I really, really, really should get off my ass and stop playing Jungle Jewels on facebook (maybe I should play farmville? I think it would be more social somehow) and go read the stuff for class tomorrow. I'm not particularly worried about class tomorrow in that I'm teaching the first half of "the Dead" (YAY JOYCE! says the lit geek, fully aware that my class will hate it), and I've pretty much got it memorized. Ergo I've been having a hard time convincing myself to reread it and will probably just hunt through it some tomorrow during my tutoring hours so that I know exactly where I'll be pointing the discussion.
Silly thing of the night: I'm sitting on the futon and fart a little bit. Right as I'm doing so, Nunkin jumps up on my lap. I tell her what I've just done. She cocks her head at me, turns in a circle and sits next to me, about two feet away. About a minute later, she comes and curls up on my lap. I swear cats understand us.
I've been sitting here trying to write on this blog and telling myself that as I write, something about which to write will magically appear in my brain. It often does. Right now, however, it's not happening, and all I can think about is my horoscope for the day, which told me I was going to be oversensitive and whiny. This has been entirely true for the day (erm, for this whole blog - like all of it, not just this post), but I had to laugh about the horoscope because as true as it is, I just can't picture a random planetary configuration causing all of this. Mostly I do think it's the SAD hitting as per usual. I am trying to remember to take vitamin D to see if that helps. Who knows - it might really do something if I can manage to remember to take it daily. If nothing else, I'm hoping for a placebo effect, which I figure would work as well as anything else on winter blahs.
Goal for tomorrow: get something - anything! - done. ANYTHING.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
It's ten to midnight on a Sunday. I've been playing MarioKart Wii in hopes of unlocking new characters and eventually getting to the point where I can play the Mirror Mode. I'm starving so I've turned on the oven to heat up some pizza rolls, which I'm not entirely convinced are food, to fuel the rest of my evening.
The gym today was a total bust. You know how people always say that you may not want to go to the gym, but you'll never regret having gone? Today I totally did. I had some sort of nervous pent-up toxic energy that I figured would be awesome for running off on the treadmill (too friggin' cold and rainy to run outside today), but I managed to run the toxic energy off in something like five minutes and was dying for the last ten minutes on the treadmill (that I spent 15 minutes only on the treadmill tells me that I was tired), followed by another 12 or so on the bike, followed by a weak and pathetic attempt to lift weights, all of which ended in me realizing that I was fairly sure my heartrate had been too high for a while and that I was feeling faint and getting dizzy, so I decided to go home rather than risk passing out. On the way home I stopped into the bookstore to get the one book that I didn't receive a desk copy of and stopped again to run into Walgreens to pick up a protein bar. By the end of both trips I was weak and shaky and really ready to sit back down in my car and pant for a moment before driving again. Many hours later I'm not as tired as I was, but I have no idea WTF was going on with me today. I've had bad workouts in the past, but nothing like that.
If I have one working braincell that still has the desire to finish this stupid Ph.D., I will email my advisor this week. Preferably tomorrow. I need to schedule a meeting with her so we can figure this shit out. I'd love to say I've done something about the diss since the last time I talked to her, but mostly I haven't. Okay, really I haven't at all. I suck. Twenty year old me wouldn't have this problem - twenty year old me would be done by now, or very close to done and about ready to start collecting signatures, because twenty year old me was tenacious and worked on school stuff from eyes opening in the morning until eyes closing at night. Twenty year old me would have fought harder for one of the topics she really wanted to work on, rather than letting my advisors decide what they thought I should be doing and then weakly agreeing with them, hoping that my capitulation would help it all end quicker.
Nearly thirty year old me feels much smarter and more experienced than twenty year old me ever was or could have been, but nearly thirty year old me has zero drive to get anything done. I still have some sort of ambition, I think, however unfocused - I'd like, when near death, to be able to look at my life and say "this was important; I am proud to have done this and proud of how it made a difference for others." I wish the goal of this ambition were rather more in focus - I feel like if it were then I'd have some sort of path to follow, some sort of (however vague) script to run my life along again. When I was still planning on the academic path, I had a script. Diverging from that path feels like the right thing for me to do, but it does leave me scriptless, and I wonder how much of my current lack of motivation to do anything is because I don't feel like there's a reason to do it.
All of this, I presume as well, is exactly why I have such a hard time getting out of bed in the morning (to wrap back around to where I was 11 hours ago). I'm going to hit the vitamin D supplements hard for a while and see if that helps with anything - maybe killing some of the SAD will help me feel a bit more able to accomplish something, I hope.
The gym today was a total bust. You know how people always say that you may not want to go to the gym, but you'll never regret having gone? Today I totally did. I had some sort of nervous pent-up toxic energy that I figured would be awesome for running off on the treadmill (too friggin' cold and rainy to run outside today), but I managed to run the toxic energy off in something like five minutes and was dying for the last ten minutes on the treadmill (that I spent 15 minutes only on the treadmill tells me that I was tired), followed by another 12 or so on the bike, followed by a weak and pathetic attempt to lift weights, all of which ended in me realizing that I was fairly sure my heartrate had been too high for a while and that I was feeling faint and getting dizzy, so I decided to go home rather than risk passing out. On the way home I stopped into the bookstore to get the one book that I didn't receive a desk copy of and stopped again to run into Walgreens to pick up a protein bar. By the end of both trips I was weak and shaky and really ready to sit back down in my car and pant for a moment before driving again. Many hours later I'm not as tired as I was, but I have no idea WTF was going on with me today. I've had bad workouts in the past, but nothing like that.
If I have one working braincell that still has the desire to finish this stupid Ph.D., I will email my advisor this week. Preferably tomorrow. I need to schedule a meeting with her so we can figure this shit out. I'd love to say I've done something about the diss since the last time I talked to her, but mostly I haven't. Okay, really I haven't at all. I suck. Twenty year old me wouldn't have this problem - twenty year old me would be done by now, or very close to done and about ready to start collecting signatures, because twenty year old me was tenacious and worked on school stuff from eyes opening in the morning until eyes closing at night. Twenty year old me would have fought harder for one of the topics she really wanted to work on, rather than letting my advisors decide what they thought I should be doing and then weakly agreeing with them, hoping that my capitulation would help it all end quicker.
Nearly thirty year old me feels much smarter and more experienced than twenty year old me ever was or could have been, but nearly thirty year old me has zero drive to get anything done. I still have some sort of ambition, I think, however unfocused - I'd like, when near death, to be able to look at my life and say "this was important; I am proud to have done this and proud of how it made a difference for others." I wish the goal of this ambition were rather more in focus - I feel like if it were then I'd have some sort of path to follow, some sort of (however vague) script to run my life along again. When I was still planning on the academic path, I had a script. Diverging from that path feels like the right thing for me to do, but it does leave me scriptless, and I wonder how much of my current lack of motivation to do anything is because I don't feel like there's a reason to do it.
All of this, I presume as well, is exactly why I have such a hard time getting out of bed in the morning (to wrap back around to where I was 11 hours ago). I'm going to hit the vitamin D supplements hard for a while and see if that helps with anything - maybe killing some of the SAD will help me feel a bit more able to accomplish something, I hope.
Getting out of bed
Getting out of bed in the morning has taken to posing something of a problem for me (er, moreso than usual). I can't decide how much of this is January/February-standard SAD and how much of it is the general "where is my life going"-type angst that I've been feeling for the past year. Admittedly, part of the problem this morning is that it's gray and raining (boo, January, it's supposed to be snowing now, not raining!), and rain is guaranteed to keep me in bed as long as possible.
So by this point it's 1pm. This morning I have managed the following:
- finally pull my butt out of bed around 10:45-11
- eat a bowl of oatmeal (breakfast is a new thing I'm trying as of this morning, so we'll see how that goes)
- drink my coffee
- check my email, facebook and forum
- sit and contemplate blogging for a while before deciding to attempt to get a post out
I was going to blog last night because I was in sort of the right mood (i.e., contemplative or whatever), but then it occurred to me that I had pot de creme in the fridge (leftover from Brownie's birthday on Thursday) and an unwatched Vampire Diaries on the DVR. I went for the easier option. I didn't even feel guilty about it, which I figure is a good step for me. But then, Saturday night at midnight shouldn't be a time to feel guilty about wanting to relax.
At this point I'm trying to convince myself to go to the gym. I really should: the running is good for me mentally and emotionally (well, and physically, but I never seem to think about that as much this time of year - it's all about trying to keep my mood at a supportable level).
It's idiotic the things I contemplate when I'm sitting here at 1 o'clock on a Sunday and trying desperately to get myself to do something about which I might actually feel good. I've spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what BPAL I have that is appropriate for a miserably cold and rainy winter day. I have a few that work for miserably cold and rainy autumn and spring days, but for some reason none of those seem right for winter, as though winter were to need something with that extra level of "well, it really should be snowing but it's not." In the grand scheme of things, this entire line of thinking is insane, and I know this, and I also know that chances are extremely high that I'll throw on something woodsy and be done with it. And none of this matters.
What I probably should do is get my ass off the futon, go to the gym so I can run and lift weights for a while, come home, shower, and work on the novel for a while. I had a lengthy conversation on Friday night which ended at 3 and kept me up until after 5 thinking about how guilt can be used as a subtle, awful weapon in a relationship. Nothing about the conversation itself need be said, as it's not my current issues that were being explored, meaning that this isn't a space for any of that to be discussed, but it did occur to me at some point as I was lying in bed reeling from some nasty memories which I wish would just die already that a problem with the novel in current form is that I was nowhere near hitting exactly how guilt can be used as a mechanism of control, but that this is something I can fix in revisions. Therefore I think I ought to be revising while all of this is fresh in my head (or, really, sort of fresh - I've been turning this over and over and over for about a day and a half now so that everything's shifted a few times by now).
I think I am going to go to the gym. It's probably the best thing I can do for the blahs at the moment.
So by this point it's 1pm. This morning I have managed the following:
- finally pull my butt out of bed around 10:45-11
- eat a bowl of oatmeal (breakfast is a new thing I'm trying as of this morning, so we'll see how that goes)
- drink my coffee
- check my email, facebook and forum
- sit and contemplate blogging for a while before deciding to attempt to get a post out
I was going to blog last night because I was in sort of the right mood (i.e., contemplative or whatever), but then it occurred to me that I had pot de creme in the fridge (leftover from Brownie's birthday on Thursday) and an unwatched Vampire Diaries on the DVR. I went for the easier option. I didn't even feel guilty about it, which I figure is a good step for me. But then, Saturday night at midnight shouldn't be a time to feel guilty about wanting to relax.
At this point I'm trying to convince myself to go to the gym. I really should: the running is good for me mentally and emotionally (well, and physically, but I never seem to think about that as much this time of year - it's all about trying to keep my mood at a supportable level).
It's idiotic the things I contemplate when I'm sitting here at 1 o'clock on a Sunday and trying desperately to get myself to do something about which I might actually feel good. I've spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what BPAL I have that is appropriate for a miserably cold and rainy winter day. I have a few that work for miserably cold and rainy autumn and spring days, but for some reason none of those seem right for winter, as though winter were to need something with that extra level of "well, it really should be snowing but it's not." In the grand scheme of things, this entire line of thinking is insane, and I know this, and I also know that chances are extremely high that I'll throw on something woodsy and be done with it. And none of this matters.
What I probably should do is get my ass off the futon, go to the gym so I can run and lift weights for a while, come home, shower, and work on the novel for a while. I had a lengthy conversation on Friday night which ended at 3 and kept me up until after 5 thinking about how guilt can be used as a subtle, awful weapon in a relationship. Nothing about the conversation itself need be said, as it's not my current issues that were being explored, meaning that this isn't a space for any of that to be discussed, but it did occur to me at some point as I was lying in bed reeling from some nasty memories which I wish would just die already that a problem with the novel in current form is that I was nowhere near hitting exactly how guilt can be used as a mechanism of control, but that this is something I can fix in revisions. Therefore I think I ought to be revising while all of this is fresh in my head (or, really, sort of fresh - I've been turning this over and over and over for about a day and a half now so that everything's shifted a few times by now).
I think I am going to go to the gym. It's probably the best thing I can do for the blahs at the moment.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
I know it just won a Golden Globe and all
...but I still refuse to see "Dances With Smurfs."
Okay, maybe it's technically brilliant and I gather it's so flipping beautiful that it depresses people to see our own world or whatever (seriously - CNN said so), but my fucking FSM I NEED A PLOT IN MY FILMS. OR AT LEAST PLAUSIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Honestly, Up in the Air was excellent, and The Hurt Locker should have won for director (which in the interest of staying honest I will admit here to having not seen yet - I've been waiting for dvd and Netflix so that I can watch it with whatever breaks I need to take to be able to deal with it). At least Glee won, so I can deal with that. And Robert Downey Jr's speech was perfect.
In reality: classes start tomorrow. I managed to do better than I have some semesters in dealing with this problem. My syllabus is already photocopied, even - two years ago I managed to photocopy my syllabus five minutes before class began. I'd have been fucked proper if the copy machine hadn't been working. So this semester the syllabus is done (finished mostly last night around 1am - such a fantastically fail way to spend a Saturday night), I've got everything that I could find online up on Blackboard already and a list of the last few articles/books I need to request from the library ready to go on my laptop for some point in the next day or two when I feel like bothering the folks at the ILL desk. My nails are polished in a fairly non-professional yet course appropriate black-with-red-shimmer and I know exactly what BPAL I'm wearing tomorrow but am still stumped on actual clothing (aka, the only part of my appearance other than my hair that my students are likely to notice in the slightest). Story of my life - the details are all put together but I'm missing a few of the major pieces.
As far as it being the start of my last semester of grad school, I keep thinking I should have some deep or profound thoughts about it, but I don't. I don't even really have a "yippee" type feeling about it. I just want it to end. I'm hoping the class goes well (it generally does - this is my third go-round with the syllabus), but beyond that I just want it over and I want to move on with my life.
I started reading some of the novel last night because I felt like working on it but wasn't being particularly productive in the writing sense of things. And. It's not awful. I wasn't embarassed for myself when I read it. So that's a bonus, because embarassment was pretty much what I was expecting to feel. What I read needs fucktons of work before I'd show it to anyone else (at which point it would need fucktons more work, I'm sure, because that's how these things go), but at least for the moment I'm not feeling bad about it (definite bonus, as I've got this irritating won't-go-away guilt about working on novel stuff when I "should" be working on my dissertation... it maybe time to return to old attempts to rid myself of "should," as "should" never leads to good feelings).
A propos of nothing, I made an apricot-pine nut tart from a Lidia Bastianich recipe, and it was AWESOME. I'll post the pictures and stuff when I figure out how to post pictures here (read: when I bother uploading them from my camera).
I'll just end it here by reiterating that I'm surprised that I'm greeting my last semester of grad school so... blandly. I'm much calmer than I would have thought I'd be.
Also good for calm: The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."
Okay, maybe it's technically brilliant and I gather it's so flipping beautiful that it depresses people to see our own world or whatever (seriously - CNN said so), but my fucking FSM I NEED A PLOT IN MY FILMS. OR AT LEAST PLAUSIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Honestly, Up in the Air was excellent, and The Hurt Locker should have won for director (which in the interest of staying honest I will admit here to having not seen yet - I've been waiting for dvd and Netflix so that I can watch it with whatever breaks I need to take to be able to deal with it). At least Glee won, so I can deal with that. And Robert Downey Jr's speech was perfect.
In reality: classes start tomorrow. I managed to do better than I have some semesters in dealing with this problem. My syllabus is already photocopied, even - two years ago I managed to photocopy my syllabus five minutes before class began. I'd have been fucked proper if the copy machine hadn't been working. So this semester the syllabus is done (finished mostly last night around 1am - such a fantastically fail way to spend a Saturday night), I've got everything that I could find online up on Blackboard already and a list of the last few articles/books I need to request from the library ready to go on my laptop for some point in the next day or two when I feel like bothering the folks at the ILL desk. My nails are polished in a fairly non-professional yet course appropriate black-with-red-shimmer and I know exactly what BPAL I'm wearing tomorrow but am still stumped on actual clothing (aka, the only part of my appearance other than my hair that my students are likely to notice in the slightest). Story of my life - the details are all put together but I'm missing a few of the major pieces.
As far as it being the start of my last semester of grad school, I keep thinking I should have some deep or profound thoughts about it, but I don't. I don't even really have a "yippee" type feeling about it. I just want it to end. I'm hoping the class goes well (it generally does - this is my third go-round with the syllabus), but beyond that I just want it over and I want to move on with my life.
I started reading some of the novel last night because I felt like working on it but wasn't being particularly productive in the writing sense of things. And. It's not awful. I wasn't embarassed for myself when I read it. So that's a bonus, because embarassment was pretty much what I was expecting to feel. What I read needs fucktons of work before I'd show it to anyone else (at which point it would need fucktons more work, I'm sure, because that's how these things go), but at least for the moment I'm not feeling bad about it (definite bonus, as I've got this irritating won't-go-away guilt about working on novel stuff when I "should" be working on my dissertation... it maybe time to return to old attempts to rid myself of "should," as "should" never leads to good feelings).
A propos of nothing, I made an apricot-pine nut tart from a Lidia Bastianich recipe, and it was AWESOME. I'll post the pictures and stuff when I figure out how to post pictures here (read: when I bother uploading them from my camera).
I'll just end it here by reiterating that I'm surprised that I'm greeting my last semester of grad school so... blandly. I'm much calmer than I would have thought I'd be.
Also good for calm: The Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."
Saturday, January 16, 2010
In which, after yesterday's ramble, I complain for a time
I'll start off with a simple "today sucked."
Except that today didn't fully suck. Brownie and I went and saw "Up in the Air" FINALLY this afternoon and then crashed at Favorite Pub for dinner and that was fine and lovely. Really, only this morning really sucked.
What happened was simple. Somehow, last night, I'm not sure how, I managed to forget for the first time in my life to take my contacts out.
This, in and of itself, really isn't the biggest problem of all problems. It actually wasn't a big deal for a while. I took the contacts out when I realized they'd been in all night and left them out while I showered. Then I put them back in and didn't think about it, finished getting ready and began to attempt to run errands (biggest errand: I'm out of checks and new checks haven't arrived yet because my lazy ass hasn't ordered them. I need to pay rent. I went to the post office, but the computer there had borked itself and wasn't running debit card payments, so I was unable to procure a money order for my rent payment. As my bank is in KS, merely running by the bank wasn't an option. Anywhere else requires I pay cash, but it's not possible to pull the requisite amount of cash out of the ATM all at once. Ergo, rent remains unpaid (hopefully only) until tomorrow).
As I was driving in the car after running by the second post office of the morning (which was apparently having the same computer issue)(argh), a mote of dust flew into my right eye. Or SOMETHING flew into my right eye. It honestly felt like a giantass chunk of kitty litter. Anyway, it hurt so bad I yelped and damn near wrecked my car by driving it into the car next to mine. I managed to avoid that, but barely.
Being closest to the grocery store (and it being 1pm at this point, and me having neither eaten nor caffeinated myself for the day), I drove the rest of the way there mostly blindly and ran into the store with tears streaming down my face so I could get into the bathroom, pop out the contact, and try desperately to figure out what the hell had gotten into my eye.
Answer: nothing that I could find, although my cornea still hurts and I'm vaguely wondering at this point if I scratched it.
Finding nothing, I popped the contact back in, waited until the pain was more or less tolerable, and ran around the grocery store getting coffee and everything else I needed so I could go home.
When I got home, I got rid of both contacts, still couldn't find anything wrong with my eye other than OWFUCKPAIN, and ended up sitting on the toilet crying in frustration. Brownie knocked on the door to ask if I was okay and somehow ended up being treated to an hour's monologue of OUCH followed by screaming fit followed by me punching myself, the toilet seat and the floor followed by a long sob of existential angst. As the angsty bits have all generally been spewed here before, I'll spare everyone the details. Mostly it was long, self-involved, probably melodramatic, and leaves me wondering if there's a healthy-yet-still-effective way to deal with some of the "O GOD O GOD WUT DO I DO WITH MY LIFE" type feelings, because I sure as fuck haven't come up with one yet.
Brownie has decided he thinks I should see a therapist. I've been telling him I think he should see one since he promised me he would back in November, so I told him this afternoon that I'd bite if he did. I don't know that I should wait for him to, however, as it might actually be good for me to stop feeling like I ought to be able to handle myself and see instead if anyone else has any productive ideas.
At this point, I'm mostly mad that my eyes are still puffy from crying (seriously, eyes, it's been 10 hours, so quit that shit please) and that they still burn from having slept in the contacts. Also my right eye still stings in the same place it started hurting this afternoon in the car and I'd like that to stop.
Mostly, however, what I'd like to be able to stop are the random screaming, flailing, ineffective outbursts that scare Brownie and do nothing to help me deal with anything. I kept trying to tell him once I finally sort of calmed down that all in all I really just needed to get some of the tension out, but he knows and I know that it's a bit more than that. Like I know that I need to get back into running and exercising now that we're back home and I have gym access and above-freezing weather so that running outside is feasible, but I also know full well that exercise isn't going to fix everything; going on a run won't make me feel suddenly fulfilled or like I have some sort of purpose or whatever. I know this. But it might help.
At this point I just need this last fucking semester to be over (she whines before it begins) so that I can move on from this awful and misguided chapter of my life (i.e., the Ph.D. years) and begin to see what life is like outside of supposedly-vaunted Ivory Tower. I also need to cut it with the "I'm worthless and unproductive" type thoughts, because they're not helping a damn thing. I try to stop them when I notice them, but I don't think I really consciously realize that I'm mentally bagging myself until it's been going on for a while. Like having written all this, I'm sort of realizing that much of this post involves me berating myself for flipping out earlier rather than trying to come up with a productive way to deal with it.
Problem: I haven't the foggiest fucking idea how to deal productively with anything anymore.
Solution: ??????
(Step 3: Profit!)
So my problems, are they big? Cheebus no, they're not. I have a roof over my head and a warm apartment and food to eat and an amazingly sweet warm orange furball of a cat sitting on my lap and purring and a wonderful and amazing husband asleep in our bed. I'm honestly fucking lucky that my problems center around general existential angst. I should probably just sit myself down and try and write and try to figure out if there's anything I can do for anyone in Haiti that involves more than just money. So I'll fuck off for now and promise to try to be in a better mood the next time I decide to blither on.
As a final thought: don't do a Ph.D. in the humanities. It damages the soul.
Except that today didn't fully suck. Brownie and I went and saw "Up in the Air" FINALLY this afternoon and then crashed at Favorite Pub for dinner and that was fine and lovely. Really, only this morning really sucked.
What happened was simple. Somehow, last night, I'm not sure how, I managed to forget for the first time in my life to take my contacts out.
This, in and of itself, really isn't the biggest problem of all problems. It actually wasn't a big deal for a while. I took the contacts out when I realized they'd been in all night and left them out while I showered. Then I put them back in and didn't think about it, finished getting ready and began to attempt to run errands (biggest errand: I'm out of checks and new checks haven't arrived yet because my lazy ass hasn't ordered them. I need to pay rent. I went to the post office, but the computer there had borked itself and wasn't running debit card payments, so I was unable to procure a money order for my rent payment. As my bank is in KS, merely running by the bank wasn't an option. Anywhere else requires I pay cash, but it's not possible to pull the requisite amount of cash out of the ATM all at once. Ergo, rent remains unpaid (hopefully only) until tomorrow).
As I was driving in the car after running by the second post office of the morning (which was apparently having the same computer issue)(argh), a mote of dust flew into my right eye. Or SOMETHING flew into my right eye. It honestly felt like a giantass chunk of kitty litter. Anyway, it hurt so bad I yelped and damn near wrecked my car by driving it into the car next to mine. I managed to avoid that, but barely.
Being closest to the grocery store (and it being 1pm at this point, and me having neither eaten nor caffeinated myself for the day), I drove the rest of the way there mostly blindly and ran into the store with tears streaming down my face so I could get into the bathroom, pop out the contact, and try desperately to figure out what the hell had gotten into my eye.
Answer: nothing that I could find, although my cornea still hurts and I'm vaguely wondering at this point if I scratched it.
Finding nothing, I popped the contact back in, waited until the pain was more or less tolerable, and ran around the grocery store getting coffee and everything else I needed so I could go home.
When I got home, I got rid of both contacts, still couldn't find anything wrong with my eye other than OWFUCKPAIN, and ended up sitting on the toilet crying in frustration. Brownie knocked on the door to ask if I was okay and somehow ended up being treated to an hour's monologue of OUCH followed by screaming fit followed by me punching myself, the toilet seat and the floor followed by a long sob of existential angst. As the angsty bits have all generally been spewed here before, I'll spare everyone the details. Mostly it was long, self-involved, probably melodramatic, and leaves me wondering if there's a healthy-yet-still-effective way to deal with some of the "O GOD O GOD WUT DO I DO WITH MY LIFE" type feelings, because I sure as fuck haven't come up with one yet.
Brownie has decided he thinks I should see a therapist. I've been telling him I think he should see one since he promised me he would back in November, so I told him this afternoon that I'd bite if he did. I don't know that I should wait for him to, however, as it might actually be good for me to stop feeling like I ought to be able to handle myself and see instead if anyone else has any productive ideas.
At this point, I'm mostly mad that my eyes are still puffy from crying (seriously, eyes, it's been 10 hours, so quit that shit please) and that they still burn from having slept in the contacts. Also my right eye still stings in the same place it started hurting this afternoon in the car and I'd like that to stop.
Mostly, however, what I'd like to be able to stop are the random screaming, flailing, ineffective outbursts that scare Brownie and do nothing to help me deal with anything. I kept trying to tell him once I finally sort of calmed down that all in all I really just needed to get some of the tension out, but he knows and I know that it's a bit more than that. Like I know that I need to get back into running and exercising now that we're back home and I have gym access and above-freezing weather so that running outside is feasible, but I also know full well that exercise isn't going to fix everything; going on a run won't make me feel suddenly fulfilled or like I have some sort of purpose or whatever. I know this. But it might help.
At this point I just need this last fucking semester to be over (she whines before it begins) so that I can move on from this awful and misguided chapter of my life (i.e., the Ph.D. years) and begin to see what life is like outside of supposedly-vaunted Ivory Tower. I also need to cut it with the "I'm worthless and unproductive" type thoughts, because they're not helping a damn thing. I try to stop them when I notice them, but I don't think I really consciously realize that I'm mentally bagging myself until it's been going on for a while. Like having written all this, I'm sort of realizing that much of this post involves me berating myself for flipping out earlier rather than trying to come up with a productive way to deal with it.
Problem: I haven't the foggiest fucking idea how to deal productively with anything anymore.
Solution: ??????
(Step 3: Profit!)
So my problems, are they big? Cheebus no, they're not. I have a roof over my head and a warm apartment and food to eat and an amazingly sweet warm orange furball of a cat sitting on my lap and purring and a wonderful and amazing husband asleep in our bed. I'm honestly fucking lucky that my problems center around general existential angst. I should probably just sit myself down and try and write and try to figure out if there's anything I can do for anyone in Haiti that involves more than just money. So I'll fuck off for now and promise to try to be in a better mood the next time I decide to blither on.
As a final thought: don't do a Ph.D. in the humanities. It damages the soul.
Friday, January 15, 2010
In which I ramble for a time
Got back home from being home tonight, if that makes any degree of sense. I'm sitting now in my office in my apartment with Nunkin curled up against my leg and purring and Piggy bathing herself six inches away. It's a warm and cuddly feeling to know my kitties missed me.
We haven't put away the Christmas tree yet - I kinda meant to do that before we left, but ran out of time, so it's still up on its little table and will have to be taken down tomorrow in between bouts of syllabus finishing.
Otherwise, being home means two things:
- I have to get prepared for my FINAL (YAY) semester of grad school (done or not)
- I really do have to email Good Advisor so we can talk about me finishing my stupid dissertation, the thought of which (the dissertation moreso than the email) makes me nauseous, so I'm going to stop thinking about it.
While still back in KC, Brownie and I went out with my brother, his best friend (whom I'll nickname Romeo for the moment because it's terribly inappropriate both in general and specifically in relation to this person, who is as snarky and solipsistic as they come - he's hysterical) and best friend's sister, who is awesome. Awesome enough that I'll just nickname her Awesome for the time being. Anyway, Awesome will be graduating from college this year with an English major and spent most of the fall semester angsting over grad school. So she was telling me this last night and then told me about a conversation she had with her advisor, who pointed out to her that if grad school was already stressing her out, she didn't have to go (italics hers, in speech, I swear. They were audible.). And apparently that idea hadn't actually occurred to her before. So she's decided not to apply, even if that means spending two years working at a Panera before she comes up with something better. Brownie and I both traded fist bumps with her and congratulated her on her decision to keep her body and soul united together. In return, she announced that she was going to come crash on our sofa for a year while figuring out the rest of her life. I've been told to make sure we have cider on hand for her, as she's not much into beer. I am absolutely all for a visit from Awesome, but not sure I'd be able to help her on the non-grad school-career front. I'm about to the point of asking little kids what they want to do when they grow up just so I can steal their ideas. Except that I don't think I want to be an astronaut. Or a fireman. Hrm.
And at this point, it's 1am, and I'm tired. Purring kitties or not, I think it's bedtime. I'll deal with the "thoughts on the last semester's commencement" or whatnot as soon as I have some.
We haven't put away the Christmas tree yet - I kinda meant to do that before we left, but ran out of time, so it's still up on its little table and will have to be taken down tomorrow in between bouts of syllabus finishing.
Otherwise, being home means two things:
- I have to get prepared for my FINAL (YAY) semester of grad school (done or not)
- I really do have to email Good Advisor so we can talk about me finishing my stupid dissertation, the thought of which (the dissertation moreso than the email) makes me nauseous, so I'm going to stop thinking about it.
While still back in KC, Brownie and I went out with my brother, his best friend (whom I'll nickname Romeo for the moment because it's terribly inappropriate both in general and specifically in relation to this person, who is as snarky and solipsistic as they come - he's hysterical) and best friend's sister, who is awesome. Awesome enough that I'll just nickname her Awesome for the time being. Anyway, Awesome will be graduating from college this year with an English major and spent most of the fall semester angsting over grad school. So she was telling me this last night and then told me about a conversation she had with her advisor, who pointed out to her that if grad school was already stressing her out, she didn't have to go (italics hers, in speech, I swear. They were audible.). And apparently that idea hadn't actually occurred to her before. So she's decided not to apply, even if that means spending two years working at a Panera before she comes up with something better. Brownie and I both traded fist bumps with her and congratulated her on her decision to keep her body and soul united together. In return, she announced that she was going to come crash on our sofa for a year while figuring out the rest of her life. I've been told to make sure we have cider on hand for her, as she's not much into beer. I am absolutely all for a visit from Awesome, but not sure I'd be able to help her on the non-grad school-career front. I'm about to the point of asking little kids what they want to do when they grow up just so I can steal their ideas. Except that I don't think I want to be an astronaut. Or a fireman. Hrm.
And at this point, it's 1am, and I'm tired. Purring kitties or not, I think it's bedtime. I'll deal with the "thoughts on the last semester's commencement" or whatnot as soon as I have some.
Monday, January 11, 2010
When meatballs attack
Brownie makes the bestest meatballs ever. Seriously. Like, I'd have considered marrying for meatball access if I wasn't already married to him.
So when we got out to visit my parents, we made a fuckload of meatballs. Half went into the freezer. The other half has been sitting in the fridge since last Saturday. Brownie was swearing up and down that they're completely fine STILL.
Really, though? 9 days for meat?
So I decided they're probably not fine even though they smell/taste fine, and am going to toss them. But the thing is that I DID taste a bit of one. And it does taste fine.
Two things are now going on in my head:
1) I'm planning on throwing out perfectly good food based on the fact that it "should" in my mind be bad already. (aka "food guilt from my grandmother (Mom's Mom) yelling at us when we were kids and didn't want leftovers")(also aka "why can't bad food just start spewing green fumes like it does in the Sims??")
2) I'm simultaneously convinced that the meatballs can't be good any longer just because seriously, nine days, and that because I tried one I'm going to go into some sort of paralytic shock here in the next ten minutes, a feeling which has tripped a mild panic attack (which I'm currently trying to quell via breathing carefully and talking myself down by posting this) which itself isn't being helped beause it's almost 2 and I've thus far only had coffee today, so I'm getting shaky and headachy, which I rationally know is due to lack of food but which panicky brain is attributing to "ZOMG MEATBALL WILL KILL ME."
Fortunately, I'm at least recognizing that I've thrown myself into anxiety over pretty much nothing, so I should hopefully feel better after I've finally eaten the frozen pizza that is currently unfreezing in the oven.
So when we got out to visit my parents, we made a fuckload of meatballs. Half went into the freezer. The other half has been sitting in the fridge since last Saturday. Brownie was swearing up and down that they're completely fine STILL.
Really, though? 9 days for meat?
So I decided they're probably not fine even though they smell/taste fine, and am going to toss them. But the thing is that I DID taste a bit of one. And it does taste fine.
Two things are now going on in my head:
1) I'm planning on throwing out perfectly good food based on the fact that it "should" in my mind be bad already. (aka "food guilt from my grandmother (Mom's Mom) yelling at us when we were kids and didn't want leftovers")(also aka "why can't bad food just start spewing green fumes like it does in the Sims??")
2) I'm simultaneously convinced that the meatballs can't be good any longer just because seriously, nine days, and that because I tried one I'm going to go into some sort of paralytic shock here in the next ten minutes, a feeling which has tripped a mild panic attack (which I'm currently trying to quell via breathing carefully and talking myself down by posting this) which itself isn't being helped beause it's almost 2 and I've thus far only had coffee today, so I'm getting shaky and headachy, which I rationally know is due to lack of food but which panicky brain is attributing to "ZOMG MEATBALL WILL KILL ME."
Fortunately, I'm at least recognizing that I've thrown myself into anxiety over pretty much nothing, so I should hopefully feel better after I've finally eaten the frozen pizza that is currently unfreezing in the oven.
So this is the New Year...
...and I don't feel any different, she says, quoting a Death Cab song...
Actually, at the moment I feel roughly 10 pounds (probably closer to 6 in reality) pounds heavier, like I'd really, REALLY like to exercise a whole bunch and like my liver could use a break. The last of which entertains me because this was the first New Year's Day in ten years (literally, the first since 1999, which was before I'd started drinking) that I woke up sans any sort of hangover at all.
Since then, however, there has been rather too much in the way of dranks, and I'm looking forward to getting back to PA to rest my chemistry (to quote an Interpol song). Except for the wine tasting we're apparently going to on Saturday.
I'd love to have some sort of big "this is what I've been doing" type update, but the truth is that there really isn't all that much. Reason: SNOW. Like, SNOWMG or SNOWPOCALYPSE NOW or SNOWMAGGEDON or something to that effect. Also, REALLY EFFING COLD. Mostly we've all been hiding indoors because the outdoors has been murderous. At this moment there are roughly 18 inches of snow on my parents' deck, and this is after two days of bright sunshine and one day of hitting maybe 22 (tropical, really) degrees, which caused icicles, which means there was some melting. The windchill on Friday morning was -32. Hence the aforementioned lack of exercise and accompanying overabundance of dranks - there really hasn't been much to do.
What I have done: I got a chance to hang out with bridefriend and chat with her for a while and I think we might be going to look at bridesmaid dresses tomorrow. I've gotten to have dinner with Favorite Priest (who performed my marriage ceremony), seen Favorite Aunt twice, found out that my grandmother has Alzheimer's (not, I repeat, NOT a surprise) and have reaffirmed for the hundredth time both my inability to comprehend the amount of porcelain in my grandparents' house and my dislike for antiques.
The thing with antiques is this. My grandparents' house has always been more of a museum of antique French porcelain dishware than it has been a liveable house (in my memory at least - according to my aunt, they got like this at some point after all the kids had moved out). I've been to their house twice during my seven years of grad school, and before that, I don't think I'd been to their house since I was six, which was when they summarily banned visits from kids because they were worried that a dish might get broken. Once they banned visits, my brother and I saw them for birthdays and Christmas for a year or two, and after that it was down to Christmas and Thanksgiving only. As far as I can tell from our interactions, I didn't have much meaning to my grandmother from the age of six until I showed up with a fiance and a ring on my finger. Am I bitter? A bit, yes. Do I blame them? Partly, I suppose. Mostly what I really blame are the damned antique porcelain dishes on their hooks and shelves and and hangers and tables and covering every wall and every surface in the entire two story house, including the former rooms of my dad and his two sisters. So while I'm sad to hear that my grandmother has Alzheimer's, I feel like a bad person because I'm more sad that it happened in a general way (as in, it's a terrible disease and it's hard to see anyone go through it, or even to imagine anyone dealing with it) than I am that it's happening to MY grandmother in particular. I'm mad at myself for that, but I feel like I was never allowed the chance to get to know her, all because I might have accidentally broken a plate.
I have an irrational hatred of flea markets. I've been called a snob for this more than once (most memorably by the Bastard, who took me to several flea markets in an attempt to make me "get over myself"). It isn't snobbery at all. I know there's some seriously cool stuff to be found at flea markets, and that going could probably be a lot of fun. But I hate it anyway because of those stupid porcelain plates.
Blogging is strange and wonderful in some ways because I get started and end up writing about something that I hadn't been thinking about at all before I began.
Actually, at the moment I feel roughly 10 pounds (probably closer to 6 in reality) pounds heavier, like I'd really, REALLY like to exercise a whole bunch and like my liver could use a break. The last of which entertains me because this was the first New Year's Day in ten years (literally, the first since 1999, which was before I'd started drinking) that I woke up sans any sort of hangover at all.
Since then, however, there has been rather too much in the way of dranks, and I'm looking forward to getting back to PA to rest my chemistry (to quote an Interpol song). Except for the wine tasting we're apparently going to on Saturday.
I'd love to have some sort of big "this is what I've been doing" type update, but the truth is that there really isn't all that much. Reason: SNOW. Like, SNOWMG or SNOWPOCALYPSE NOW or SNOWMAGGEDON or something to that effect. Also, REALLY EFFING COLD. Mostly we've all been hiding indoors because the outdoors has been murderous. At this moment there are roughly 18 inches of snow on my parents' deck, and this is after two days of bright sunshine and one day of hitting maybe 22 (tropical, really) degrees, which caused icicles, which means there was some melting. The windchill on Friday morning was -32. Hence the aforementioned lack of exercise and accompanying overabundance of dranks - there really hasn't been much to do.
What I have done: I got a chance to hang out with bridefriend and chat with her for a while and I think we might be going to look at bridesmaid dresses tomorrow. I've gotten to have dinner with Favorite Priest (who performed my marriage ceremony), seen Favorite Aunt twice, found out that my grandmother has Alzheimer's (not, I repeat, NOT a surprise) and have reaffirmed for the hundredth time both my inability to comprehend the amount of porcelain in my grandparents' house and my dislike for antiques.
The thing with antiques is this. My grandparents' house has always been more of a museum of antique French porcelain dishware than it has been a liveable house (in my memory at least - according to my aunt, they got like this at some point after all the kids had moved out). I've been to their house twice during my seven years of grad school, and before that, I don't think I'd been to their house since I was six, which was when they summarily banned visits from kids because they were worried that a dish might get broken. Once they banned visits, my brother and I saw them for birthdays and Christmas for a year or two, and after that it was down to Christmas and Thanksgiving only. As far as I can tell from our interactions, I didn't have much meaning to my grandmother from the age of six until I showed up with a fiance and a ring on my finger. Am I bitter? A bit, yes. Do I blame them? Partly, I suppose. Mostly what I really blame are the damned antique porcelain dishes on their hooks and shelves and and hangers and tables and covering every wall and every surface in the entire two story house, including the former rooms of my dad and his two sisters. So while I'm sad to hear that my grandmother has Alzheimer's, I feel like a bad person because I'm more sad that it happened in a general way (as in, it's a terrible disease and it's hard to see anyone go through it, or even to imagine anyone dealing with it) than I am that it's happening to MY grandmother in particular. I'm mad at myself for that, but I feel like I was never allowed the chance to get to know her, all because I might have accidentally broken a plate.
I have an irrational hatred of flea markets. I've been called a snob for this more than once (most memorably by the Bastard, who took me to several flea markets in an attempt to make me "get over myself"). It isn't snobbery at all. I know there's some seriously cool stuff to be found at flea markets, and that going could probably be a lot of fun. But I hate it anyway because of those stupid porcelain plates.
Blogging is strange and wonderful in some ways because I get started and end up writing about something that I hadn't been thinking about at all before I began.
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