Intellectual impatience

STIPIMM: U.S. Marine Corps Hymn

As regular readers of this blog (all four of you) will notice, it’s been over a week since I’ve blogged about anything, and even then it was about something no one but me cares about (underage poontang). Truth is, my mind has been quite scattered all week. I’m in that annoying state of mind that happens when you haven’t quite finished one project, but have long since mentally moved on from it. Specifically, I’m in my last couple of weeks at H&R Block, and the tax form grind has slowed down to virtually nothing; I’m basically having to scrounge for things to do (So, I can’t hide behind the excuse of “I was too busy to blog,” but I will just say instead, “I didn’t freakin’ feel like it.”). I’ve been calling it senioritis, and it certainly feels like it. The end date for this job (the 31st) is fast approaching and it can’t get here soon enough.

The problem is, I don’t know what I’ll be doing afterwards, and that has me jittery and restless. I’m applying for jobs, but it’s not like any of them that would start soon are dream jobs or anything. Part of me doesn’t want to get a job right now and be able to dedicate myself to something of my own. But unfortunately, I don’t have any money to pay myself.

But part of me feels like if I really wanted to do other things on my own (e.g., writing scripts, ramping up for “Indian Girl”) I’d do it on my own time anyway. If I freed up all my time, it would only mean that I’d find more ways of wasting time instead of applying myself. I want to do these things, but a large part of me is too lazy to actually do the work required to get there.

Sorry to bring him up again, but Ibsen lamented this intellectual impatience as well. At one point he wrote something akin to: “By the time I start actually writing a play, I’ve gotten tired of thinking about and working on it.” And so it is with me; the process of writing and creating is oftentimes like pulling teeth. I find that, in general, I don’t like creating as much as I like having created.

Related to all of this is another kind of intellectual impatience, and that’s been tied to the reading I’ve been doing, or trying to do. Right after I finished my Ibsen biography, I picked up a hefty biography of Frank Capra that Susan Loving gave to me some time back. I’m giving Capra the full treatment: reading the bio and watching his major movies as they appear in the book. I’m loving it, and I’ve been trying to squeeze in as much reading as possible (so far: Capra, contrary to his image, was a royal, class-A asshole.)

There have been a few things standing in the way, and it’s only heightened my frustration. Bridget has been off of school up until this week, and so I’ve felt guilty about reading when I could be spending time with her in the evenings. She’s back in school now, but I have a special project I’m editing for her in the evenings, and that’s been keeping me from what I really want to be doing… reading. Also, since we split up our Netflix so that I only get two movies at a time (and she gets one), the turnaround for watching the Capra movies has been painstakingly slow. In the book, I’m already in the 1940s, while I’m still waiting on a movie from the early 30s. Again… frustration and impatience. I need to learn some Jedi meditation tricks or something.

But not being able to read is a minor thing. In the grander scheme, it’s my impatience with having something constructive and interesting to do with film and video. It would be one thing if I really felt that I was sure to have something in the next couple of months, something other than a crappy support job at some video house or something equally uninspiring. Or, if I could be sure that I would have enough money to do “Indian Girl” this summer (still a very questionable proposition). Or just anything. Anything other than sitting at another desk all day, writing in my blog…

(And just to head it off now, any comments including the phrases "something will come along" or "if one door closes, another one opens" or anything similar, will either be promptly deleted or openly mocked.)