School starts again on Tuesday, so all those romantic thoughts I've had about getting all this posting and reading and writing and painting and creating and living done over break are soon to become romantic thoughts that bore no fruit, no fruit that burst forth with no sweet nectar. Alas. I mean, it's not all a wash, I've nearly filled a sketchbook, at least. I've come to respect the fact--if no other fact--that what I thought of as "idly wasting time doodling nonsense" when I was a kid (though perhaps not in those words) can actually be a completely valid activity for a grown adult to partake in. That's something. It's a whole sketchbook I wouldn't have otherwise filled at any other point in my life. I've even started trying to draw real things, something I've always sort of thought it would be nice to do but never got past the "not actually trying at all" stage of the thing. I can do a pretty good tabletop now. Legs are a bit rough though. And um, a raisin box, a decent raisin box, so long as you're not looking for the graphic elements. And, uh, I have a moderately acceptable rendition of Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day, but I mean, come on, how can one man draw that which contains all things? Conundrum. Maybe tomorrow I'll move on to cylindrical objects in a desperate bid to fill up the last few pages of the book before the next class begins. Or maybe I'll use the night to actually read a little Proust. Which, I mean, at this rate, this is looking to be my slowest reading year ever. Terrible. Well, not terrible. Maybe. Anyway, Proust or soup cans?

The next class, the one that will be further drawing my attention away from all things bookish, is off the graphic design path, being a three-dimensional design class (as in objects in space, not funky-glasses-and-popcorn), which ought to be great fun. I mean, at least, I think it will be interesting, to be in a situation I really have no business in, to be pushed creatively in a way I've never much before expected to be pushed, all to see what comes out on the other end. Before going back to the business at hand of learning more about what makes for good line spacing and how to get rid of zits in photoshop. I hear there's money in that sort of thing.

Still, while I'm doing this, I'm fairly conscious of all the other stuff I want to be doing--Proust, getting around to getting back around to working on something involving words that create stories in the minds of hypothetical readers, inventing my money-cloning device--that I probably use class and work and sleep as excuses as to why I'm not doing them when in reality I'm mostly just more inclined to spend every spare waking moment staring out windows or trying to level up so I can get the princess and win the game. It's the kind of situation that's got me actually (thinking about how many times in this post I've used the word "actually") thinking about investigating some of those Getting Things Done philosophy system 43 folders-y things, the kind of thing I've typically thought of as being the sort of thing that self-important hacks do so they can strut around with their chests puffed out as they talk about how many things they get done all the time. I don't know. Ironically, it's probably just one more thing I'll spend more time thinking about doing than actually doing. Still, though, I have to at least admit, my goals have gotten more ambitious, and I am doing some things right, or at least, some of what I'm doing feels right. So. I might not have 60 percent of what I need, yet, but. Something.