On The Road, Again

Kitsune and I are taking advantage of my school's winter break and spending all hours of the day together. We are spending the next two weeks visiting our family in Pennsylvania and Virginia. All of this free time gives us the opportunity to rekindle our bond and do things we didn't have as much time for before. That means, more walks, more exercise, productive days of preparation for things to come, and the prospect of self-actualizing activities. Which brings me to the momentary dilemma of my night.

It's past 10 pm, my family is asleep since they still have work and school in the morning, and I'm in the guest room with Kitsune, a TV with no cable, an X-box (with X-box Kinect), my computer, and a library of my dad's used books (death to Kindle and all computerized tablet-books!). Since I'm on an unfortunately abnormal sleep schedule (which I need to seriously fix), I wanted to occupy my time before falling asleep myself. I am currently obsessed with Netflix and its Watch Instantly capability, and it's been suggesting quite a few new shows/movies, so that was my first thought when I knew I had time to myself. But then, I remembered the books I read. So, I had a choice to make: stimulate my intellect through literature, or numb my mind with countless episodes of "Witty Office Sitcoms," the latter of which is probably semi-self-deprecating.

I'm sure the obvious choice to the self-actualizer would be to read, you know, exercise the mind, broaden the lexicon, open up new perspectives and imagination-- all that great stuff. But I've been increasingly lazy lately, and sometimes not having to think for long extended periods of time can be relaxing, especially when I know my brain is going to be in deep overload in a matter of weeks. (This is probably more reason WHY I should read, not watch TV). It is a New Year, though, and my goal of reading more books this year than last failed miserably... so I think it looks like I'm reaching for the dusty and tattered paperback of The Fountainhead... or The Book Thief (which was given to me to read merely 5 minutes before starting this post...). Oh, decisions. I guess my ambivalence is also persuading me to prevent getting any dumber than the hours of TV via Netflix has already made me. See, I said 'I guess'! That does not sound like a very strong, active sentence to me.

Yeah, reading's calling me. Just had to vent the inner conflict I was having via weblog. Maybe I'll comment on the books, after, but probably not. I am no critic.

P.S. Is it bad that the slow internet connection added to my decision? Don't judge. I will have you know that mid-blogging, the pilot episode of Better Off Ted started and I forcefully clicked pause. Again, don't judge (you know, for the Better Off Ted thing... unless you heard it's good? I need real-human recommendations!).

Kitsune is enjoying the snow, BTW. Except for the whole ice-stuck-in-pads thing, poor boy.