Disrupted routines.
I’m extremely routine oriented when I’m home.
For instance:
Wake up, barely. Grab the laptop off the floor, light a cigarette, check my morning emails. –It helps when my friends either wake up early, or live in a future time zone.
Re-read Alex’s email six times until I’m coherent enough to understand it. Move on to the rest of them. Put out my cigarette, head to the kitchen for caffeine. Respond to all emails.
Free write. Journal.
Get out of bed, bathroom, clean kitchen, feed the cat, crawl back under the covers and research geography and whatever subject I’ve decided to learn about that day. Maybe head to work, though usually not until I’ve checked all my writer friends new posts. Chat with one of my roommates on the way out the door.
Work. Leave after a couple of hours, head home to write, read and research. Cook dinner, watch an episode of whatever show I’m in love with. Shower. Chat with friends on the phone, emails emails emails. Text the best friend, call my mother, wonder what my Significant Other is doing. Don’t call him. Redecorate, clean, stare at the cracks in my ceiling. Water the plant. Make a To-Do list. Edit the morning’s work. Grab my iPod and walk two neighborhoods over to my favorite bar. Stop in at the coffee shop on the way and write for an hour or so. Bar. Hang out with friends, play cat and mouse with the Significant Other, leave the bar between 3-4am, grab Mexican food, and figure out how we’re getting home.
There are variations on this, but three days a week, this is exactly what I do.
It’s nice, almost, if I weren’t so bored I wanted to pull my hair out by the roots.
And of course, I can’t help but think: “This?! This is going to be the rest of my life??”
It won’t be, of course, I’m just stuck in the in-between.
A very calm, productive in-between.
