What Do Real People Do?

Ann and I used to joke when we were in college that we couldn't wait to be real adults with full-time jobs because real adults must have so much extra time on their hands.  Think about it--you only have one (sometimes two) jobs, and some jobs don't even require taking work home!  When you're young, single and childless, what do you do when you come home from work and don't have four other jobs for which you need to read and write papers?  You're only responsibilities are those to yourself--feeding yourself, cleaning your space, seeing people only when you want to see them.  It must be glorious, we thought!

Deep down, I had a sneaking suspicion that we were and wrong and that, somehow, all those empty hours would get filled up.

Since I have become a real adult--in the last six months--I have found a case for both arguments.  Every once in a while, things will align in just the right way so that my non-working hours are a frenzy and the hours I spend at my desk begging my bosses for work become a peaceful oasis.  The last two weeks, for example, I have had freelance articles due, apartments to go see, out of town friends to dine with.  Last week I didn't get home before 11pm any night until Friday.  It was exhausting.

Other times, my nights stretch endlessly in back-to-back marathons of How I Met Your Mother.  This week I have no articles to write (well, I should, but I am boycotting until they post my already-submitted ones), I have no plans to view apartments and, while my dad is coming to visit this weekend, a cursory wipe-down of the apartment on Thursday should be enough.

Yesterday, I got back from Pennsylvania around noon and was immediately productive--I went to the grocery store for beef stew ingredients and Rite Aid for shampoo that I keep forgetting to buy.  I made said stew.  I did a whole load of laundry in the laundromat.  I paid my credit card bill.  I ironed a bunch of clothes.

And at around 3:30pm, I had run out of things to do.  Dinner for the next two nights was made.  The only laundry left was a couple of towels.  Cleaning the apartment on Sunday is useless, as it would just get dusty again by Friday.

I was faced with 5 hours of absolutely nothing to do.  Some would light a candle, take a bath and relish this.  I've always been more of a "I'd rather be too busy than too idle" kind of person and, besides, even though I've been living in my apartment for 4 months, I still can't handle the thought of taking a bath in a tub that was used by others, or even, truthfully, stepping on the area of the shower floor that is not covered by my shower mat.  I don't know where these neuroses come from, but they're there just the same.

So I didn't take a bath.  Instead, I finished watching all of the episodes of HIMYM that I hadn't seen, checked gmail about 900 times, baked sugar cookies (from a mix), explored some new music on YouTube and even watched Twilight.  I'd seen the Twilight Saga movies before and read the books.  I detest the movies.  You all know how I feel about angst (or you should, because I talk about it regularly) and I have yet to see an angstier film.  Plus all the vampires look super creepy, but not because they are vampires, but because you can tell they are wearing white make-up and Robert Pattinson/ Edward Cullen's eyes are way too far apart and his forehead-to-nose joining is the equivalent of a facial cankle--that is, there is no discernible difference between his hairline and his nasal appendage.  Check it out--it's unnatural.

Anyway, I watched Twilight, and that is when I knew something was wrong.  And I needed more of a life.  Or at least more motivation to do things that resemble a life.  Like jogging or writing a novel or at least having a friend with which to watch Twilight and critique schnozi (that's the plural of 'schnoz').

Thus, I have decided (in one of those cyclical periods during which I decide to "improve myself" and then ultimately fail by neither reading the paper nor writing anything for weeks at a time) to take up some semblance of a hobby.  It could be anything--knitting, jogging, making things out of macaroni.  As long as it's not jogging.  Just something to pass the time but which actually produces something, as opposed to watching television, which just produces cellulite.

Your suggestions/advisement/direction is appreciated.