So here I am, sitting in the room by myself, confronted by a pile of work that needs to be done. Professional work. School work. Personal project work. I suppose I ought to do it. But first, an overture.

—

It has been an interesting 36 hours. Okay, scratch that, it has been a fscking problem 36 hours. There are two tendencies in my life that conspire continually to someday wreck me utterly:

1) A self-destructive streak a mile wide that emerges at inopportune times.

2) An overwillingness to commit to things (and people) and to tackle problems bigger than myself.

It is, I sometimes think, a miracle I’m anywhere at all. Much moreso that I am where I am. It makes me wonder about the rest of humanity, in a cynical way, I think. But there’s no way of knowing anything, really, so I’ll just wonder about myself instead.

—

One problem at issue is that I can often have trouble differentiating in the moment between my self-destructive streak and my self-correcting mechanism. The latter is absolutely essential for my ability to function in the world; the former is a pretty good destroyer of my ability to function in the world.

Age has served to mitigate this ambiguity to some degree, but it has not, nor do I believe it ever will have, eradicated it completely. It is thus increasingly essential that I find some other method of divination or sublimation with which to cope since I am not (as I have just indicated) getting any younger.

—

Sometimes I think I haven’t been truly unhappy in ten years.

Other times I think I haven’t been truly happy in ten years.

These two do not go together. Or if they do, they paint an unfortunate picture. Have I lost something?

Don’t “Oh, Honey—” me about anything, especially while wagging your finger. You don’t want me to “Let me tell you something, Honey—” you back in return. Trust me, you don’t.

I miss Chicago like crazy. And I don’t have any idea why.

I was looking through some of my old work tonight, partially by way of reminiscing, partially by way of sharing. It’s like looking at another life, or even another person’s life. I have done so many things I can’t keep them all straight. How long has it been since I was sitting around writing 6809 assembly code and building bus extenders for 8-bit personal computers?

—

No doubt many (even most?) people at this age have done rather a lot of living. It’s a wonder we have any sort of unitary identity at all by this age. Maybe we don’t. I do only inasmuch as I can forget all of the multivariate threads of being that have characterized my life at one time or another and instead focus on (and maintain awarenss of) only what I am doing at the moment.

I can cope if I just think of myself as “aspiring social scientist.” I can’t cope if I begin to think of myself as all of the six million things I’ve done over the course of my life, much less all the places I’ve been and people I’ve known.

—

This people I’ve known thing in particular is too complicated for me sometimes. My parents’ lives are relatively simple. They know each other. They are surrounded by a nuclear family of their own making. Beyond that there’s a neighborhood and there the concentric circles fade into exteriority.

There is no analog to this in my life.

Or am I just telling myself I’m okay?

Am I overthinking this?

What does it mean to be okay?

—

Obviously, I need to avoid making blog posts claiming to be okay. The fallout is intolerable. 😛

take time to emerge or evolve, and long, hard years of effort to achieve. And they are as narrowly defined and as fleeting as the advertising jingles that sold war bonds during World War II—one change in context and everything you used apply as leverage becomes anachronism rather than fulcrum and pivot.

—

I am sitting alone on the floor against the wall in the New School for Social Research building on Fifth Avenue. People that don’t understand me are mad at me. People that do understand me are few and far between (and far away). And I am okay. I am really quite okay.

One of the things that happens when I am in school—particularly when I am in school and I am also working—is that I become horrible at keeping in contact with everyone. So sorry, everyone, it’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that time is passing very quickly and I’m only marginally aware of this fact.

—

Now, the state of things. Things are, in a word, stressful. I’m not at all convinced that I have what it takes this time around. I’m beyond rusty. I’ve simply done too much working in the “real world” to feel seamlessly integrated into academics at this point, and my mental state and ways of conceptualizing the world are beginning to gel (I know that everyone makes fun of me when I say things like this, but I really can feel myself getting older, and sense the changes that are happening in my consciousness to make me less flexible, less adaptable, less bright).

I don’t know where my life will take me in coming days, months, and years. I was at one time positive that I’d know if only I could reach this place… well, I’ve reached it and the question seems less answered than before, rather than moreso.

But there’s nothing to be done about it—the tasks at hand are to make sure that I (1) go to work every day, (2) go to school every day, (3) try to keep up with bills, (4) try to keep up with papers, and (5) try to take care of my body and health in some (realistically, subnominal) way.

—

What is it about me that makes me rub people in such a singular way?

Bleh.

far too tired today to do anything useful

only I have to do something useful

or I am in trubble