chafing

against view that there is a canonical mode of behavior that I must follow to be a **good** graduate student. All the more difficult because I've bought into it for the last few years.

angry #1

I'm just angry today, spitting nails kind of angry. If I'm honest, I myself am the primary target. Another day where all seems wrong. Earlier this afternoon I had a meeting with a visiting researcher, and it was totally unsatisfying. Mostly I ended up feeling ill-prepared and like I had no interesting questions to ask. I asked what I hoped were interesting questions and got extremely boring responses. All of this not helped by coming in already with low confidence levels. And then he chastised me for missing his talk. Wait, talks. Turns out there were two, which I did not realize. The real problem? I hate myself today.

Hating yourself really sucks.

retired, oops, not retired

Last night we watched Schultze Gets the Blues. Some of the moments were wonderful, some of the cinematography quite appealing, but in the end it felt to me like a short stretched waaaaaay out into a full-length movie. Retirement is a big theme, what do three miners do with their days, once they're no longer mining? Long days, during which they're free to do whatever they want. Go to the pub early, sit on the porch swing, squander the day if you want.

and something hit me...

I've been acting like I'm retired. But, ummm, I'm not. Nor, really, would I want to be. Either that or I've been acting like I'm a carefree teenager whose financial needs are taken care of without really having to work. And, yeah, that's not the case either.

there is absolutely no reason for me not to be working, bare minimum, a 40 hour week. seriously.

poetic #2 with whimsy

the run from guadalajara to oaxaca
stole my breath
wore me out
and made me weak

now
let me dump the sand from my shoes
feet baby soft
ready to sleep
tomorrow we're on to belize

live in the world

I just had a revelation. I can look at the world with lightness and joy. Work is what I have chosen. And I have chosen what I enjoy. And I am free to let go and truly enjoy it.

wondering #1

right now, feeling kinda infatuated. feeling like we have all kinds of things in common. wondering how selectively i'm viewing the situation, how much i'm failing to see. or if it could really just be okay to enjoy it.

on falling tree branches

today in the midst of my ordinary life
something as uneventful as a paper cup of coffee and two friends
outside, beneath a tree

the wind pushed a dead branch from its home 30 feet above me
and i was struck, suddenly, without warning
life does that sometimes

first it seems like nothing, a surprise but
easy enough to fold into the day

the fallout sneaks in over days,
little lingering liabilities,
not marked as part of the impact.
the challenge is to sort these out,
attend to them,
and maintain the world we know as our own

nice night #1

tonight went to Central Market w/ good friends, and that adorable nephew of mine gave me the best hug ever. and the weather was nice, the weather was great, wind blowing, 70 degrees. Now I'm watching season 2 of Weeds, our new Netflix favorite. and working through the to-do list.

pretty boring post.

current status

I've been meaning to get back to this blog for a while. here I am!

things have changed. work/school is going extremely well. the plan is to graduate in August and then on to the next city and the next phase of life. I'll be glad to get to a more natural (for me) climate. I'm single again, since just 4 months ago. and dating. which is weird.

I'm curious about the sense of audience when writing a blog. I dislike the extremely audience-conscious style taken by many writers -- this may be especially true because I feel I'm prone to it. This style often involves making apologies for time away/not posting, throwing in odd little asides meant to indirectly convey your point of view to a presumed-to-be like-minded readership, and trying to sound hip/cool/ironic/something. It also often involves the kind of self-absorbed confessional emotional excursions I'm also prone to (and also dislike).

Somehow tonight I'm sitting around, not concentrating, not doing much of anything. which is bullshit, because I will later regret this time spent in the dead zone.

The dead zone is like an intentional descent into a way of living that squashes me, sucks my energy out, leaves me feeling like I'm squandering my life. and at moments like these, I am.

depressed poetic

emerging from a dark place,
a place of stagnation and decline,
finding again, maybe for the first time,
how to feel happy, how to hope,
how to expect good things from life

then a good thing comes along,
or maybe it's a bad thing,
or maybe it's just an average thing.
maybe it's earth-shakingly remarkable,
maybe it's just ordinary, the way life
      is when you're not in a hole,
or maybe even it really sucks but just
      looks wonderful in comparison with
      what you *have* known.
and this is all a whirlwind,
      massive confusion,
      your feet no longer feel steady.
you feel like a child, confused,
      overwhelmed, lost.
and you realize that your hope and
      your happiness are horribly fragile.

the infrastructure you've built can
      support day-to-day life, the things
      you know and have dealt with, the
      familiar, the routine
throw in something new, especially
      something charged with feeling and
      slippery emotions and lack of clarity
the beginnings of a relationship, that
      notoriously agonizing but thrilling
      piece of life

and the supports start to creak and bend.
and you're falling.
and you're scared that you're heading back
      into the hole, the hell you've just
      fought your way out of

it's too soon
for anything too intense
yet intense is what you crave

so to do what is best for you,
      to step back and shore up
      those supports,
is also to deny yourself.
it's its own sort of hell.

adolescence #2

The crush is preoccupying me, as crushes will. It's a strange mental process -- I feel myself constructing all kinds of notions around an empty container. It's not a crush on some-particular-guy, rather a crush on some-other-guy. It's a small piece of madness. I'm committed to my current guy, and I have no intention of pursuing anything else, but a small part of me maintains the illusion that I should care about crush-guy's status, crush-guy's opinion, etc.

Best thing to do, I think, is look for the things to be learned from this situation. I've made a lot of progress in security, self-worth, and self-orientation over the last year, but I feel I could throw all of that out the window in the face of this crush. As I did yesterday talking to the friend who's the friend-of-the-crush-guy. So while I've made progress in the context of my current relationship, I see that there's still work to be done in the context of relationships in general.

I'm sad, though, to return to wondering whether I'll ever have a successful long-term relationship.

adolescence #1

Holy crap I think I'm having a crush. I met a friend of a friend today, and my brain seems to have been infected by some crazy preoccupation with a person I've spoken all of ... 30? 40? ... words to. It was the rush of conversation, I guess, and it really points out to me the things I'm lacking here.

At this moment I feel like jumping ship. Not that we haven't spent already quite some time talking about doing just that. We're having such a hard time getting along, and neither of us are very happy very often. At least not when we're together. But we're also so entrenched with each other that it's hard to imagine doing something different.

But the guy... he's a musician too, I gather, and a student (in a different department), and articulate and funny and cute. And maybe even single. And he's from colder climates. And he has a cool name. sigh. Wonder how long this will last (it's kind of thrilling, at the same time that it's kind of ridiculous).