Alright, so we’re all a few days into the Christmas holidays, and bless us everyone, it’s wearing a bit thin. I mean, we all love our families. We love our long lost friends. We love the option of going to the movies in the daytime, but then the movie ends, and we morph into the shrugging emoticon because now what. Do we just go see another movie? Do we walk around the mall, in awe of our newfound freedom? Who are we? What have we become?
Or maybe I’m just a workaholic projecting her inability to relax and enjoy free time onto you. That’s also a very viable possibility.
Anyway, I have something for you to use while coping with the abundance of free time and the complete lack of deadlines or work to do. Because it’s weird, right? It is. It’s weird. And I’m saying this after eating Advent calendar chocolate for breakfast, like a real-life adult person.
1. Go to the movies in the day
And I mean it. You do this. You do this all day, every day, because doing this outside the holiday season embeds a guilt in you so intense you won’t actually be able to enjoy the movie at all. One time I went to a matinee at 4 p.m. on a random Friday in March and I spent the whole movie convinced I was going to be fired. Also, I have a guilt complex, but that’s not what this piece is about.
2. Wander the mall aimlessly
You think I’m joking? What part of this list seems like a joke? How dare you? You don’t know me. I’m writing this from a mall bench right now (no), after doing no less than 26 laps (not even close), on a Wednesday afternoon (it’s currently a Monday morning). I feel alive. I feel like my Grandpa, who does laps around the mall every day. Remember working retail and thinking, “Who does laps around the mall?!” You. You do. Right now, until January 4, specifically. That’s what holidays are for.
3. Do not check your email
Call it an act of defiance. Also, call it common sense because absolutely nobody is emailing you, and everybody will hate you so much if you try and email them. So instead, spend 60 minutes not looking at your email inbox, and then, like Kevin McAllister, walk out of your house and yell, “I’m not afraid anymore!”
4. Read like, all those books you have
I say this because I am staring at two piles of books I’ve accumulated over 2015, all of which have remained untouched since the day I bought them; all of them silently saying to me, “What the hell is wrong with you? Read me!” And I will. I will, I swear. But like, life is busy. Unlike, say, the holiday season, where I convince myself I will be very busy, and then by Boxing Day I’m like, “…Ah, goddamn it.”
5. Read everything I’ve ever written
Like, everything. All of it. Read all of my work. And then email me to tell me how great I am.
6. Or watch every important TV show of 2015
And I say that as a sarcastic remark, but as I’m typing it right now I’m thinking, “Actually, that could totally work!” It can’t, because there are like, 20 great shows, and all of them are 295285258 hours long, so this means you would sacrifice everything just to have an opinion on the second season of Fargo, which is a bit much, let’s be real. So instead, choose one, and then . . .
7. Bask in a feeling of accomplishment
Because you finished the show. Because you finished reading this list. Because you finished the year. Because you finished scrolling through all my tweets and liking and RT-ing them accordingly. Because the cup. Because I said so. Because starting sentences with “because” gives them purpose. Because it’s almost 2016. Because it is 2016 and you’re already behind on all your reading. Because.
You’re welcome. Namaste.
