Must keep moving...

I was talking to one of our student workers a few days ago. He's graduating in a few weeks, and recently interviewed for a job. He was asked when he could start, and told them as soon as he graduated. They told him a few times that if they hire him, he's welcome to take off a couple weeks between graduating and when he starts. He said he would rather start ASAP - and that he figured I was the same way, that I probably spend the weekend waiting for work to start again.

I said that I wouldn't go that far. But there's probably some truth to it.

I can't say that I spend the weekend waiting for the workweek to start. There are a lot of things I like about my job - coworkers, the chance to play with technology, to solve problems. But there are enough things that I don't like about work - office politics, angry users, having to wake up on time - that I can't say I'm usually looking forward to Monday morning.

But I do feel listless on weekends if I'm not busy. I try to be doing something - yard sales, hamfests, doing stuff around the house, running errands, bargain hunting, blogging. On Thursday or Friday, I'm usually making a to-do list on the back of a piece of scrap paper. While I usually don't get everything on it done, I usually make a pretty good dent in it (and the stuff that doesn't get crossed off is usually the stuff I hate doing the most, like cleaning).

I'm probably more attached to work than I should be. Except for a handful of college acquaintances and their circle, that I seldom see, most of my friendships and social activities are with coworkers. It sort of works, in that we tend to have similar interests, but just like college friends, as people start to move their lives in their own directions, I tend to see those people less. Work is kind of my rock, the one certainty in my life, the one thing I'm not trying to change. Which is why I get paranoid every time a minor change occurs, or when I make a mistake - I start thinking of what I would do if I got fired, and where I would go and what I would do, and I'm not sure what the answer is. Sometimes, though, I wonder if it would be the best thing that could happen to me, if it would force me to take another look at my life, to take another direction.

When I'm home, I still need to be doing something. I tend to feel bad about just sitting down and watching TV or something (and more and more have found myself having to constantly delete stuff off my 60 gig DVR because I keep running out of space). Even when I'm watching TV, I tend to be doing other stuff - eating, cleaning, websurfing, reading the paper. I'm used to having multiple things going on at one time - listing to music while blogging, going to the gym and watching tv, listening to my Zune, and doing my workout.

I sometimes wonder if I'm being a good "foster parent" to my cat. I don't play with her all that much, and I feel like I should be more. But I'm starting to realize that she's a cat, not a madanthony. Unlike me, she has no problem just laying on the floor staring at stuff. When she plays, when she attacks my shoelaces or the blinds, it's probably out of instinct, not because it's on some kitty to-do list. When I shake her awake from her position at the foot of the bed in the morning, she probably doesn't start thinking about what she needs to get done that day the way I do. She doesn't check her smartphone to see what she has scheduled. She just exists, and enjoys every day.

I can't have the same carefree life as my kitty. Unlike her, I don't have someone to fill my food bowl every night and clean up my poop. I've got to work, I've got to hustle if I want to eat and pay my mortgage and buy toys that I hope will provide me with some temporary distraction.

But I wish I could relax for a little while sometimes...