After working like a dog and having no life for the past three months, spending days cooped up in a Zurich hotel room with only my laptop and briefcase as company, getting my tongue pierced in a wacky 'I don't know if I want to be a grownup, so let's do something kooky' fit and getting drunk just about every night of the week, I finally blagged a holiday and am now lazing around in the US. And I totally don't know what to do with myself. Most of the time, I'm with my best friend or with my family, but today they were all working and all I did was watch TV, play with my hair, put on makeup, go online and talk to my husband on the phone.

What would be a better way to spend my time? (My Dad's house is in the country and my licence expired years ago, so I can't drive anywhere.) What do you do with yourself when you have spare time? How do you cope with that opressive feeling of not doing anything remotely constructive? How do you relax in the face of being unproductive? I think I may have another day-of-nothing on Monday, and I'm a bit freaked out at the prospect.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

Answers

Yay, Jackie's on holiday. Well deserved, it sounds like.

Okay. Suggestions were solicited. Let's see.

Rent some movies that are considered classics but which you've never gotten around to actually watching. You know what I mean. If you've never watched Maltese Falcon or Citizen Kane, do so. Or go in the other direction: get something so awful and bad that watching it will make you think up a dozen hilarious observations (take notes). Have Film Education Day.

You can also get them to take you to market, pick up some ingredients, and then try to make something you've never had time to make before. You'll have the kitchen to yourself all day, it will be fun to experiment. Or just bake some cookies.

Give yourself a funky pedicure. Paint each nail a different color.

Pick words at random out of a thesaurus or dictionary and write a poem or short comment about them.

Ask for a book on local sights and get a bus schedule. You can take a taxi to a bus stop if there isn't one convenient to you. Go check out a museum.

Read some books you haven't had time to get into. Either borrow one from your hosts or ask to go by a bookstore.

Hope that helps!

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

The clinical solution is to do things you don't get to do when you're working. Thomas Mann wrote some good stuff about this in "The Magic Mountain".

I'm chained to a desk as a database administrator 10 1/2 hrs a day. As a cyberserf, it's good not to sit around or cocoon on my 3 day weekends. I have a tree farm in New York State. It's a nice 5 hr drive, and I get a good 2 days working outdoors. It helps a lot. The main value is that I get "good memories". Back home, I can escape the routine for awhile with my "good memories"; if only in my head. Break your routine- thats the motto.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

Drink. Heavily.

Make new concotions and dare yourself to drink them. You'll forget in no time how bored you were.

Or hang out by the side of the road and hope that some hot guys in an old Toyota Supra with a lawn mower tied down in the trunk drive by, looking fer a good time.

-- Anonymous, April 05, 2001

Too bad you can't drive, a trip to Cedar Point would definitely be in order!

I don't have any advice because right now I'm a bit freaked out with how much I have to do and having a day-of-nothing sounds heavenly! I'm jealous, dude. Have fun.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

I just have to know-did it hurt when you had your tongue pierced? How did you hold it still when they did it? Does it feel weird having something in your mouth or do you get use to it? I have a bunch more questions, but they'd be too intimate.

Um, oh yeah spare time. Generally, I'm exhausted so I sleep.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

If you're near a beach, go! That's the only way I would ever feel like I'm really on holiday and to keep the guilt away. Laze around on the beach with a novel, CD player (headphones, naturally), under a huge umbrella. Ahh, bliss... Have fun!

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

When I have free time (or when I want to avoid something distasteful), I write letters to people. It's a win-win situation: everyone likes getting real!live!mail!, and I get to amuse myself with the stuff I write.

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

Hey Jacks. :-)
I was in a situation similar to yours back in April 1990, when I returned to Birmingham, UK, for a holiday after having lived there for a year of university. I'd just finished my degree at UC Santa Cruz (in California) and the trip was a gift to myself to celebrate my graduation, and also to revisit the friends I'd made the year before, whom I missed so much.
It was all well and good, except that the very friends who'd invited me to come and stay with them suddenly backpedaled on their offer (after I arrived), leaving me scrambling to find lodging. (They wanted to hang out with me; they just didn't want to house me. Isn't that nice!) Blessedly, my former flatmate was still in uni, living in the same student housing we'd shared when I lived there, and even though she had only a tiny, TINY room, she let me come sleep on her floor for as long as I needed and was incredibly generous and kind to me. (Yvonne Scarlett Rules Forever O.K.)
I was in England, it was sunny and warm, and I had nothing to do. I was verging on broke, as I'd foolishly squandered much of my travel money very quickly upon my arrival, so I couldn't hop a train to London or go to the cinema or anything like that. I ended up spending a lot of time on my own, either walking through the park owned by the Cadbury family at Griffin Close (in Northfield, fwiw), sitting my the pond, watching the ducklings and goslings, and taking photos of sunsets, or listening to the B-52's album "Cosmic Thing" on my Walkman. I also filled hours meandering through Bull Ring market, watching British TV, and mostly, writing in my diary and writing long-overdue letters to friends.
Even though it was a very stressful situation (it hurt being baited and switched by my supposed best friends), it ended up okay, and I remember that time quite fondly, now.
Hope you end up with good memories of your holiday as well, Jackie. :-)

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

Call me selfish, but *I* think Jackie should be writing stuff for her website! I miss it! :)

Okay, seriously? I think the not-even-remotely-constructive feeling can be good for you (in small doses, natch). After I finished grad school, I literally collapsed for a month. I read Poo, like old Jackie Collins books and lots of In Style magazine. I watch TV... not much, because I'm not big on telly, but I still vegged out in front of, like, the stray episode of Growing Pains. I started super- pampering myself... facials, polishing my nails, various herbal bath concoctions. I told myself I was concentrating on "recharging" so I didn't feel it was *entirely* unproductive.

You'll be back amongst Chaos soon enough, Jackie! Just be lazy!

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001

I think this was a day Jackie thought she'd be left to her own devices. If so, I hope she's peacefully sleeping away. Sleeping in on some of your days off = Good.

-- Anonymous, April 09, 2001