Friday, April 29, 2005

Routine has long appealed to me, almost instinctively so, much in the way your favorite flavor of ice cream causes you to point and wheeze as soon as you enter the store. To me, routine is the ideal balance between the kinetic and the sedentary, and I still hold to this–but it’s also time to rethink things, refine my thoughts.

I saw two people go this week, just up and leave, and it was absolutely thrilling. Mutability. What does it mean to you, dear reader? There are smaller changes, such as a new pair of pants, a different apartment, a fresh haircut. I’m not talking about these things. Rather, I’m thinking about clean starts. Realities remade. The revolving door spins, yes, and it does so at its own alarming speed.

The tendency, at least in my case, is to picture a life and then shelve it on a ledge in the stratosphere somewhere. There’s still time, I think, and I adopt a glacial sensibility in clambering up to my high shelf. What if I could grab a stick and knock down everything, accelerate the process? This is possible, probably always has been, but it’s altogether different when you see it done firsthand. The temptation to ape is strong, you know?

I signed a yearlong lease for my current apartment after hemming and hawing and working down the rent increase. It seems I’m stuck. Someone, however, paid a good $120k to pump me full of smarts, so I suppose I should craft a cunning escape. It’s time to get a return on that investment.