Get lost.

status check - Pleased
background ambiance - Ryan Montbleau, "Variety"

They told me to get lost, so I did.

For the past several hours, I've been driving. I ignored any highway signs and instead took to the backroads and byways I usually ignore for the sake of time. The point of it, I think, was to spend time wandering and exploring - looking down each sidestreet and past every possible landmark so they become as engrained in my mind as the usual places.

I decided to see how far roads actually go and what I'd find along the way. I've decided that I don't like reaching the dead ends - I prefer to imagine that the pavement carries on until they reach oceans, Canada or craggy mountains unwilling to allow their continuance.

Granted, craggy mountains aren't really New England's style, but my imagination's allowed to go a little crazy with something like that.

I really did succeed in getting lost a couple of times - as I wound up winding along a couple of rivers with absolutely no idea of where I was. Turned out that the twists and bends led me in a huge half circle, so that I wound up driving back into town at the end of a loop that surprised me.

It's interesting, the things you don't pay attention to most of the time. You're so focused on where you're going, what you need to do, that it's only when you've nothing to do that your eyes really open. So doing nothing winds up being incredibly productive.

Or insightful, anyway - which always winds up helping you out in the long run.

In other news. Snowdays are meant to be spent curled up underneath blankets with hot tea. Particularly when everyone else in the apartment (residents and teachers-on-vacation visitors) gets to have the day off. Getting into professional mode sucks when everyone else is in pajama mode.

Is it bad that I'd thought Hunter S. Thompson had already killed himself?