Oh my. It's been a while. Miss me?
Aww, cute. I missed you too, honeys.
This neglect has been a case of Too Much Happening. Too Much Work. Too Much Confusion. Too Much Turkey and Gravy. Too Much Newness. A lot of the newness has been good, potentially even great, but it gets to a point of fullness that leads to stupefaction.
Brain. not. working.
Yesterday is a good example of how things have been lately. Sleepily weaving through rush hour traffic across town. Getting coffee. Plowing through a shit-ton of work in record time, even though I can barely see straight. Canceling lunch plans so I can take a nap. Waking up spacey and groggy and T-ing it across the river. Getting into an intensely emotional fight with someone I barely know. T-ing back home, upset and shaken. Obsessing over whether to call someone. Chatting on IM with people who make me feel better, and assure me that I am brilliant and kind. (Their words, not mine.)
So, yes. My life and my head feel like an overstuffed pinata. Exaltation and misery and doubt and comfort and terror and sweetness all seem to be ganging up on me at once. It's not bad. It's just all a little much.
But I can handle it. I am the Vieve, after all.
Evening on the Ground (Lilith's Song)
...
garden wall of eden
full of spiderbites and all your lovers
we were
we were born to fuck each other
one way or another
...
me:
surprising, contradictory people are fun
i htink i am one of them, sometimes
not me:
I think you are.
and I agree.
I've been listening to Iron & Wine a lot lately. I feel so emo. And I love love love this song:
time & all you gave
i was the jerk who preferred the sea
to tussling in the waves
tugging your skirt, singing please, please, please
but now i see love
tracked on the floor where you walked outside
now i seek love
looking for you in this other girl's eyes
time & all you took
only my freedom to fuck the whole world
promising not to look
promising light on the sidewalk girls
but now i see love
there in your car where i said those things
now i see love
tugging your skirt, singing please, please, please
time & all you gave
there on your cross that i never saw
well beyond the waves
dunking my head when i heard you call
but now i see love
there in the scab where you pinched my leg
now i see love
there on your side of my empty bed
I am bone tired. Too many late nights, plus a full and insanely busy day at the store. Christmas is a-comin'.
Also, it seems like everyone has been busy getting knocked up. I have never sold so many pregnancy and childbirth books. Expect a zillion babies in Somerville and Cambridge in about seven or eight months.
I still love my job at the bookstore.
I still hate vacuuming.
I should not have had a cup of coffee at 8 p.m.
Andre Dubus III is totally hot.
I held them tight in my thin-skinned palm. Smooth marbles that grew ridges and whorls, sharp edges. Cracks and gouges.
When they make you bleed, it's time to drop them. Or time to start thinking about how you have to drop them. This process can take a while.
Letting go, letting them fall away and fall on the ground, where they transform. No control, only hope. And waiting.
It's a sad thing. It's bittersweet. It's a cause for grief, no less so because you see it coming a mile away, from the first prickle in your palm.
Fantasies grow teeth. Those cuddly monsters.
I've been feeling a little empty lately. Unsatisfied. Bored and frustrated.
Nothing is bad. Things are rolling along fairly nicely -- I have steady work (an amazing accomplishment that I am very proud of), I have friends. I don't have any money at the moment, which worries me, but some should be arriving soon. So what's the problem?
I realized recently that, for the past 10 years or so, I've been in constant crisis. Crumbling relationships, struggling to finish school, bad living situations, illness, feeling trapped in stressful and unrewarding jobs.
But right now... no crises. Struggle and disappointments, sadness, embarrassments, big questions, yes. But there's no single point of focus, or, rather, obsession. And so I feel a little empty. A little bored. I find myself asking, "Well, now what?"
It's better this way, but a little uncomfortable and strange. And I realize I need to be careful not to manufacture any crises just because I'm looking for something to fill that void, that groove that's been worked into my soul. I need a goal, I need a plan, I need a big dream. I need something.
And I can create that something. Whatever it may be. I hope I find it soon.
I woke up this morning without waking up. My brain kinda woke up, but my body is having a harder time of it. I'm fuzzy and clumsy and sluggish. Klutzy. (I really did knock over the soymilk container in the cafe this morning when I got my coffee. Oops.)
I got 8 hours of sleep. I drank nothing but water last night. The shitty weather might be to blame, but, eh. The only thing I can think of is the beef curry I ate for dinner. I don't eat cow much anymore (I haven't had any in at least 3 weeks, maybe more), but last night I was like, oh, what the hell. (I was sucked in by the description: "manly curry." Hee.)
I wonder if this means I have to become a vegematarian. I'm most of the way there anyway, but... goddamn it. I want a hamburger once in a while.
I woke up depressed. I can't shake my unease and malaise. I want to go back to bed, even though I've spent about 18 of the past 24 hours there already.
It must be November.
The Vieve woke up cranky this morning. Hmph. She felt sad and misanthropic. Hmph hmph. She wanted to punch someone in the nose.
KAPOW!
So, the Vieve took a nap. She woke up grumpy. But less tired. But still. Grump grump grump. "Where's an extra nose when you need one?" she thought.
HMPH.
Since arriving back from California, land of marvelous sushi and friendly peeps, I've been suffering from/recovering from a nasty strep throat infection. It felt like someone was stabbing my neck with an ice pick. It made me weep, literally, when I swallowed. It was miserable. Today, however, it merely feels like someone is tickling my tonsils lightly with a stiff-bristled brush (yesterday it was a wire brush, so obviously I am improving rapidly), and my voice has a sexy-raspy quality to it. (Until I "Ahem" and clear it. Phlegm is very unsexy.)
Anyway, I have not been feeling very writey this week, which is a shame because I have a lot inside my head. Also, I probably should have been writing instead of watching tons of crap TV. (Did you know there's a new Scooby-Doo, with a new theme song and everything? It sounds like Green Day.) My days were turning into a masochistic lab experiment, whereby unseen forces were assessing just how long it would take before isolation + searing pain + laugh tracks and inane blabber about B-list celebrities' fashion icons turned me into a blithering, drooling pile of batshit-crazy goo. Thank you, Zithromax, for saving me from that ignominious fate.
This afternoon, it's back to the bookstore. I've missed it so. And if I find out who infected me, I swear I'm going to stab him or her in the throat with an ice pick. Or make them watch E! for a few hours. One or the other.
It's kind of like a climate-controlled Cambridge.
Also, I think I see someone I went to high school with on the other side of the cafe where I am now typing this. I haven't seen her in 10 years, at least. It's not as strange as it sounds, really -- I'm always bumping into people from my high school. New York, Boston, London... why not Berkeley? I'll go and say hi in a minute and freak her the fuck out.