War and Peace

Doing nothing, I've found, is a lot harder than it looks. I've had the rare opportunity in the passed couple months to do what may seem to the laymen like not very much, but in fact involves a complex series of exercises performed with ritualistic rigor to preserve sanity in a household continually threatened with unimaginable boredom.

Among the various peacekeeping tactics employed, regular rounds of tea is possibly the most important. It is simple to do, everyone takes their turn and it's all-round far less harmful a past-time than, say, smoking or breaking out a beer every hour. Tea encourages pleasant conversation or, in times where pleasant conversation has taken the turn for the worst, it helps to patch things over as a form of peace-offering.

Regular forays onto the internet are useful too. It gives the impression of networking and attempting to find a job. A few minutes a day are all you really needs to connect with friends and put over a few emails to feel like the world has not abandoned you utterly. A couple of evenings a month dedicated to getting together with friends or former colleagues to chat and hang out and get absolutely ratted also relieves an oppressive atmosphere.

Exercise goes without saying, and so in my case, it often goes by without comment either. Usually every three or four days my limbs will start to stick and I'll put myself through a few yoga stretches to limber up again. It helps, and I feel very positive for having done it, and reflect on how easy it would be just to do a couple of stretches a day seeing as I have the time. It never works. Days go by before discomfort drives me back to the yoga mat.

The truly tragic part about this whole hiatus from work is exactly that I have so much time on my hands. I could be doing anything: creating, learning, making the master pieces I so longed for time enough to make. But no. The gift of two months off is taken up with putting off the inevitable, usually till eleven at night, where I get on my PC and work a bit on my comic, or on a picture, or my website, or the book I'm writing. I'm spoiled for choice and time and I waste most of it reading or sleeping or looking for more work. Maybe I'm just the more densely scheduled type.

Either way, two month's solid rest is nothing to be ungrateful for. I feel I've used it to relax if nothing else. In the words of Calvin (from my favourite comic Calvin and Hobbes): "At least when I have a day off, I can tell the difference."