but my head is filling in the blanks
(a.)
There needs to be a word for that feeling where you're engaging in an activity you normally find soothing, and you aren't actually bored with it, but you have a persistently nagging thought that you really ought to be doing something more interesting than what you're currently doing. Closest I can get is "restlessness," but it isn't even as strong as that.
I wish there were a single word to encapsulate the experience of doing something you used to like to do when you were a child, or a teenager, or even just a year or two ago, and discovering that it no longer holds much appeal at all. I used to like a lot of foods that don't taste good to me now. I used to enjoy novels that seem melodramatic and predictable and not terribly well-written when I try to reread them. Or, no, that implies that I mostly don't enjoy them anymore because I've matured, or gotten smarter, or become more familiar with certain tropes and conventions. Sometimes it's not that at all. Sometimes it's more like it is with kiwis and marshmallows; I can recognize that something's good, I can see why I liked it once, but all the joy has bled out of it now for no apparent reason. That type of thing. It makes me wonder if I would get along with my fourteen-year-old self, if we met. It makes me wonder if we'd even recognize each other.
...Of course, that can go the opposite way, too. For a long time, I hated eggs and didn't think Terry Pratchett was all that funny.
(Growing up. It is a weird thing to have happen to you.)
(b.)
Speaking of which, I'm applying for a job as a telemarketer. No, really. There is no possible way I will be any good at telemarketing, but I might be better at it than I would be at selling Japanese steak knives door-to-door. There are only so many job opportunities around this summer, and my lack of a car or valid driver's license limits them even more. I don't exactly need to have a job right now, truth be told, but it would give me a little more to do during the day. And it's the kind of thing a normal girl my age might have: a crappy summer job trying to coax money out of strangers through a mess of telephone wires and invisible networks. And I have bitten the hook of social convention that has YOU ARE A WORTHLESS FREELOADER IF YOU DO NOT HAVE SOME KIND OF PAID EMPLOYMENT engraved on its iron sides, maybe, a little.
...And, because I feel the need to share this minor accomplishment with all my phantom friends of the digital ether: I just spent waaaaaaay too long trying to hunt down a song that I had stuck in my head. I forget where I originally heard it; all I could remember was one line of the lyrics, the fact that the title was "Ghosts," and its annoyingly catchy melody. It turns out that there are quite a few songs called "Ghosts," or "Ghost," or something with the word "ghost" in it somewhere, and it took me a while to figure out which one was my head-sticker, but I finally got it: Ghosts, by Sofia Talvik. It's a nice song, actually. As are Ghosts, by Laura Marling, and Ghost, by Neutral Milk Hotel, and The Devil and My Family, by Ghost Mice.
There needs to be a word for that feeling where you're engaging in an activity you normally find soothing, and you aren't actually bored with it, but you have a persistently nagging thought that you really ought to be doing something more interesting than what you're currently doing. Closest I can get is "restlessness," but it isn't even as strong as that.
I wish there were a single word to encapsulate the experience of doing something you used to like to do when you were a child, or a teenager, or even just a year or two ago, and discovering that it no longer holds much appeal at all. I used to like a lot of foods that don't taste good to me now. I used to enjoy novels that seem melodramatic and predictable and not terribly well-written when I try to reread them. Or, no, that implies that I mostly don't enjoy them anymore because I've matured, or gotten smarter, or become more familiar with certain tropes and conventions. Sometimes it's not that at all. Sometimes it's more like it is with kiwis and marshmallows; I can recognize that something's good, I can see why I liked it once, but all the joy has bled out of it now for no apparent reason. That type of thing. It makes me wonder if I would get along with my fourteen-year-old self, if we met. It makes me wonder if we'd even recognize each other.
...Of course, that can go the opposite way, too. For a long time, I hated eggs and didn't think Terry Pratchett was all that funny.
(Growing up. It is a weird thing to have happen to you.)
(b.)
Speaking of which, I'm applying for a job as a telemarketer. No, really. There is no possible way I will be any good at telemarketing, but I might be better at it than I would be at selling Japanese steak knives door-to-door. There are only so many job opportunities around this summer, and my lack of a car or valid driver's license limits them even more. I don't exactly need to have a job right now, truth be told, but it would give me a little more to do during the day. And it's the kind of thing a normal girl my age might have: a crappy summer job trying to coax money out of strangers through a mess of telephone wires and invisible networks. And I have bitten the hook of social convention that has YOU ARE A WORTHLESS FREELOADER IF YOU DO NOT HAVE SOME KIND OF PAID EMPLOYMENT engraved on its iron sides, maybe, a little.
...And, because I feel the need to share this minor accomplishment with all my phantom friends of the digital ether: I just spent waaaaaaay too long trying to hunt down a song that I had stuck in my head. I forget where I originally heard it; all I could remember was one line of the lyrics, the fact that the title was "Ghosts," and its annoyingly catchy melody. It turns out that there are quite a few songs called "Ghosts," or "Ghost," or something with the word "ghost" in it somewhere, and it took me a while to figure out which one was my head-sticker, but I finally got it: Ghosts, by Sofia Talvik. It's a nice song, actually. As are Ghosts, by Laura Marling, and Ghost, by Neutral Milk Hotel, and The Devil and My Family, by Ghost Mice.