What do you call a bear with no ears?  A b.

Okay, finally got that out of my head, so we can start.  I have had time these past few days to sit and think, to research and consider, to ponder and overanalyze.  In short, I have been home alone.  I have been by myself lots of times in my travels, but generally there is something I am focused on that keeps my attention and bounds my thoughts, but this weekend is different.  Having finished most of the work I needed to complete by early evening Friday, I found myself with time and no plans, which, I believe is more rare than people think.  For me this was an interesting situation in which to find myself.

First, I was a little paralyzed by the abundance of choices before me.  I could read, watch movies, watch tv, play video games, write, exercise, etc.  It was too many choices.  Responsible me thought I should get the laundry done, prep for my upcoming trip, do the dishes, work on a paper I have coming up, and so forth.  But then another voice entered the fray, and this voice was pretty compelling.  It said, “you have a lot of campy action movies that you haven’t watched in a looong time.  This would be a good time to rectify that.”  So that is how I started to watch The Expendables 3.  Sure, it is a campy action movie, but it had been awhile.  As it was finishing, however, I flipped the TV on to see if there was any basketball or other sports and discovered a Simpsons marathon in progress.  More importantly, it was a marathon focused on the episodes with Sideshow Bob, which were probably some of the better ones.  Four episodes later, however, I found myself at another decision point.  Sideshow Bob had saved Homer from Frank Grimes, Jr., and with the songs of HMS Pinafore dying off in the distance, I was tired of sitting down, watching TV, and, frankly, didn’t feel like playing video games.  Also, it was now about 8:30 pm and I was fairly hungry.

I hadn’t gotten any exercise in and decided to hit the treadmill and get a run in until my delivery arrived.  45 minutes later, tired and with delivery wings in hand, I realized that I had Christmas shopping that I needed to work on, so, I cranked up the laptop, and immediately realized that I couldn’t eat wings and use my laptop at the same time, so I ended back where I began, watching campy action movies (this time, it was Taken).  By the time I had finished, I decided it was time for bed, with the thought that I’d be more productive the next day.  Saturday was snowy and filled with the distractions of meandering without a plan.  While looking for the book I had been reading, I found a piece of equipment I didn’t remember having, which led to a Google search to identify its use.  During my perusal of the search results, I ended up doing some Christmas shopping, which led to a group of websites on tech and lists.  Three cups of coffee and several lists later, I realized it would be another unproductive day and decided to just lean into it, with the knowledge that Sunday would be much more productive.  Long story short, I did exercise today, but aside from that, my main achievement has been discovering the joke I opened with.  Sure, it has been a fairly unproductive weekend, but it has been incredibly re-energizing.  I honestly feel ready to get back to work and am more relaxed than I have been in several weeks.

There may just be something to this idea of an occasional stream-of-consciousness-led weekend…