Alone and Unobserved

I’ve been wretchedly bad at updating this blog lately. We’re coming to the end of the semester, and the amount of final projects I’m putting off is poisoning everything I do. Whether I’m reading a book or soaking in the tub or helping library patrons at work or watching TV or getting drunk at a party, there’s that niggling little itch in the back of my mind that says, “You should be doing homework! Stop having fun and work on your assignments!” It’s really cramping my style.

One of the first things that goes when I’m stressed, overtired or out of sorts is my creativity. Not only can I no longer write, I no long even feel the urge to, which is such a bizarre loss that it always catches me completely unprepared. Even worse, I become utterly uncreative and inflexible in my day-to-day life as well, which means I find it harder simply to deal with things. You might not realize how much creativity you use in making mundane decisions, but believe me, you’d miss it if it were gone. Suddenly my mind can only recognize a single way of doing things. In my head, every problem only has one solution, every interaction only one acceptable path to success, which makes dealing with library patrons—who are endlessly creative in thinking up ways to baffle and bemuse me when I’m at my best—almost impossible.

Well, hopefully the end of the semester will herald a brief period of peace, tranquility and (fingers crossed) creativity, before the summer term arrives to crush all my dreams again.

In the meantime, go have fun reading the archives of Mis/adventures in Bookland, where Suffering Silently blogs about dealing with bookstore customers in a small-town bookshop in Canada. I could swear some of her customers also visit my library.