Boredom

Two weeks away and now I’m back at work. Clocked in at 9:30am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Deleted everything in my inbox because anyone who emailed me while I was on vacation is a fucking asshole and not deserving of my attention. Dumped my physical inbox into the trashcan – same reason. Swept a bunch of shit off my desk that had urgent post-it notes attached to it. Put my feet up, undid my belt, and settled in for a long day of screwing off.

It’s taken about 20 minutes to hit my boredom threshold, but I finally have enough wits to properly catch up on all of the blogs I follow. There are many things I do throughout the work day to try and kill my brain. Heaven forbid I allow myself a moment of silence where my brain might be able to figure out how much of a waste every aspect of my life has become. If only Charlie Whitman had access to the internet…he probably would have never climbed that clock tower.

Right before Whitman killed his mother and went on his shooting rampage, he bought binoculars, a knife, and fucking spam. Then he went to a movie. That’s classic boredom right there. I know well what was going through his mind – do anything to distract yourself. Even if it means walking out to 7-11. But then you can’t just wander around the shelves and buy nothing because the clerk is looking at you. It’s all about guilt. So you buy the spam thinking, hey, this will be a funny gift to give mom. And if she doesn’t get the joke I’ll kill her!

I’ve been on a Work Stoppage Policy for about two years now. As testament to the sort of job I have, my supervisors have yet to notice. The fact that I can just give up on the job and approach startling and even physically painful levels of boredom is also the reason I’m sticking with this job. Sure, it sounds like I’m complaining about having nothing worthwhile to do, but why the fuck would I want to work? These people who always need to be busy and working are also in danger of climbing the clock tower. Unless you’re saving a life, defending my freedom, or making my goddamned waffles, then you’re not achieving anything at work. So welcome the boredom! Let’s talk blogs.

There are, of course, the Greatsociety forums. A great time waster! It’s there that a small group of misfits trade barbs all day and talk about Battlestar Galactica. Fun enough, but there’s always a need for more. I find myself easily able to get lost in the often wordy OTIS site. Wordy is difficult sometimes because, around 1pm on weekdays, I inject silica gel directly into my frontal lobe and poke out my eyes with a pencil as part of a daily Satanic rite designed to get me out of the working world and still, somehow, make money. But when I’m awake and looking to kill time in the morning, it’s always nice to see an update.

The most recent is about “America’s Stonehenge.” To anyone who has read Michael Marshall Smith’s Straw Men trilogy, this is particularly thrilling. Now you have to read those books because I’m not going to provide an explanation.

For some reason, I like to read Adventures in Drinking. I think it ranks high as the most pointless site ever. At first, for about a month, I hated the pointless “random thoughts” updates…but then I became strangely addicted to them. It’s hard to explain and is only something that the truly bored can latch onto. It’s the intelligent older sister of Drinking for Two, which is also mysteriously addictive after lengthy exposure. And currently appears to be down, which may be a blessing in disguise. I get those two confused, as well, and can’t be bothered to look at them now and provide any sort of coherent analysis. Just shut up and have a drink.

Ever since the active days at Big Dead Place, I’ve been fascinated by the concept of summering or wintering on an Antarctic base. Big Dead Place went on a sort of hiatus (with occasional spurts of activity) after they published their book, so I’m thrilled that Frontierwatch remains.

I will confess, just between us, dear internet, that I’m something of a fan of canal boating. For the last few years, I’ve managed to put together two weeks or more each summer on the canals of England. There are a few thousand miles worth of canals in the UK, all of them increasingly overcrowded with leisure boats and weird water gypsies. A subset of the weird water gypsy group are the die-hard canal people who live aboard their pretty little narrowboats and, year after year, struggle with tourists like me slamming into their moored boats while I go two miles an hour round a bend. Which, despite the sometimes bumper car nature of the canals, still feels about as dumb as walking into a wall.

The initial draw to the canals, back in 04, was because I really liked the idea of staying in the middle of nowhere without having to hike there. Just moor up and enjoy the English countryside.

But, without fail, it always seems like there’s a group of Americans who had the same idea and moored up behind me and went right to insisting on a bonding session because, ohmigod, another American! We’ve come to bad times when my instinct, upon meeting fellow Americans, is to deny my nationality. It’s not that I’m embarrassed to be an American, I’m just ashamed of my peers. I also harbor a dark fear that more than three Americans gathered together, no matter their politics or sensibilities, leads to a sort of Imperial In-Rush that can only end in opening a McDonalds franchise and/or deciding to purchase a working tank, depending on whether you’re in Britain or Romania.

(The individuals I met while touring Romania insist that I was the only one who showed serious interest in purchasing a tank on the black market.)

Since the scant few American canals are just No Fun, that leaves me with a sort of unrequited hobby. Therefore, I steer towards blogs maintained by some of those live-aboard types. Granny Buttons is where it began. I personally ran into him briefly in 06. Then I moved on to the Gypsy Rover blog, and Balmaha, and No Problem, and Seyella.

Pursuing another passion of mine – exploring lost Americana and this country’s endless back roads – I’ve recently dug up Southern Byways, which fails to really get to the underbelly of the blue highways. I want rural decay along 66 or 50 or 40 or any of the old Federal Highways. I’m open to suggestions on blogs maintained by weirdoes who travel the back roads year round. I know there’s a subculture out there doing just that, but why aren’t they online?

Finally, I read a group of blogs maintained by friends, but I’m not going to mention them because (a) they never mention me and (b) I just hit page three and I can’t remember anything I’ve written. Which means I’ll have to go back and read over everything and run the spellchecker and, well, that’s just sounding like work right now. And I don’t work. Especially when there’s a new update at Hot Chicks with Douchebags!