Sobriquet 42.20

The following post was originally published on 5/20/08.

Well, the past couple of days have been fairly packed, but in a good way. As I have mentioned before, I have a tendency to isolate myself socially whenever I have a lot of work to do. Not that such solitude is abnormal or unnecessary, but it can take a psychological toll on you if you don't take care to counteract extreme the solitude with some form of socialization. So, I jumped at the opportunity to play Dungeons and Dragons with some friends on Sunday, figuring the creative aspect of the game, combined with the pizza-eating, light-hearted atmosphere would do me good. And it did. I've felt recharged and considerably less solipsistic and, surprisingly, not the least bit nerdy. The time spent with my friends also helped improve my mood, which enabled me to get quite a bit more solid work out of myself.

Other than that, I have been dealing with the annoying habit I have of sleeping too much during the day (because I can) and staying up too late at night (because I can and because I'm not tired after my nap), so my daily routine has taken on a slightly different schedule. Today, for instance, I decided to start writing much later than I normally would have liked but produced a few pages of what I feel is a rather strong section of this never-ending chapter on The Master of Petersburg. So, I'm not complaining. I've also made good use of the dead hours (you know, those hours between two and six when nothing's open and there's not much to watch on television) of the early morning when I cannot fall asleep. With these empty hours, I have finished several audiobooks and will probably finish Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake tonight, so I have a sense of real intellectual accomplishment, which is nice. The added bonus, of course, is that I can simultaneously feel enriched and, as a result of laying in bed while listening to the books, thoroughly lazy.

For tomorrow: Tuesday will be a busy day involving all sorts of errand-running, so I will just assign myself some more reading in Diary of a Bad Year.