This season has traditionally been a time of giving up things, but perhaps because of Vatican II (when hippies apparently infiltrated the Catholic Church), when I was growing up in Catholic School, the emphasis was on making a life-affirming change. Instead of negative reinforcement, the idea was to do something positive. Instead of giving something up, the idea was to do something new to make oneself a better person or make the world a better place.

So in that spirit, I have vowed to not wallow in my dingy apartment on my days off. To that end, I actually went out last night (witness my barely coherent musings and the pathetic story fragment that it inspired.) And today, I decided to visit the Sea (which, as I have mentioned, I am completely obsessed with.)

Today I found myself in La Jolla. While there are better, less snobby beaches to go to, for some reason I was drawn there. Maybe it's simply because of the cliffs, reminding me of my mad trip up Highway 1. Maybe it's the traces of memories from those demented days when I would fly out to California from Chicago and spend time visiting my sister here. I don't know.

The thing I noticed is that the music on the radio really gets me down. I don't know why. Because I don't live that far away from work right now, I haven't been bringing my iPod with me, which may have been detrimental to my mental health. Now that I am listening to my own music again, I feel much better. I want to rationalize that it's because the hip-hop they play on the radio is dreary and appeals to base commercialism and materialism, while the hip-hop that I have on my iPod is typically life-affirming, cognizant of the Struggle, and/or cerebral. Conclusion: hip-hop on the radio sucks shit. Nothing we already didn't know.

So I wandered around the streets of La Jolla with my iPod on, and it really made a difference to my mood. I stayed out there until the sun was too low to provide any warmth, reading The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind on a bench overlooking the cove. The book really reinforces my suspicion that I suffered some subtle brain damage when they anesthetized me as a kid, given my general indecisiveness and the overwhelming inertia I feel when trying to start a project. It's probably no surprise to anyone who knows me well that I probably have some kind of brain damage. True, I may be highly functioning, but I've always maintained that I'm probably the stupidest smart guy you'll ever meet.

After that, I decided to go to Coronado, another site of decadence, where the affluent dwell. One of the places I work is actually in Coronado, so I ate at a familiar diner and browsed quickly through a familiar book store. By then the sun had set, so I headed home, a little weary, somewhat pathetically content that I at least didn't simply rot at home.

The question is, how long can I keep this up? Can I keep going for the next three months without having an entire weekend off?

Still, I suppose I don't really have any choice. Sink or swim, baby, sink or swim.