void of thought. nothing takes so much time to accomplish. this sighing and not waking up on time. this lazing about all day, procrastinating making dinner and reading books. this postponement of the inevitable. what i'd like to do is to disregard that which i am supposed to do - take up new hobbies instead of doing my homework. i would like to gather some dried maple leaves in all the varieties of orange, yellow, and red, write poems on them and laminate them and send them to faraway friends. i would like to make bouquets of dried leaves, hang them from the ceiling; buy some pumpkins and some baby pumpkin squash. i would like to eat chocolate cake for breakfast. i would rather that instead of always saying what i would like most to do, i were able finally, to do it. i would rather that my life did not have to be filled daily and overflowing with either school or work, the inevitable school and/or work, the unpreventable, the unstoppable, the unavoidable, the time-sucking scum of the earth. there is too much pretense involved in school and work. school believes that it is comprised of hour-or-so-long segments of education supported by excruciating hours of reading-as-education. work believes that it is comprised of eight-hour days and forty-hour weeks of purpose and employees filled up and smiling with intention. in both cases, you are lucky to spend an hour or so a week either learning something or feeling as though your task is valid. in fact, an hour sounds like a lot now that it's out there in the open on the page like that. i would like sometimes to abandon it all - and haven't i done that before? six years ago i quit high school and spent my days smoking cigarettes and writing on the roof. but wasn't that very much six years ago? six years ago i was not married, had not even met my husband. six years ago i lived at my parents' house, drove their '88 caravan to and from the coffee shop as often as possible, and did things i was not allowed to do simply to do them. six years ago, i was sixteen years old. sixteen years old is a completely different perspective. well then - three years ago i dropped out of college, spent the summer with five friends on the curbside discussing the film we never made. again with the smoking of the cigarettes. but alas, i also spent the summer typing my poor frozen fingers into oblivion - thousands of keys per hour - racing to finish and racing to stay awake in the air conditioning, breaking each finger in its carpal tunnel agony. so again with the working. i worked to fill my pockets and to fill my time. a year ago i quit working to move to columbus with my husband and live off the cashed-in life insurance policy. i didn't do anything at all for months and months. i worked at the coffee shop through the end of december, watched television nonstop, and cried a lot. then in january i half-assed getting a full-time job and sort of spent the winter half-assing doing everything. so here i've had all the time in the world to live like the drunken writer and romantic pea-brain i want to be, and have spent really very little time trying to accomplish any of it. the truth is that i get in the way of myself. i am sad for months on end and become incapable of accomplishing anything of value. i clean my apartment to make myself feel as though i have been a contributing member of society. so the question remains then, were i able (as in rich enough, or supported enough), would i undertake the bohemian pinings in me? would i reach for stars hidden inside my brain and become that which is creativity embodied? would i guzzle whiskey and develop a hack? would i garden and paint endlessly? or would i merely sink between the couch and the down comforter and eat campbell's soup and feel sick and watch friends 15 times a week? would my depression eat me up inside because my creativity wasn't? will i ever see these ridiculous swinging-on-stars dreams of mine fulfilled, or even attempted properly, or will i merely go on dreaming about them until i am able to no longer attempt it at all and die miserable in my rocker, having become nothing i value?