lazy friday.

i've got lucinda singing to me, and i'm not sure i've said a complete sentence to anyone all day. my life has turned into more or less administrative tasks, at work and otherwise, preparing to leave, setting things up, taking inventories, considering what is necessary, what is needed, what can be left, what can be thrown away, the paperwork that needs to be completed when, which means that my mental checklists have become exhaustive lists of my life at the moment, and what my life will be soon. if i think only of the discrete tasks, my present, my future, is not at all about my life, just things that need to be done by certain times, and really, that's what life is anyway. i mean, the past few weeks have been consumed with scheduling: work, teaching, eating, sleeping, friends, more or less in that order, which is frightening, even if only temporary. i see the writer the most, although that's not saying much considering it's usually at the end of a 12 hour work day when i've already started to crash, and she says sometimes, "you look like you're dead". thanks, darlin'. thanks.

last night, i came home to silence, and it was a bit unnerving at first. the apartment was empty, and i had just finished my last class with one of my sections, so the relief of that particular pressure managed to empty out my head, and the echo of silence can be quite loud. but nice. and soothing after awhile. and bella and i just hung out and fell asleep, not having to say much of anything to each other and happy about it.

and it's friday and my work day will end at a normal time or earlier, and i have some emails to send out, some news to read, and...well, that might be just about it. my checklists seem to be in good shape, and me too, all things considered. and this weekend...well, the goal is to look a little more alive. but i think i'm getting there, because this is one of the first things i saw this morning, and there's nothing like dancing to start the day. and just now, i had someone ask me, "why are you being so difficult?!", and i smile, mostly to myself, because obviously, i'm getting back on track. also, there's the prospect of home-made korean food on monday night...um, what? that alone can keep me happy and sated for an indefinite period of time. it's friday, yo. time to put away those checklists and let the silence fill your head.

sunday morning.

i'm sitting in an airport hotel, watching wolf blitzer on cnn. the last time my brother was in town, we went to see jon stewart at gw, and he came out of the bathroom, and he was all, "hey, isn't that wolf blitzer?", and he mumbles quite a bit (yes, more than me, i think), and he was trying to be quiet at the same time, so i kept saying , "what?". i thought i had heard something about wolf, but i thought surely that couldn't be right...someone named wolf? and i finally realized that i was hearing correctly, and then, of course, i was like, um, maybe, i don't know. kevin pointed out that wolf was quite shorter - much shorter than he realized - and decided that he wasn't going to watch his show anymore. and then during the show, it was pointed out that wolf blitzer was indeed in the audience, and kevin nudged me and said, that was wolf blitzer! the point being that kevin's decision not to watch because he's short, turns out to be reason enough. me, i'm not a fan of his facial hair, and he's a really irritating interviewer. but i'm in the sort of mood where it's still on, even though it's irritating me quite a bit...i can't stop watching it. checkout will be a relief. besides being too cheap to pay for cable, my brief exposure to cable always reminds me that cable would only mean constant access to irritation, which i certainly don't need. access that would be very difficult for me not to access. that would be a problem. apparently, freedom is advancing. how exciting. i'm not sure where it's advancing, but it's advancing. with guns and shackles and censorship, but freedom's gotta do what it's gotta do.

ridiculous white men who manage to use so many words without saying much of anything, notwithstanding, it's sunday morning, and it's one of my rare days that i don't have much of anything to do, and it's wonderful. the coffee's not that great, but it's coffee, and i'm stretched out on a big comfy bed with the laptop, tv on in the background, waiting until i have to checkout, then waiting some more for the writer to be done with her training so we can head back to dc. i'm not that far out of dc, but it feels good to be somewhere different, even just for one night. once i get back to the city, there are many things to be done, but for now, just saying hi to myself, and catching up, then sitting in the sun with my ipod, and maybe dancing. just a little.

strange advice.

"worry about being yourself later" is what i was told a few months ago. it's strange advice, i think, but not necessarily bad advice, i suppose. these past few months have been a whirlwind of activity and happenings, and this past weekend, this woman i love stood in front of a podium of her peers and former professors and assorted friends and family and read a story, and i sat there, and i knew that everyone else in the room knew how good it was, how good she is, and there was no end to the people who wanted to say hi, wanted to talk with her, wanted to tell her parents about the writer she is, and i experienced a moment, or moments, of bafflement, as it occurred to me that at the end of the day, she put her hand in mine, as we walked out of that building. these days, our respective worries have very little to do with each other, but very much with how the circumference of our lives brush in seemingly negligible ways, just forming the venn diagram, the intersections where we spend much of our time. and i am more happy than not. it's true. but i'm feeling a little unraveled and disheveled. my familiarity with my life has shifted, and i don't really have the words to describe this mood i'm in today where i'm thinking about that some, wondering about where it went. i mean, not bad, just, what? i don't know. things are ending for me, things have ended, things are continuing, and that big thing is starting sooner than i'm comfortable with, really. and i've been so goddamn tired lately. and the thing about the advice, the thing about that is that i knew that she meant that i would be myself regardless, because how am i not, you know? it's just that i like to play it safe most of the time, i don't venture very far outside of what i know, but here i am, and there's so much i don't know about here. and it's a little scary, and not as snug as where i'm used to, just because i'm commuting a lot, and neither place feels entirely like home these days. but then, you know, she takes my hand and puts her head on my shoulder and says, "let's go", and that's all it takes. that's all it takes for me to forget about the discomfort of the realization just a moment before of who i am not.

defective links.

so, it appears that the links on the side of my blog are becoming less and less useful, but i'm keeping them up out of obstinance rather than as evidence of functionality. it's the story of my life, really. i suppose i can understand not wanting to write in a public forum that provides a certain degree of pressure of presentability when sometimes, the last thing you're feeling is presentable. but. i'm sad about it. and i just wanted to say that. and i know i don't write as much as i should, or as much as i want to, and i swear, there are things rolling around in my head that i want to write about, but i am more oblique than perhaps is good for me, more obtuse than some may like, but perhaps not enough for others. but i'm still here for now. or around, anyway. so do check in. if you do. or not. i will still be clicking the defective links on a daily or near daily basis, if only for ritual's sake. because when you don't have religion, you still need rituals, and that need is perhaps more religious than not. but. i'm not sure what it all means, this walking away from the blogging, but i'm not quite ready to let it go just yet.