Big Dreams without Direction

So I have a job as many of you (who are you? there are maybe two people who read this blog. anyway...) may know. It is ok. It's a job. It pays reasonably well, and I am making my personal debt my bitch. Aside from that I would really like to do more art things, but I have been experiencing a serious lack of motivation lately. I started some socks, but they've been slow going because I am using (literally) painfully thin needles for them and despite double threading the yarn, an hour's worth of work usually only yields about an inch of sock. And I'm having a hard time working up the desire to walk down (not even to, but toward) Van Ness to buy spray paint (mostly because I know they keep it locked up if they have it at all, and this will involve waiting around and talking to clerks until someone figures out who has the key to open the case).

At very least I am capable of getting off my butt for 45 minutes to an hour every day to do some amount of weight workout in addition to my dog walks and work walk. I was going to run this morning, but the presence of rain quelched that plan. I usually dread the thought of running; once I'm actually doing it, I feel fine, but it is the initial dread of actually doing it: of putting on the running clothes and getting all the crap together to run with the dog (two bags for poops, dealing with him on his leash being crazy), not to mention it almost guarantees that I will get about 5 hours of sleep instead of 7ish, and the cons start to outweigh the high of running I get once I'm actually out pounding pavement. But really it is the most effective aerobic workout, and unless I can find some crazy cache of workout torrents where it is something new to see every day, I won't really do aerobics in the confines of my living room: there simply isn't space for a lot of the big dancy type aerobic moves, and I don't have carpet or an exercise mat to cushion my ever-more-sensitive spine from any sort of floor exercises.

The only advantage to working out in the living room that I can think of is that since I'd be in a constant temperature environment, I would experience the sudden flood of perspiration I get the second I step back into the house from running in the 10 to 20 degrees cooler out of doors. Even if I do a 15 minute cool-down walk post-run, I still get this horrible sweat attack; it is inevitable, and really the last thing I want to do when I am at the end of my run which is at the ass end of my day is jump in the shower because that just makes me feel dizzy---I don't usually sweat a lot while I am running, it is all after I come in from outside, so no, I'm not some gross person who likes to sleep as a big sweaty mess. That's the whole problem, in fact. I don't want to be a big sweaty mess when I sleep. That is another con to running outside. I suppose I could go in the early evening when I walk the dog before work, but that means I'd be rushing to shower before work. I don't know which is worse. Plus this is a popular time for runners in my area whereas at 6:30 in the morning, I pretty much have the streets to myself as far as runners are concerned. There's just a few early morning commuters out and some people walking dogs. I've seen, at most, 3 or 4 other runners. There'd probably be more down by the park, but I know there'd be more down there, so I specifically avoid going there and instead run in the flat areas around Jones down to Mason.

Aside from the fitness thing, I feel like I've kind of stagnated as a person. I might enroll at UCSF or SFState as a non-degree seeking student and take some "personal enrichment" courses in math and philosophy. Maybe I might make some friends who live in the city so I don't spend all my time sitting around doing nothing alone in my apartment all day. At very least I feel like I need some sort of academic project to work on. Some sort of accumulative study or research project or something. I'll take ideas. Nothing is too lofty; I'll consider it all. I just need something to exercise my brain in regard to logic, reasoning and comprehension.