I woke lethargically today, something like a lounging cat and a mess of old clothes. It was a delicious kind of tired that had a secret edge on the tail-end: I could sense that a malignant force was riding on its coattails. That would be a problem for myself around 11am. Right then, it was 8:30am on a Saturday morning, and it was time for cartoons.

Tom and Jerry circa 1940 has to be the best cartoon. Its symphonied antics and classic situational humor are like bite-sized fodder for creativity. For mine, anyway.

But then it was no longer 8:30. It was 11:00am on August 1st, 2026. The first of the month has a ritualistic sense to it. The months count down one by one, and the years go ever upward (if we are lucky).

I’ve begun a masochistic process of progress-tracking. Every month, on or near the first of that month, I review the strides made or refused on the path to my goals. I inventory the moments of happiness and sadness, of great purpose or forlorn feeling.

I get a little high. I start writing. Sitting on the pillow-less couch in a strange way, with my head pushed up against its rigid and tall arm and my spine curving uncomfortably to the cushion.

My hotel room smells faintly of grease today. That’s the air fryer; it’s time for a wash. These are the mundane thoughts that I sometime chastise myself for not resolving. That air fryer should have been cleaned the night before last! I despair.

What have I done this month and how do I feel about it? There’s the real estate course. I started it, at last. But too late. The course is expiring on October 16th. It’s 90 hours long and I’m 5 hours in.

This month, if I had studied an hour a day, I would be on track with an unreasonable goal. Or is it?

I think the problem is that deep down, I am less ambitious than I pretend to be in the mirror. Do I want to race toward an end, pushing myself to arrive there faster than the stream carries me?

But then again, do I want to risk not arriving at all?

There, we’re only three questions in and I feel many more bubbling inside of me. There’s not enough space for so many questions. I am like an InstaPot pressurizing.

The fact is that I miss my to-do list. But I do not miss it having so many items upon it. And to be more organized, and less scattered, and more honed, then I should stop smoking weed. At least in the day time. And perhaps not every day.

And should I really be forming such a strong association between smoking weed and having “free” time?

No, I should not. Rather, I do not want to.