Clint Smith @thecrint: what do you do when you know you need a vacation, but don’t have the slightest clue as to how to best spend the time?
Answer:
Perfect! Take a “staycation”.
– Read
– Sit and do nothing
– Find something athletic local in the area to do
– Sit in cafes and come up with ideas on my waiter’s pad for things I never had the time to come up with ideas for before.
– Go to a local museum and then sit in the cafe/bookstore and come up with ideas.
– Sit and do nothing again.
– 11am! I used to do this “web show” for HBO called “3am” where I would interview people about what they were up to at 3 in the morning on, say, a Wednesday night. Nobody was up to anything good at 3am on a Wednesday night. I used to think that was the witching hour where all interesting things happened. I was wrong. You know what hour is even better? 11am. Because at 11am, who is walking around? They should be at work, or at school, and it’s too late for that mid-morning break, and it’s too early for lunch, and even if you worked in the restaurant business you are already at work by 11am.
So go to a part of your town that you have barely spent any time and watch the people walking around at 11am. It will be mysterious and dangerous. Give them stories. Find out their stories. Observe them. Draw them. Just relax.
In our daily lives we only perceive a small window of our universe. The benefits of a staycation:
1) you see a larger part of your universe. You notice the tiny details that have always escaped you. You appreciate the small things in the lusciousness of the life around you.
2) you don’t waste time in the traveling. Think of the 30 hours or so you save not having to pack, get on planes, travel, settle in, etc. It’s 30 hours no matter where you are going. What a drag!
3) it’s cheap.
If you have any other staycation ideas, write me.
Enjoy!