[Walking in circles.]

Discovery:

I am not a thinker any more.

This whole graduated-from-college stint is really going to take some getting used to. Having been assigned things to ponder day in and day out since Kindergarten has really dampened my own ability to foster my own curiosity. I totally blow at it, actually. Instead, I find myself ricocheting from one form of mindless entertainment to another, struggling to figure out why it is none of it seems fulfilling. This idea of self-stimulated learning is new to me. I have very little practice and even less patience to learn it.

What is it that people do from here?!

Become engulfed in their careers because that's the closest replacement one can find to school? Then, hell, the pressure to find one that you can stand thinking about for the next 60 years of your existence becomes astronomical.

Create a family? That would definitely offer some purpose for my life... but the simple fact that I break out into a panic-induced fever, coupled with The Shakes, when even considering that possibility tells me I can safely say I maaaaay not be completely ready for anything close to that.

Find that someone? Great hobby. Too bad it offers zero control for yours truly, plus the obsession behind purposefully searching for that person would definitely make me feel like a ridiculously stereotypical girl. Gag me. I hate every moment I feel myself falling into that mode.

Wander aimlessly?

...

...

...

I might be able to live with that.

[Ingriddiction.]

Tonight's dose of wisdom, courtesy of Ingrid Michaelson:

"Everybody knows the love.

Everybody holds the love.

Everybody folds for love.

Everybody feels the love.

Everybody steals the love.

Everybody heals with love."

(Cue the over-the-head clapping right about.............now.)

[Thrill Seeker's Deathbed...]

Confession: I am a dullard.

The pseudo-real-world has taken its toll.

Tonight, I turned down an outing with a handful of my favorite folks.

Why?!

I have "important" things to do before bedtime hits...

(Which is approximately 9:30pm, nowadays, mind you.)

These include:

1) Make JELLO

2) Scrall a mental note to buy cookie cutters for Jigglers next time

3) Sort and label 17 individual packages of Dunkaroos (by classroom)

4) Cook a XL dinner, so leftovers can be tomorrow's lunch

5) Create and color binder cover pages

6) Search the apartment for potential Prize Box items

7) Watch We're Back!, a G-rated dino movie that my childhood missed

...and that's just the beginning of the wild shenanigans planned.

(I also have two emails to send.)

It's no wonder life begins picking up pace so obscenely once the working world swallows the soul. The mind is too exhausted to be any more intellectual than an infant. The body aches so much that the couch -- which used to be completely lackluster -- suddenly holds such appeal. The spontaneous late night adventures that used to feel like... well, life... have unfairly lost priority. Life is not meant to be sandwiched into a 9-5 timeframe. A life lived in such a way seems like an oxymoron. Plus, it passes by too quickly when that's all you've got.

...And yes, the dinosaur movie has made me weep.

Raise the pathetic level to "extreme".

[Weekend Update:]

There was a boy wandering around the Jam For Hunger concert grounds looking for people to sign his marijuana petition...

I swooned.

I signed.