the other day i turned around, and september was gone. i’d missed it completely, like a ship passing in the night.

this kind of thing keeps sneaking up on me – the elusive, mercurial nature of the hoursdaysweeks slipping past my consciousness, through my fingers. it’s beginning to feel worrisome – stop! i’m missing stuff! give me my day back!

i am more preoccupied than usual, this is true. i’ve been given something of a promotion at my job, and the unending mountain of things to do which just continues to grow has kept me busy for every working moment for the past few weeks. i come home and collapse in a heap on the couch, with barely enough energy to wield the remote control.

and it’s full autumn now. the advancing bookends of dark, chilly mornings and dark, early evenings tend to close in on the day, compacting it, making the hours feel shorter. rising in darkness, returning in darkness makes it seem like the cycle is speeding up on itself. wait, wasn’t it just dark a few hours ago? what happened to the intervening daylight?

in truth, i fritter hours away. i spend mindless time watching, surfing and tweeting with nothing to show for it. the days fly by indistinguishable from one another in cookie-cutter repetition. no grand projects to work on, nothing new to aim at. and so i kill the restlessness with numbness, an electronic novocaine.

i read an article the other day about a woman who set out to read a book a day for a year. that would once have seemed like a dream project to me, and yet my first thought was, “where would i find the time?”

i am wasteful, wanton with my minutes. i am too lazy to corral them into some semblance of activity or productivity. the modern daydreamer trades in links and bytes.

because compared to many, i have nothing *but* time. no kids, no obligations, i only sleep 5-6 hours a night. even with 10 hours a day for work and travel, that leaves me with 8 hours a day during the week, and (with a lie in) 16 hours on the weekend. that’s 72 free hours a week. or 3,744 hours a year. i have 13,478,400 seconds at my disposal.

so where the hell did september go?

these days – nico

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