Dull

It's hard to believe I used to enjoy “nothing” days. But I'm equally incredulous toward the realization that I don't enjoy them as much as I used to. Today was one of those days, and one I had been looking forward to. I slept until 9:30AM, which for some reason is as late as I'm able to stay in bed these days. Time was I'd roll over and sleep until noon on a day like this, after having stayed up until three or four in the morning the night prior. Now I wake up with numb arms and ringing ears, in a disoriented limbo between awake and asleep. Once I stretch and get some food and vitamins in me, I definitely feel better about being awake.

I began my day with a bowl of Rice Chex, my second favorite Chex. It's no Corn Chex, but it's still better than that bland Wheat Chex. Ugh. Speaking of Chex, that commercial with the home movie from the fifties and the woman's voiceover about her mother's “recipe” for Chex Party Mix always strikes me as complete bull, since I never heard of it until I was nearly a teenager in the late 1980s myself. So much so that I checked and found a food timeline, and apparently it's been around since the mid-1950s or so. The moral of the story here is that even the most insignificant detail of history can make us aware of the existence of things outside our own lifetime and perceptions.

Breakfast went well with the mindless clickfest called Carnage Blender, which only allows 160 battles roughly every three hours. Once I'd exhausted my battle allocation and broken my morning fast, it was off to X-men Legends for me, that wonderful action/RPG that some reviewers have compared to Baldur's Gate, something I've never played. It did talk about the structure and strategy of building a team though, and how you'll have your “tanks” which are the strong players on the front line and your “wizards” who cast spells and offer support from the ranks. That sort of structure I'm familiar with from Carnage Blender, so it seems an apt metaphor for choosing which members of the X-men to include on which missions. I haven't been able to get enough of the game this week, and it's been swallowing many hours.

I emerged from a video game haze an undisclosed time later, my eyes bloodshot and weary and with a strange sense of disorientation. I checked the mail and got some brisk fresh air which restored some semblance of reality. Joe's Apartment had arrived, so I decided to take a drive to the post office to mail Close Encounters back to Netflix. It was a nice sunny day and it felt good to be out there. I even drove without any of the incidents I'd been experiencing behind the wheel, although my errands were local and my dad, who needed to make some photocopies at Staples and pick up some Aleve for his arthritis, was along for the ride. I spent the rest of the day watching the movie(which took a little over an hour), surfing the web, and playing more X-men. I didn't even notice the sun had gone down until that sense of overwhelming unreality pushed me to take a break at the next save point. After an awesome leftovers dinner, and another impressive victory by Ken Jennings, I watched Mr. Deeds with my folks, who were seeing it for the first time and not noticing the bad editing I was. Although last night when Spider-man made its network television debut, I had to point out the substitution of a generic cola can for the prominent product placement of a Dr Pepper in the original. One thing we all agreed upon was that Fox has far too many commercial breaks, some less than five minutes apart.

I played X-men for yet another hour after the movie but I had to stop. Even now I see the names of characters leveling up when I close my eyes, and hear shouts of “COMBO!!!” which is what the game does any time two or more characters successfully get their powers to interact. I'm off for another three days but I have this overwhelming need to DO something. At least tomorrow I have a parade to break up the monotony. I guess even leisure in excess can be boring, and can dull the senses. I may be stressed at work but when I'm getting things done and accomplishing goals, I feel SHARP. Part of the reason I started blogging was because many of my intelligent friends were doing it. But it's also because I MISSED writing. For about three years I wrote over 100 characters in an online message board based interactive fanfic/RPG. It would be sad and lengthy to explain the previous sentence. But when that activity died down I found myself writing a lot less. My brain and my vocabulary dulled, and it's good to be writing again.

Perhaps it's a natural part of the aging process to veer away from “vegging out”, a realization as time goes by faster and faster that time is precious. It's definitely good and necessary to take a break, but it can also be frustrating and confusing as well. I think I understand some of what my dad was feeling when he retired. Worst of all is feeling exhausted at the end of a day filled with pure unadulterated inactivity. After writing all of this however, my brain is feeling functional once more and I'm more awake.

Maybe I'll get in another X-mission before I go to bed....