mini vacay

4 days.

what can a person do in the 4 days left before the long haul of studying for the bar exam? i know i'm not the only one wondering that, because i've been keeping an eye on the away messages of my thousands of IM and F-book buddies, many of whom are asking, "what now?" and "ugh, raining, can't go down da shore. blah...." and "OMG what am i doing INSIDE when it's SO NICE OUT!? LOL!"

and here am i. i don't have a beach house in new jersey -- ooops, i mean "shore" house. sorry if any of you philadelphians were utterly confused when i said "beach." i have a farm house 3 hours away in the middle of pennsylvania, and my family isn't even there. my roommate's away for a week, so i'm home alone and won't even be getting any good cuddle time while watching this week's episode of The Office. my hopes to use this time to get super buff and hot have failed, as i don't feel like going up to the gym and i haven't yet joined one downtown.

oh, and i don't have a car. so even target is out of reach. don't get me started on a mall. don't even get me started.

so what now? how will i fill the day ahead?

it's 6:30 AM. (my effing bitch of a cat woke me up by basically knocking over the huge bookshelf in my room. very slight exaggeration.) i'm well-rested, though. it seems, through my windows, to be a nice rainy day outside. how relaxing. but i don't want to sleep all day... like i did yesterday. ahem.

the vast number of options can be crippling. so many possibilities, and i should decide what i'm doing while i still have motivation to do something. time to make a plan. so how does a healthy, able-bodied, young, temporarily "unemployed," FREE man fill his lazy days?

let's use hugh grant's "Units" theory from About A Boy:
each unit is 30 mins.

1. breakfast: 1 unit
as an aside, i bought egg whites in a carton because my lovely roommate, cpgb max azria, says i'm eating too many yolks; they look and taste and smell like a certain liquid that no one really wants to think about in the morning.

3. reading my new Men's Health, cover to cover: 1 unit

2. i forgot - first removing all the small paper insert special offer forms from the magazine because finding them as i read makes me want to cut someone: 1/2 unit

4. looking at (but not eating!) the chocolate on chocolate layer cake in my refrigerator: 1 unit

5. reading the long list of blogs i haven't checked for updates since last evening: 1 unit

6. mid-morning snack!!! usually string cheese!! woo! my favorite time of day: 1 unit

7. shower and dress to go see the outside world: 2 units

8. reading my new book, The Power of Now, at Starbucks: 3 units
after 3 units, i will no longer be able to sit at Starbucks and will have to rush the 1 block home because of that well-known scientific equation: coffee + my bowels + public restroom = bad.

9. dinner: 2 units
possibly referring back to this month's Men's Health and making a recipe from it... that is, only if the editors of MH were kind enough to include a dinner recipe calling for only the following ingredients:
-lean ground beef
-string cheese!!! wooo!
-extra garlic garlic garlic bad breath hummus
-frozen berries that have been in my freezer since christmas
-cvs brand clear sugar-free fizzy drink
i need to go grocery shopping again. already.

10. checking blogs for updates: 1 unit
first towleroad, then dlisted and if i'm super bored i'll hit up andrew sullivan and then perez. perez is a last resort.

11. friday night activities: the balance of units.

starting... NOW!