"trundling" along

i went to the grocery with my friends Brandon and Will today and we spent some time perusing the ridiculous selections in the trashy romance section before we purchased some canned goods to donate to the Oxford Family Resource Center. i think my favorite title was "Déjà You" and my favorite use of a verb was "trundled," as in "she trundled over to the car where Danny waited..." - which is not an incorrect usage, but all i could think of at the time was "trundle? as in trundle bed...?"

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image credit: Neko Case

i feel like my mind has been begging me for a break all week. it busted its hump to get me thru the GREs, and now that i'm back with one less thing to worry about, it's all "you want me to do what?!", giving me attitude, doing what my bro calls "back-sass."

we've had a difficult understanding. i agree to give my mind some rest, some well-deserved TLC after a week of hard work and productivity. my mind in turn gives me some great stuff when i need it: being inventive and creative when i least expect it, discovering nuances in mundane things, rising to the occasion in the high-pressure moments before a paper is due, remembering to think of others and also looking out for me. but lately, i've been asking a little too much from it, and my mind is beginning to rebel against me.

in high school, i knew how to love my mind better. i'd let it rest every night, which it loves to do. i'd let it have fun, we'd watch movies, i'd treat it to a good book now and then, and we'd do a morning crossword or some Calculus problems, just to keep each other on our toes, so to speak. things were slow and steady, and we were communicating and checking up on each other. we were happy.

but lately, there's so little time in the day. i find i'm constantly cutting corners in order to make time, overlapping things to make sure everything gets done. my mind hates me for this. it likes to take its time, to be careful and precise, to be perfect and exacting. it doesn't like me when i expect so much out of it but don't give anything back in return. i promised we'd watch some Arrested Development together and look for dominant, oppositional and negotiated codes together, for fun, but i never followed through because a certain project was taking too much of my time and energy.

my mind went on strike this week. it's feeling overworked and underappreciated. it has a right to. i've been pushing it, asking it to stay up late and wake up early, to focus on a million things at once (my laptop has over 20 documents open on it, my browser has 14 tabs open in each window, there are books opened to various pages spread on top of one another all over my desk and bed), and it hasn't had a vacation since August. it's reminding me that the last time it watched a really good film was ... it can't remember. and i can't either.

it especially doesn't like my false promises. i tease it with the possibility of some amazing music (i got the new Radiohead this week, along with Dirty Projectors and Phosphorescent), only to force earplugs upon it. i tried to take it for a bike ride today, only to have our time interrupted by some Students for Staff questions, and soon enough i found myself asking it to think about things again, even while i was enjoying the wind in my hair, the sun on my face. it wasn't fair.

so tonight, it's telling me stop it stop it jesus fuck STOP IT.

it wants me to start appreciating it, before it leaves me for real.

so today, i finally learned to listen.

i'm putting in a movie. and we're listening to some trip hop when this is all done.
-stephan!e