Let me paint a picture here in words, because I haven't done that in a while.

I'm in my apartment in Raleigh. It's not the best apartment in the world (indeed, really!) but it's cheap and it's a place to live and it's got internet and I'm not usually here in any case. I'm in my bedroom with the door open and the AC off, with a half-eaten bag of shrimp chips in front of my keyboard and a pile of dishes to be washed beside me on the desk. A guitar book is open on the floor beside me; on the other side, also on the floor, my keys and wallet and a t-shirt lie in a pile. Housekeeping: not one of my priorities.

I've got a whiteboard (1/3rd of a giant sheet of melamine paneling from Home Depot - less than $11 for 3 big whiteboards!) leaning against the drawers with an October/November schedule and a partial to-do list on it. I've been cranking through that list all day. Then this afternoon I stopped, put on some 70's music, and rummaged around the kitchen throwing things into and out of the fridge while I cranked out some gumbo (on the stove now, waiting for the rice to cook) and started defrosting tofu for a curry I'll make probably this weekend when I finish eating the wok o' gumbo. Until recently, I was sprawled out on the couch with a pot of spaghetti in one arm and a fork in the other hand, and I'm still going back to that pot and shoveling another forkful of spaghetti and tomato sauce into my mouth whenever I realize I'm hungry.

I also munch shrimp chips. Once in a while I leap up and walk to the kitchen and stir the gumbo so the bottom doesn't scorch. In the meantime, I'm booking tons of travel for the fall - Cape Town, Rochester, Arlington, and more.

Ah, gumbo is done. I now have a giant wok o' gumbo sitting on the stove. It's not particularly elegant; frozen gumbo mix, canned tomatoes, rice, broth, seasonings all boiled in a formerly-nonstick wok that now requires oil and constant stirring not to burn things. The gumbo is spicy (of course it is; I cooked it, so I quadrupled the amount of cayenne pepper called for).

Wait, I'm not hungry any more. Put pasta pot in fridge, close chips, drink water (I am dehydrated). Tired, but not sleepy yet; even though I do have a sleep debt I've been catching up with, it's barely 7:30pm and I know I won't be able to sleep if I try to do so now. A giant to-do list stares me in the face, but I don't have the ability to tell what's important on it at the moment. What I need right now is motion. What I need to do right now is unpack the car.

Longer-term: I need to meet people here I can hang out and talk with - more than the few I already know from work. Or... dancing. Yes, dancing. Looks like there's blues on Friday and swing on Saturday and Sunday here; good to know

Aha. I think I have enough of a backtrace on my brain now to know what to do next. Also, I found my cell phone charger! Braindumps... they're sometimes good ideas.