How to wait for an email: a not necessarily harmless technique

An incomplete guide for the restless.

FIDGETING FOR A FEW MINUTES:

• Robot Unicorn Attack.
• On that same thread but cuter, Orisinal games.
• Knock items off your petty to-do list (things like “flip calendar to new month” and “make clothes hangers all hang the same way” and “schedule dentist appointment” and “soak retainers in denture cleaner”).
• Chores. Scour that tub, wipe off that counter, do those dishes, start that laundry, organize that desk, shred those papers, vacuum those motherfucking cobwebs.
• Take a shower. (Shave your legs if you need to kill lots of time. If you need to kill a lot of time, you could try turning your shower water into wine while in there.)
• Groom. Tweeze those stray eyebrow hairs, exfoliate, moisturize your body, wax something you didn’t know you could wax.
• Do a Face-Replace on a group picture with your friends.
• Send me an email. Insult me. Bitingly. Tits or GTFO. Whatever. (Actually don’t send me pictures of your tits; I don’t really like them.)
• Hem those clothes you’ve been meaning to hem. Or if that’s too plebeian for you, take that shit to the tailor. Drop your shoes off and have them resoled. BLEACH THOSE MOTHERFUCKING PIT STAINS.
• Design a new signature for yourself.
• Do some jumping jacks. Or squats. Or lunges. Or whatever.
• Clean out your blog reader, twitter follows, tumblr follows, phonebook, friends list, etc.
• Masturbate.
• Write a Things I Love Thursday for yourself. Even if it isn’t Thursday. Because you can.
• Email your favorite blogger and tell them why you like them. (Or do the same for a friend.)
• Make a mixtape/playlist for someone.
• Walk around with a mirror under your nose so you can feel like you’re walking on the ceiling.
• Make a detailed agenda for the coming week or weekend. Consider color-coding it.
• Find someone to Wiki Race with.

FIDGETING FOR A FEW HOURS:

• Go for a walk and leave anything connected to the internet at home.
• Find someone you like a moderate amount. Make immediate plans and follow through with them, with the intent of getting to the point where you like them quite a bit. Consider involving food.
• Compose a massive, ambitious blog post.
• Cook or bake, especially for other people.
• Leave 10 sincere blog comments on 10 different blogs. (I’ve never actually been able to do this because I rarely have anything of substance to say in a comment, so this definitely kills a lot of time, just searching for something worth saying.)
• Re-customize your desktop wallpaper and icons.
• Stream a movie you’ve been meaning to watch online. Yeah, that smart, serious, slightly indie flick. Oops, I mean “film.” (Personal suggestions for Films That Not Enough People Have Watched And Which I Think People Would Benefit From Watching: Brick, The Squid and the Whale, Maria Full of Grace, Holy Rollers, The Cove, Memento, Layer Cake)
  
• Go in your closet and compose thematic outfits. (e. g. dress in only one color, dress in every color of the rainbow, dress in only primary colors, dress in only florals, dress in only stripes, wear nothing but cotton jersey, match your furniture, pretend to be a Disney princess, cultivate a uniform)
• Perfect some really complicated hair style.
• Read a book. Like, a book in print. (Personally, I will always suggest sci-fi/fantasy novels because they’re easiest to get sucked into, but whatever makes you forget where you are. That being said, Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, Ender’s Game, and pretty much anything by Terry Pratchett will probably work.)
• StumbleUpon.
• Learn how to make animated .GIFs, then make really embarrassing .GIFs of your friends. Or awesome .GIFs of your favorite movies. Or Glee .GIFs with the caption "fanning my vagina." (You can send those to me.)
• Go shopping. Buy an entire outfit for under $30. Buy something in every color of the rainbow (to wear or to eat, whichever you feel like). Buy something completely hideous, then figure out how to refashion or style it so it fits your aesthetic.
• Visit the Forever21 website and try to online window shop until you have $21K of merchandise in your shopping cart.
• Find a runway look you really like an attempt to replicate it. DIY as much as you can, and shop for the rest.
  

FIDGETING FOR A FEW DAYS OR WEEKS OR MONTHS:

• Start a blog. Be ambitious. Post at least twice a day, every day. Don’t reuse anyone else’s content, ever, not even flickr photos under Creative Commons.
• If you already have a blog, start a new blog series. Compose and schedule posts at least two weeks ahead of time. If you’re feeling particularly fidgety, write about something that will require a lot of outside research on your part.
• Start a new TV show you’ve been meaning to watch. (I recommend Freaks and Geeks or Glee or Mad Men because their first episodes are excellent and total hooks.)
• Change your blog layout.
• Learn a crafty skill, like sewing, pattern-drafting, knitting, embroidery, yarn spinning, pottery, metalworking, leather upholstery, etc. Or begin a very ambitious crafting project. (Like sequining a giant Chanel logo onto a top.)
• In the style of THXTHXTHX, write thank-you notes to everyone. If you’re feeling gutsy, send them out to their recipients.
• Learn how to cook low-sodium, low-fat meals (in case you have a family history of heart disease and an aging relative!). Then send me your recipes and/or techniques.
• Listen to 1000 new songs, a la Mighty Girl.
• Pick a director or actor you admire and watch everything he or she has ever done that you can get your hands on. Read an author’s complete oeuvre or listen to every song a musical artist’s ever performed. Take a look at where greatness springs from.
• Pick up a musical instrument or a language. Foreign ones are great, but I’d count programming languages too.
• Obtain a map of the world to affix to something. Stick pushpins in all the countries whose cuisine you’ve sampled, then eat around until you’ve filled your map. Alternatively, set out on an expedition to discover the best ____ in your locale. Fill in the blank with whatever you like (gelato, vegan dessert, sushi, hot chocolate, used book selection, female impersonator). Consider enlisting a partner in crime.

If you are so restless that you scrolled through this post looking for a picture, here's one of Andrew Garfield:

Andrew Garfield is always relevant.

[EDIT: SHIT GUYS I LOST THE CREDIT FOR THIS PHOTO HOLD ON I'M GONNA FIND IT I WILL]

[EDIT: Guys, I don't know where this picture is from. I know it's tumblr somewhere, but trying to find a source on tumblr is like trying to find a Horcrux. Which means Harry Potter could do it, but I'm not him.]

[EDIT: JUST KIDDING! Thank you Google image search-by-size. Source]