A post as long as the footnote contained within it (this title is terrible)

I thought of another to add to list after last nights "April showers" post.

April showers bring the secret unspoken hope that it just keeps getting worse.  That it rains day in and day out and floods and the hope to see things one never saw before and the hope to experience things so rare as disaster.  A hope that is self-destructive and stupid, and in the aftermath of a true disaster one would hope to forget that hope as quickly as the mistakes leading up to the disaster, burying the hope with the loved ones lost, or just the life that was lost with the disaster that some part of our brain hoped would get worse and worse.

Anyway: (more after the break, as there always is.  I fear that because, for whatever reason, the link to the rest of the post is always so small that people will think that the one paragraph is all there is to the post and think well, that was stupid and never read the actual meat of the post.  So I have to put this here each time.  I'll try to fix that soon and make the link large and annoying)

I finished Infinite Jest the other day.  It's the 10th longest novel originally written in English, and my new favorite novel.  I want to read it again, but I also want to move on.  For the last third of the book I read it at a pace unprecedented in the embarrassing timeline it took me to read it.  That is until I reached the last hundred pages, where I slowed, knowing as I approached the end, as my kindle showed the percentage getting closer to completion, that after I read the last sentence this world would be done (though, of course, I would need to reread the prologue which is chronologically the last thing in the book, and glad I did I am).  This sadness comes with the completion of anything which one has invested significant time or emotion or thought.

Anyway, I'm reading his short stories now, some for the second time (having read a few of his short pieces for my post-modern writing class, and those being the few short stories I actually did read, not being a very good student at all and perhaps explaining my inevitable quitting of my academic career ¹.  The David Foster Wallace influence in my writing shows with that huge (but awesome) footnote that I just crafted.  I just wish I had his vocabulary.  It is impressive and fun, and he never cycles words.  

Reading was really always the key to my writing successfully, and I couldn't have done it without cutting something like Reddit out of my life.  Which has still been very difficult and I stare at the computer screen just thinking that I'll just look at the front page and that will be it, just a few minutes, just a visit to one subreddit.

Anyway, I've still been very sore, meaning still no working out, but I have a 5k on Saturday to run with a group from work and well, I'm very nervous.  I could have done the run in the fall no problem but after my long break from running I'm not so sure.  Mostly I'm worried that if I am able to somehow run the full 5k I will be in such pain that I won't be able to run for another week setting me back further than if I had just ran a mile instead.

So, we will see about that.

¹ Which, privately, I can defend vehemently and express hours of discourse on my cynicism of getting a degree, of paying to get a degree, my actual life goals and their unrelatededness to getting a college education when I could educate myself through the unlimited resources of the free internet as opposed to the vastly limiting education of university courses that cater themselves to such small subsections of knowledge that a true encompassing view of a subject in it's actual context- etc etc etc.

However, when I am pressed by someone outside of my circle of friends or peer group, I immediately fold on the question of if I am going back to school and bring out the old excuses that serve to exonerate me as not a lazy hapless stoner college dropout but a victim of economic circumstances (which those of the numerous 'bootstrap' philosophy serves instead of exoneration a proof positive of the stoner lazy classification).

Why can I not just say that I don't think it's worth it and don't think I will pursue a college education? Obviously because society views college as the next step for a young adult like me and if I am bucking the trend it is not because society is wrong but because I am wrong. And I certainly cannot argue with someone outside of my peer group that has a family and a history of a career and a spouse with a career, a career that has enabled them to feed a family, a career that is antithetical to my wishes, as it would challenge the most basic principles of their lives which could only be met with such fierce resistance they wouldn't even be able to hear it, really.

So instead I say, oh I dunno, hopefully, if not this fall than this spring, and maybe just part time instead of full and that it depends really, on several factors, and I really do want to go back to school, and well, yes I realize that I need to just buck up and accept that there will be sacrifices, and yes I know I could just go hat in hand to loan providers and add yet another chain to my upcoming indentured servitude to student loan debt. Etc.