The art of staying busy

This week, I have read six books from cover to cover, half of them books I didn't even have much interest in. I have conducted exhaustive searches for Things I Didn't Think Could Possibly Be Sold on Ebay But Wow it Turns Out Really Are (peanut butter cups, cans of paint, vintage condoms, gopher puppets, venus flytraps), doing my humble best to prove that you really can buy anything there. I have looked into going back to school to get a nursing degree. I have trimmed the runners and weedy patches from my front walk armed only with a pair of scissors (and had my diligence rewarded by neighbors bearing tomatoes and invitations to dinner). I have walked my dog so long and so hard that he was actually something approaching tired. I have washed the slipcovers in my living room, carefully reconfiguring them in the dryer every ten minutes so they didn't get twisted and wrinkled. I have vacummed my floors on my hands and knees to get under all furniture. I have watched all those DVD commentaries I meant to get around to but never did. I have voluntarily gone into work at the bookstore two hours early because I was feeling jumpy and anxious and upset and knew it was only going to get worse the longer I sat at home. I have been to the library twice. I have sat in an ant bed (not on purpose, however). I have mended all my clothes which needed buttons and hem repairs. And I am still feeling, constantly, this little itch in my brain; it took me a while to identify it, because I don't feel it often, but it is, I believe, restlessness.

It's not that I'm not enjoying having whole days to order in my own way. And it's not that I'm running out of things to do. It's just that I've reached the point that no matter what else I'm doing, no matter how much satisfaction I'm getting from it, all of me wants a job and wants it now. I always wondered what my limit for sitting-at-homeness would be, and looks like six weeks is about it. It's a good thing to know.