skinned knees and whiskey
Wow. It's been a long, long time.
It's also been a long, busy summer, followed by a cold snap into reality that warm weather is gone, the smoke is fading from a variety of pipe dreams, much of the chaos from the past few months is over, and the times, they are a-changing.
It's my lunch break, and I'm wearing arm warmers, a hat, and my reading glasses... pausing every so often to cross my arms in an unsuccessful attempt to warm my fingers in the armpits of my bright green jacket and my bright purple shirt.
The weekend started off with Justin and Dani's wedding, which was beautiful, and I'm so happy for them. A combination of extreme jitters and low food intake resulted in a higher than expected solicitation of the open bar. Which later led to my high heel meeting a root (I got through the bush just fine, ironically), and my knees meeting the sidewalk at about 100 miles per hour.
Spent Saturday with a hangover, trashed knees, and a brain that was overdosed on work and chaos. It's the first time since I can remember... June? April? ... that I just stayed home all day and didn't rally to do anything. Curled up in a big blanket and watched Psycho and The Bourne Supremacy as my apartment got dark... didn't turn on the lights, didn't make dinner. Just sat and zoned out, letting all the things I've been repressing and chasing out of my mind rise to the surface. It was a little more intense than I would've expected. I've been too busy with projects and work to think about the important, scarier things, but I realized that I'm partially making myself too busy, which is a cop-out. I got hit with 3 months of overdue mental post-its like a linebacker. I let all my calls go to voicemail-- three messages from phone robots demanding that I vote for their candidate. Twice, my doorbell rang... an Obama canvasser who did a double-take at my dark apartment and messy hair, and 20 minutes later, a McCain canvasser with a headlamp who actually accused me of lying when I said that no, "I wasn't Catherine Smith, and yes, you do have the right address".
Sunday was a day for sad news. Sunny, cold, and clear... the kind of day that most of my life's bad news has been received on, which I find sort of comforting and poetic, regardless of how cheesy that might be. Three really heavy conversations. Ironically, each of them related in some way to changes to my future that I wouldn't choose for myself. Finances. Careers. Heartache. The hope of taking what you have and trying to make it flourish can be replaced so quickly... it takes a fleeting instant to go from wild, joyful momentum to the drawing board.
One drawing board, I can handle pretty cheerfully.
Three is a lot.
I will push up my sleeves and do what I can to meet the challenge of three new drawing boards with cheer, vim, and vigor.
But in the meantime, I need a few days to go on standby. To feel sad for the things that I will miss. To get my coffee pot ready for the chemically-induced spark I'll need to get rolling. To take vitamins and get over whatever kind of plague I may be coming down with today. To sleep and unbraid my mind from the nightmares that it loves so much, like last night's melodrama that I was being attacked by my pet brown bear next to an insane asylum where many of my childhood friends were wearing white nightgowns and reaching their hands through the bars.
Maybe laying off the crack is a great way to start over!
Until then, I just want to spend time with my family before dad goes to the Mayo clinic next week... apply Neosporin to my knees every 6 hours... watch a lot of Sopranos episodes, where calculated violence and soul-selling takes the place of uncalculated life changes and stagnant momentum.
I'm very interested that spring tends to be my launching point for energy, lifestyle changes, philosophical discoveries, and fall is always the time for heartache, job seeking, and cutting ties with a heavy heart, knowing that they're only pulling me down, headed for a crash landing into the cold, October-frost on the sidewalk below.
I wonder if there's a job where I could just be paid to read literature all day?
I could really disappear into about six months' worth of reading right about now.
Next time: more lucid thoughts. Fewer knocked-on-my-ass-exhausted thoughts. Photos from Chicago. Selections from David Sedaris.
Back to the drone.
It's also been a long, busy summer, followed by a cold snap into reality that warm weather is gone, the smoke is fading from a variety of pipe dreams, much of the chaos from the past few months is over, and the times, they are a-changing.
It's my lunch break, and I'm wearing arm warmers, a hat, and my reading glasses... pausing every so often to cross my arms in an unsuccessful attempt to warm my fingers in the armpits of my bright green jacket and my bright purple shirt.
The weekend started off with Justin and Dani's wedding, which was beautiful, and I'm so happy for them. A combination of extreme jitters and low food intake resulted in a higher than expected solicitation of the open bar. Which later led to my high heel meeting a root (I got through the bush just fine, ironically), and my knees meeting the sidewalk at about 100 miles per hour.
Spent Saturday with a hangover, trashed knees, and a brain that was overdosed on work and chaos. It's the first time since I can remember... June? April? ... that I just stayed home all day and didn't rally to do anything. Curled up in a big blanket and watched Psycho and The Bourne Supremacy as my apartment got dark... didn't turn on the lights, didn't make dinner. Just sat and zoned out, letting all the things I've been repressing and chasing out of my mind rise to the surface. It was a little more intense than I would've expected. I've been too busy with projects and work to think about the important, scarier things, but I realized that I'm partially making myself too busy, which is a cop-out. I got hit with 3 months of overdue mental post-its like a linebacker. I let all my calls go to voicemail-- three messages from phone robots demanding that I vote for their candidate. Twice, my doorbell rang... an Obama canvasser who did a double-take at my dark apartment and messy hair, and 20 minutes later, a McCain canvasser with a headlamp who actually accused me of lying when I said that no, "I wasn't Catherine Smith, and yes, you do have the right address".
Sunday was a day for sad news. Sunny, cold, and clear... the kind of day that most of my life's bad news has been received on, which I find sort of comforting and poetic, regardless of how cheesy that might be. Three really heavy conversations. Ironically, each of them related in some way to changes to my future that I wouldn't choose for myself. Finances. Careers. Heartache. The hope of taking what you have and trying to make it flourish can be replaced so quickly... it takes a fleeting instant to go from wild, joyful momentum to the drawing board.
One drawing board, I can handle pretty cheerfully.
Three is a lot.
I will push up my sleeves and do what I can to meet the challenge of three new drawing boards with cheer, vim, and vigor.
But in the meantime, I need a few days to go on standby. To feel sad for the things that I will miss. To get my coffee pot ready for the chemically-induced spark I'll need to get rolling. To take vitamins and get over whatever kind of plague I may be coming down with today. To sleep and unbraid my mind from the nightmares that it loves so much, like last night's melodrama that I was being attacked by my pet brown bear next to an insane asylum where many of my childhood friends were wearing white nightgowns and reaching their hands through the bars.
Maybe laying off the crack is a great way to start over!
Until then, I just want to spend time with my family before dad goes to the Mayo clinic next week... apply Neosporin to my knees every 6 hours... watch a lot of Sopranos episodes, where calculated violence and soul-selling takes the place of uncalculated life changes and stagnant momentum.
I'm very interested that spring tends to be my launching point for energy, lifestyle changes, philosophical discoveries, and fall is always the time for heartache, job seeking, and cutting ties with a heavy heart, knowing that they're only pulling me down, headed for a crash landing into the cold, October-frost on the sidewalk below.
I wonder if there's a job where I could just be paid to read literature all day?
I could really disappear into about six months' worth of reading right about now.
Next time: more lucid thoughts. Fewer knocked-on-my-ass-exhausted thoughts. Photos from Chicago. Selections from David Sedaris.
Back to the drone.
posted by JustJane at
12:26 PM
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