Thursday, August 27, 2009

I've been working on my Teva Tan, but it's done nothing for my sense of accomplishment.

Sometimes, when I'm lonely, I read Craigslist's missed connections. These do nothing to stop me from being lonely, but in the amount of time I spend getting annoyed that most of them are written poorly and only a few clever enough to spark any dorkish sort of imaginative romance story, I get sleepy enough to konk out, and when I wake up in the morning I'm generally not lonely.

Sometimes, when there are too many unorganized thoughts going on in my brain to konk out, I just take three melatonin and wait about half an hour. Sometimes I read a book during that time.

I don't have any melatonin with me tonight!

I just finished reading a book and am too much drenched in the feeling of it to start another one. This was a FANTASTIC book. I have not read a book this good in a long time, a book that had me living with the characters for awhile. I cried three times during the course of this book! Oh, release, to feel and cry at something wholly imaginary and completely true.

Craigslist, Facebook, and Twitter are all boring.

Today, for a little bit, I began to feel actually excited at the prospect of getting back to a schedule of working hard. I started to appreciate what that means in my life, and the portions of myself that thrive under those conditions. But right now it is a little later in the day. The parts of me that produce enthusiasm have gotten tired, and I am back in the condition of overwhelmed, exhausted, and burnt.

How does one get back? I want to feel the wonder of things again, the belief that what I do has an impact, that I am able to be fully alive, that I live in a web of connectedness where things matter, if only for brief moments.

I feel stuck in an odd complex: I am doing exactly what I want, and yet it is all so much that I don't want any of it. I want to lay in bed for half the day, and yet if I stay here past 8am I feel guilty. I want to spend all morning drinking coffee and reading comics, but after 20 minutes I get antsy. I want to do yoga every morning, but it takes so damn long. All I want to do is relax, and I'm really really really bad at it.

How do I come to joyfully inhabit this life that has sprung up around me? Do I make goals and track their progress? Do I relax and enjoy the ride? Do I tell myself, I will work for so long today, and then after that I can eat a cookie? All three of these things have worked for me during various portions of my life. I have no idea what the hell is appropriate now.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

stab in the dark

I would like to post on the internet that today I went swimming for the first of what I hope will be a good jaunt of consistent cross-training. I went to the Embarcadero YMCA, which has a nice hot tub right next to the swimming pool.

I think it will be hard to make myself go consistently, but I am hoping that by posting on the internet that my body feels amazing and alive and physically tired but not banged about that I will remember why I think I should go swimming.

OK.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

today

I ate a brownie for breakfast (along with coffee and vitamins)
I emailed for awhile
I didn't want to go anywhere, but I made myself go to dance class
I was completely, wonderfully exhausted, thank god
I bought a latte in the smallest cafe ever, and stopped in but didn't see my friend at the hair salon
I sent one long, serious email
I wrote a press release
I organized grant materials
I got a promotion
Things are not any slower than they have been, but they will be different

Monday, August 3, 2009

fantastical

Eleven PM on the N Judah, I sat with my head against the window, half asleep. I closed my eyes, and startled myself alert, wondering where I was. I closed my eyes again and rested. I opened them again and a boy sitting lopsided in the sideways facing seats was blowing bubbles.

The couple in front of me batted them out of their faces. The man next to me was smirking. The bubbles grew thinner as they floated backwards in the train, getting sucked in to the ventilation system, popping in to a million tiny pieces of soap that fell on everyone's clothes.

The boy's bubble bottle ran out. He pulled a jug of water and another of dish soap out of his backpack and proceeded to pour, mix, and refill his bubble bottle. Right there on the N Judah.

He had tattoos on his arms, gauged ears, and was wearing a brass key on a neon pink cord around his neck.

How does this happen in real life? And how does it happen that it feels so fantastically odd and inspiring?

I once danced as part of a bubble fountain outside the De Young museum, which maybe others found just as wonderfully bizarre.