Shuffle, shuffle. Shuffle. <twitch>

When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view.
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox

After a summer where I may have been away more than I’ve been home, and with a whole lot of unresolved emotional ties from those travels, and with my first day back “at work” looming tomorrow…

I am restless.  And keep getting urges to act out.

I have acted out in every (socially and morally acceptable) manner.  I have e-mailed, IMed, or texted everyone I e-mail, IM, or text…I have Facebooked my ass off.

I still have a need to do something irrational and ill-advised. 

This is one of my great character flaws. 

Really, what I want to do is shout to the world, “HEY!  I’M HERE!

I AM AWESOME!  I MATTER! 

I AM RIDICULOUS! 

I am NOT JUST A CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR!”

before I get swallowed up once again in the daily nonsense.

I love my job.  It’s a great job.  But when one doesn’t have a husband, or kids, or a local network of awesome friends….when your job is all you realistically have on a day-to-day basis…it kind of sucks if it’s anything short of amazing.  I love my job, but

a job doesn’t love you back.

 

So I am grasping at straws to be loved back.  Grasping, in the hope that I can keep some of the ties that have been formed and strengthened this summer going. 

So that I can take

semi-plans

and make them

plans

and then

reality,

rather than crapping out on them like I always do.  This is what my summer vacation allows me to do – I get an impulse and follow through before I can crap out.  I see the people who truly love me.  I get quality time with those people.

I need to figure out how to get that quality time the rest of the year.

My sanity depends on it. 

 

Otherwise, I just keep wandering.

Restless.

Heart of Steel.

One of the things that makes my heart soar is finding a band that just…rocks me to my core.  I’ve found a couple this summer, albeit in unexpected places.   I first heard this song underscoring a segue in Buckwild (don’t judge me!) but promptly forgot about it until a trip to Lexington earlier this summer.  In one of those fortuitous turns of events that only seem to happen when traveling alone, I was there for the start of a bluegrass festival, and Gangstagrass was headlining the first free show of said fest.  The bar was full and the show underway by the time I found it, but the street was closed off, the sound pumped out on speakers, and there was a taco truck.

In other words, I was home.

If you know me even a little bit, you surely understand how very…ME…this is, like it or not. I proceeded to go back to my rented airbnb room, download two albums, and listen to them on repeat as I drove around Kentucky bourbon country and across West Virginia and Virginia for the next several days.

 

I’ve been home for a few days now from my last big trip of the summer, and I tend to get a bit conflicted and melancholy this time of year.  There always seems to be something gnawing at me.  But then a promo for Top Chef: New Orleans makes me investigate the band singing the song sampled, and I find songs like this that make everything feel grounded, and remind me who I really am, in all of my blessedly imperfect, cynical glory.  With the added benefit of a drumbeat I can bellydance to.

Thanks, Galactic.  You shall soon be in heavy rotation, as soon as I can decide which albums to buy.

Imaginary Friend.