

I once knew the joy of every human encounter, every chance meeting on the bike road or the hiking trail. However, I have allowed this job, like a chafing shoe, to build callouses on me which now allow me to remain isolated amid the crowd; by the stagnation of these days, I have grown giant ugly scabs which rebuff those who would approach me without me ever needing to engage them.

I am missing something, and I do not know quite what it is.

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