WHAT'S MY MOTIVATION . . .

It's a draggy day today. Fridays always are, for some reason. It is hard for me to be motivated to do the things I needed and wanted to do today. It doesn't help that the first thing I did this morning was slice my index finger wiiiiide open on a knife that was hidden in the kitchen sink. Blood and guts don't make me sick or nauseous ... but they do make me feel entitled to sit here and gaze stupidly at the Band-Aid on my finger, unable and unwilling to do anything else worthwhile.

"They" say a major winter storm is going to come swooping into the area tomorrow, into Sunday. Well, what the heck ... there are things I wanted to pick up at the grocery store, but now the anti-establishment rebel in me is refusing to step foot into any sort of food market, because I know that there will be hysterical storm-watchers in there stocking up on water and canned goods, because you KNOW that when the snow passes, there will be no more water or beans left in the world so you best get them all now! And I just refuse to be that person. Of course, I could just nonchalantly stroll on in there and buy one single Snickers bar, just to rub it in the noses of the people in the non-express checkout lane whose carts are chock-a-block full of gallon bottles of water. But I don't want candy and that would be a waste of my lame energy today.

SpiderBat and Mabel will be working together soon. Well, not together, but mostly together. They'll be in the same building. That's so cool; I am somewhat envious. I've made great friends in my different past workplaces, but I wonder what it would be like to work with, or in the same place, as long-established pals. Weird. But fun. It would be difficult to call in sick when you're not really sick, though.

Do I want to be a teacher?

Or would I rather be a student-for-life?

I have begun reading three books at once: The Future of Freedom, by Fareed Zakaria; Teaching a Stone to Talk, by Annie Dillard; and Grammars of Creation, by George Steiner. Talk about intense. Yesterday, after five hours of reading these three books, my brain was a-jumble, and I came home and turned on the television to untangle the jumble, only to find that the TV was just too loud and just too stupid. There is nothing stupider on television than your local evening news. Seriously. I had to turn it off and let the brain jumble about in silence.

What do you do when you want to ask someone lots and lots of questions, just to figure some things out, just to clear the air, but you don't feel you can, because you don't want to face the consequences of (1) rocking the boat; and (2) receiving an answer you may not want to receive?

Momentum ... I feel like momentum is being lost. This impending snowstorm, be that as it may, is like a sudden brake on so many inspired things. A long-awaited M/O team meeting on Sunday morning ... might have to be cancelled. The W/M meeting on Sunday evening ... will women even come if the roads are slick and icy and they'd rather be home sipping hot cocoa with their kids? My cover letters are sounding lame and trite and fake again. I am torn, because for once in my life, I face too many opportunities, instead of just the one that I am confident God put before me to grab ... and I see how true it is that having too many choices can be paralyzing sometimes. I'm still young -- I'm not supposed to know what I want to do next year, two years from now, five or eight or ten years from now. Do I take this job or that job? Do I commit to this or that person? Do I go back to school or just take some classes? Do I save up for this trip or that trip? It's too much; it's easier to sit here and stare at my Band-Aided finger -- not my guitar finger, thank goodness. And so, the momentum is lost.

Flacon says I don't talk much when I'm with him. That's not true; I'd just rather listen to him most of the time that we spend together. He says it wasn't an attack on me or my ways; I took it as such. But I talk so much with and to other people who need me to respond to them ... I just need the break to listen and absorb and let myself rest and be spoken to and trusted without feeling the pressure and social burden of responding. And some things are too precious to respond to; the best I can do is receive them in silence and try to convey my own gratitude for being the one receiving.

I really should get out and about, and face this Friday head-on. Confront if before it confronts me. What's my motivation?