Tinkerbell and Tigger

The wee hours of the morning are keeping me company, as per usual, my housemates having wished me good night and retired at a reasonable hour. Amanda has not yet begun her sleep-babbling, which generally commences when the clock strikes two.  I haunt the pages of bloggers more profound than I - the clean slate, Ordinary Courage, bags4darfur, the chronicles of blunderview.  I ponder the possibility of figuring out how to start a soap box like CBear's.  I contemplate sneaking over to Side-reel to stream the next episode of the office.  Monsters that devour each ticking second, distracting me from the thought of the fun I'm missing.  I'm bored and want an adventure, but Tinkerbell stands on my shoulder reminding me that the only adventure I deserve is a journey through the pages of my neglected Qualitative Research textbook.  I look at the clock and wonder if... just maybe... I can convince myself that it's a good idea for me to rise before the sun, pack a bag, and report to the passenger seat of the black Nissan in the parking lot by 8am.  I plead with Tinkerbell for some fairy dust to take me back to Neverland.  After all... one can read about qualitative research as well in a vehicle as out of it.  Especially when that vehicle is pointed west, seats filled with good friends, and miles passed in laughter.  I know it's an irrational idea, but it's a persistent little bugger... teasing, flirting, prodding with remarkable perseverance, trying to justify itself like a teenager telling me that they were late because they missed the bus when I can smell the marijuana tucked safely away in the band in their gangsta hat.  The Lost Boys are always in Neverland, but now everybody's going, and I don't like to be left behind.  The mischievous, spontaneous, dancing little bugger calls itself Tigger, or What-About-Bob, or Hakuna-Matata-Pumba, depending on the day.  It dangles the juicy bait of a memorable road-trip before my academia-saturated eyes, and pleads to be allowed out to play.  Just for a week... pleeeease?

Oh the tension of taming the puppy-like spontaneity without losing the wild child within...  

When I grow up    If I solemnly promise to grow up... then will you let me out to play?