Mid-twenties (ugh, I feel old) crisis.

I have a weakness for mindless websites: gawker, jezebel, fashionista, popsugar, people.com, the list goes on... they provide a brainless escape in the middle of the work day, that's the only explanation I can think of. I also have a weakness for design websites like designsponge and fabsugar and fashionologie and style bubble that give you ideas for how you'd like to decorate and dress. And I love ebay and etsy where you can find FABULOUS items for unbelievable bargains (like my new coat: plum wool tweed for $11).

But I'm cutting myself off. Yes, you heard me: I'll no longer know what the status of Britney's custody battle is or whether patent leather is in for fall or how really much I want to order one of these.

It's going to be hard, and I'm not perfect. But at the very least I am deleting them from my browser favorites.

For a while now ... maybe since I moved here ... I've felt a little lost, as though I've gotten really far away from who I used to be but not in a concrete way; not as though I've grown into someone better. Too often if a silence falls in the conversation and someone asks me what I'm thinking, the answer is "nothing"--and it's true. When did I stop thinking about things besides what I'm going to wear tomorrow? (There's nothing wrong with thinking about that...only when it's not occasionally replaced by something weightier.) Is it because in college you had designated hours of the day to be applying your brain and so when you didn't turn it on for the rest of the day you didn't feel the absence? Whereas now no matter how much you like your job it's not like "What color should the endpapers be?" is the same as "What is the significance of Hume's theory of knowledge?"

Part of it, too, is that I am pretty busy when I'm not at work and I have so much reading to do FOR work that I haven't been reading good, adult books with any regularity. I'm setting a goal for myself of one novel a month, and I'm finding that books make for easier reading on the subway than manuscripts, anyway. (It's the binding.) (Duh.)

And I'd like to explore other things--learn yoga, take a cooking class, visit a museum a month, go to church. I'd like to feel INTERESTING again.

Now, I'm not turning into a snob. I'm still going to watch Top Model and Gossip Girl. I still have to read People for my job. I still like mass market mysteries and the Baby-sitters Club! But I also need to try to become a better-rounded person--and hopefully, in the process, a better friend to you all. :)