10 things to do with a free afternoon
i.
Try baking. Frown after something catches on fire. Laugh at your complete lack of culinary skill. Notice the ashes on the tray look like stars against nightfall, only with the colors reversed.
ii.
Browse the web for Internet memes. Be thankful that despite really being socially awkward, there’s a very small chance you’ll end up forever alone, even if in your wedding photo, you’ll most likely look like a trollface next to your (hopefully) ridiculously photogenic spouse.
iii.
Eat. Self-explanatory.
iv.
Bird watch. Go to nearest bookstore to buy a copy of the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds. Sit at by a pond and observe the limited number species you can look up with your fingers fumbling through the guide slower than the movements of the wading egret in front of you. Sit there for hours, like John James Audubon did because that man must have been a genius. Or incredibly bored to observe hundreds of species of bird for hundreds of minutes without wanting to chase after plumage that grows thin and fickle as night-drawn tears of a child abandoning childhood, without imaging one wingtip brushing ground, other stroking cheek—without wanting flight, until he finds that he bares no wings of his own. Realize that you bear no wings of your own.
v.
Watch When Harry Met Sally… again. How many times can Harry meet Sally before he realizes that that they were meant to be? Or that he is trapped, hoodwinked and hijacked into a rom-com plot twist, too unrealistic to exist in real life, but the platitudes are where the comfort lies so you’ll put the disk back into the DVD player for the fifth, and you tell yourself, the final time.
vi.
Shed. Take off the jeans with that mustard stain from the non-kosher hotdog you promised your rabbi you wouldn’t eat and hated yourself afterwards for eating it. Lose the midriff-bearing shirt your mother is ashamed of—the one with Hendrix’s face on it, the one you mistook for Marley when you bought it. Wash away the dense lubricant weighing down the wingtips of your eyes. Unclip the push-up bra that vowed to turn you into an angel, or at least a woman whose allure could make an angel blush. Hold yourself in a staring contest against the mirror: fading acne scar on your face—the North Star, mole above your hip—the headwaters of the River Styx. Remember that world has been cruel to you, telling you that without a halo from Victoria, you’ll be grounded in years of solitude, how you look nothing like the Birth of Venus. Hold yourself like no one has ever held you, correctly. Hold yourself and let the image hurt like waxing, so much that your mouth contorts itself into a misshapen crescent so startlingly real you believe you’ve actually plastered downward moon onto your face. Hold yourself and wait for the redness to subside. Hold yourself until the image does not hurt anymore. Then, let go.
vii.
Start a non-profit. Decide that helping other people is your calling. Make plans to move to Uganda or Venezuela or Tibet. Reassure your mother that you are not making life mistake, and no, of course you’re not going to be killed by an air strike, and yes of course, it is one of the safest third-world countries to be in. And tell her, most convincingly, to please send a monthly check.
viii.
Screw the non-profit. Decide that investment banking is your calling—sell your soul to Wall Street instead because your soul’s probably not worth as much as a mutual fund or how high your annual salary will be after a Christmas bonus.
ix.
Sing “Call Me Maybe” to the next person you see. Give them a number and wait for the phone to ring.
x.
Take a nap. Because God knows, you’ll need it when your afternoon’s not free tomorrow.
