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There are a lot of things that I think about adding to this blog. I find myself spending increasing amounts of time screwing around on the internet, and there are plenty of things that I think deserve more attention, but I am reluctant to turn this into just another list of interesting things I found. I'm pretty sure that particular niche is well covered. Similarly, I have resisted the urge to post photos (partially because I am a terrible photographer), or talk about any of the other things I do when I'm not doing this.

I have eclectic tastes which would make for a confused theme if I were to include (or even reference) them here, and I think theme is important. I suspect this is a manifestation of the compartmentalizing side of my personality, the same side that is responsible for my slightly manic filing habits and the almost obsessive list writing that I indulge in. Life is full of distractions, and if I can keep one small corner of it free of clutter and at least a little organized, I feel better able to cope with the rest of it.

I am by no means an effective multi-tasker, but (and I am loathe to jump into the cliché, but here goes anyway) modern life is increasingly demanding this of us. Email, SMS, social networking sites, twitter all encourage the expectation that not only are we always available (before mobile phones, and yes I can remember that far back, who would make a phone call after 9pm?), but that we are also always on top of whatever is going on.

So this is my little protest. My little calm corner of the world. I am not going to talk about the US presidential election. I am not going to post links to marathon training plans. I am not going to show mouth-watering photos of amazing food, or talk about what album I am listening to at the moment, or which books I am reading.

Which leaves me with a fundamental problem: what am I going to talk about?

bachelor life

In keeping with the extended gaps between posts, I thought I was about time that I added something to this increasingly neglected blog. Little has changed in a metaphysical sense, but that is just a reflection of the state of mind I am in when it occurs to me to jot down some random thoughts; generally I am avoiding doing something that is at once important, but essentially boring. Tonight's tasks: write a shallow little paper about some international conflict or other, edit a small mountain of very dry policy documents, and clean the apartment before my girlfriend gets home. That last one is looking especially enticing. I normally jump at mindless cleaning tasks when I am procrastinating, but recently my dearly beloved has been spending two nights a week in Stockholm, an event that unleashes the hidden sloth inside of me. No longer am I washing windows or dusting the bookcases. Now I have proper cleaning to do: collecting a veritable mountain of beer cans that seem to collect on every flat surface in the house, and picking up the underwear that I apparently leave all over the place, telescoped into little hollow stumps. From this I have determined that I become naked almost as soon as I get home, and I must be about 70% beer by volume.

funk

As opposed to the George Clinton/James Brown/Parliament kind of funk, I'm in the middle of a more metaphysical, motivationless, what-the-hell-am-I-doing kind of funk.

Once again the pile of things I should be doing is growing at an alarming rate, while at the same time I am having trouble concentrating. I also seem to be spending inordinate amounts of time trying to teach myself html, wandering the web in search of procrastination, and generally screwing around. Hence the post.

One of the prime culprits for this non-musical and much-less-fun-to-be-around funk is my current source of income. For a little over a year I have been working as a chef in an English gastro-pub (a curious organism that has spread around the world like some sort of unpleasant virus, reproducing the latest food crimes and leaving little but hangovers in their wake). It's been a long time since I managed to stay put in one job (or location) for more than about 6 months, which makes for an interesting, if expensive, lifestyle, and the current stretch is starting to get to me.

All of which got me thinking. I have been jumping from job to job, city to city and in some cases continent to continent for a bit over ten years now, and all I have to show for it is a confused cv, stamps in a passport and a healthy disregard for gainful employment. Is it time to settle down?


I think not.

So instead I am rewriting my cv, submitting applications and fantasizing about quitting my job.