Balcony Time

I'm on my balcony now. I practically live out here these days, except for any time between the hours of 2:00 and 5:30 pm, when the sun wreaks its evil havoc against my pasty whiteitude. There's just enough foot and vehicle traffic to keep me from gorging my need for novelty consumption on failblog.org and icanhascheezburger.com, but not so much that I would actually be prevented from doing whatever it is I'm trying to do whilst on the balcony. Right now, I'm trading a few e-mails with assorted organizations regarding the school project.

So, how's that not-working going? Well, someone asked me the other day whether I was getting the itch to return to work. The answer: Not so much. I think I expected that there would be a bit more of an adjustment period, but the truth is that I really enjoy what I'm doing right now. I still end up working about the equivalent of a full work week, but it's done at my pace, when I want to work. If I get up tomorrow at 6:00 am and want to start sending out e-mails, I can do that. If I want to sleep in until 11:00 am and watch Godfather II, I can do that instead.

I've been a procrastinator for so long, it's hard for me to realize that I'm not really procrastinating any more - nothing really needs to be done. Ultimately, it's all optional. For a procrastinator, that's a scary thought. That's like skydiving without a parachute. It's like that old joke: Why's the sky blue? Because if it was green, we'd never know when to stop mowing. Well, how does a procrastinator know when to start working if nothing's ever due? Won't he just keep playing Guitar Hero forever?

Surprisingly, no. I think I've managed to short-circuit the procrastinating. That doesn't mean that I don't play the aforementioned Guitar Hero or check out the latest on Stanely Bing's website, I just do so with the knowledge that whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it because, of all the things in the world I could be doing, that's the one thing I want to do. If so, great. If not, then I go and do whatever it is that I'd rather be doing.

Right now, that happens to be working on my balcony. It's odd to think that I'd want to work at 10:00 pm at night on a Sunday, but when you enjoy what you do...