Theory

Language is nonsense. Or, rather, the way we use language to construct our conceptualization of the world is nonsensical.

Consider the notion of publics, counterpublics, and mini-publics. Consider networking. Consider any kind of metaphorical grouping of persons that tries to explain the inexplicable by rendering personalities into objects on a graph or a grid or a diagram. We use language to pretend we are one of something larger than ourselves, that each of us is unified in purpose and selfhood and that that cohesion of self is aimed in the exact direction as our fellows. Language squashes whatever individuality we possess and stuffs us into a public, or a network, or a category, and we are relieved to know that we match someone, at least.

None of it is concrete, but we act like it is. We talk like it is. We write like it's real.

Nonsense.

Powerful motivator

Fascinating, interesting, neat, cool. Intriguing, even.

Words we use to bring up something random that we want to talk about, something that struck us as new or different or meaningful. As in, "Isn't it interesting to think about . . . " or "I'm so fascinated by . . . "

When what we really mean is, "This topic inspired a feeling in me" and "This is something I think is important, but I'm afraid to give you that power over me."

Isn't it interesting to think about the way fear can close us off? I'm fascinated by the cages we build for ourselves from the anticipated judgement of others.

older and wiser i am apparently not

I'm all jittery and my hands feel like spider webs and my sternum is all spindly like I'm about to fly apart or collapse and I'm in this circular situation of waiting-hoping-squashing all because once again I wanted to believe in a friend and it was a mistake it is a mistake it will always be a mistake

What's another word for older?

Obligatory birthday post:

I went out and bought things and ate food. I derived a sense of pleasure from these activities. Huzzah.

And so far, no crying! That is a plus. The night is relatively young, so I'll hang on to the tissues.

26, yo.

Wasting time

It's definitely one of those days where writing is forcing it. Which is not good. I hate these days on the best of days, but today is not the best of days. Today is a day where I have to get 5 pages out on a topic that I thought was okay, but is. Okay. Only okay. This is what happens when I try to write stuff ahead of time. I get bored of it way before my deadline and end up hating it, but right now I'm stuck with it.

Here's to passing this class.

*snore*

So today I woke up at nearly three in the afternoon. I had rolled over for an alarm at 10:30 and decided. . . nah. I'll get up when I wake up. Which was 3 pm. I was rested and a little bit discombobulated because the dreams, man. When you actually get a lot of sleep, there's time for dreams.

I was catching up from a busy couple of days writing a paper and prepping a presentation and generally not sleeping much at all. This snoozefest is pretty justifiable, if you look at it in the grand scheme.

But I felt and still feel very, very guilty. I feel like I have done a terrible thing. I slept away daylight hours, and time, as we all know, is precious. How could I waste so much of it in bed? Isn't sloth a deadly sin?

And then I have to stop and think again, because. What?

When did sleep become a waste of time? We need sleep. We can't function without it. It's genuinely a health issue. Why am I so screwed up over time spent just. Sleeping? I mean, I know I have things to do, but. Still.

I know it's not particularly realistic to want this, but I kinda wish stuff wasn't so busy that sleeping, just sleeping, is a waste of my time.

maybe Karl had a point

Gotta write gotta write gotta write

Feels like I will always have a response to write for class and no time to write it in. Because really, I haven't got a whole lot to say in response to Lukacs except, maybe, what. Adorno gets a chortle, because, really, my dude, you gotta stop drinking the bitter stuff and lighten up a bit. Jameson sounds like a hippie. A Marxist hippie. It's all relative, man. We're reacting to the man, but movies are cool, ya know...

You can really only say two things, it turns out. Or one. The world used to be unified, and now it's not. That's either good or bad, depending on how you see it. Or you can say we've slipped back into the sheeple masses and individualism is over again. Or maybe it never existed. Okay so you can say more than one thing, but. It's really all the same.

Which means I'm a Marxist, I guess.

My dude Wordsworth

I suddenly had a weird epiphany. Right now, right here, sitting at this computer, I realized something. The Romantics were right. Are right. About poetry. 

(If they were going to be right about anything, it would have to be poetry, I think.)

I can never remember who said what. "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." That's a good one. Coleridge? Shelley? The other Shelley?

The one in particular that they were correct about was this: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity." And I realized the full truth of this just now, years after I first read it. When I first read this line, I was definitely ready to fire back with examples in myself where the best words I thought I could give came up at the time the emotions were being experienced. When I was sad, I wrote about being sad, and I called that poetry. I wrote out my anger and expelled it, and that was what I called poetry. I even tried to capture trembling joy, to bottle it up as it came to me and save it for later. That, I thought, was how one does poetry. 

I don't think I was completely wrong. There is something to be said for the first flush of fountaining phrases. You can save them for later, at least. 

But to craft something from a position of some distance lends a new perspective. It gives you the chance to try to recreate those feelings in yourself from a cold start. It lets you react as a stranger would. It makes you try to figure out what sent you to that place of overwhelming feeling in the first place. It forces you to confront the why and what of a feeling, not just its magnitude.

Recollecting emotions in tranquility isn't easy, but I think, maybe, I'd like to try.

this class is about tragedies, so i'll live one

The bitter burn of coffee

and some grating mashing taps

to grind out a few pages of nonsense.

I'm running short on minutes and the printer's out of ink.

Why type I so idly here?

I need to write a paper. A short one, yes. But a paper.

(When did four pages become a short paper?)

I'd prefer not to.

I'm very tired. And kinda blue in hue.

circle of life

slam dunk me in the trash
burn it all to ash

blow the bits across the sea
let waves carry me

wring water from the soot
let a tree take root

pulp the tree and make a page
write out all your rage

slam dunk me in the trash
burn it all to ash

muse me this

gettin' real tired of school (pronounce it shule, a la megamind)
why did i want this stupid degree
as i said recently to a friend in the wee small hours, it too is useless
will be useless
just like my b.a.

but i'll be able to put m.a. after my name. so it will read thusly:

e.m.m.m.a.

ludicrous amount of m's.




this is if i pass.

this has been a post

complaining, complaining, complaining.

complaining about complaining.

complaining that no one hears me complain about complaining.

negativity, garbage, self-pity. 

a bit of suicide talk.

false cheer and fatalism.

regret.

Cue pragmatism.

I swear I'm not brave enough to do anything stupid.

And I just feel like people will think I'm doing this for attention if I say any of this to anyone out loud?

I needed to say it, is all. To someone. Because the people who pulled me out of it last time are the ones pushing me over the edge.

*siiiiiiiiiigh*

I am totes cool. The Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice still exists in this world. I have no intention of leaving that.

Working title: something not morbid

Once upon a better time, I wrote a story about family. I told a writing class about mine, and I told them I could make it better with a few words of contrition and reconciliation. I told them I had the power to fix things. I told them it wasn't too late for us to be different. I told them my family could be better.

I thought I was telling them the truth. I thought I was courageous. I thought I was making a difference for myself and for my siblings. I thought everything was going to be okay.

All this is a heap of obvious foreshadowing, though. Can you guess what I'm about to tell you?

It isn't okay. My family isn't okay. My siblings aren't okay. My father is definitely not okay.

I'm not okay.

I'm sitting here listening to a Vaughn Williams choral piece called Rest, and tells me of a girl who is "curtained with a blessed dearth of all that irked her from her hour of birth; with stillness that is almost Paradise". RVW set a C.Rossetti poem quite beautifully. The metaphorical title is very transparent.

And it sounds really good. It sounds worth it. And sitting here at this table listening to choir music is not the place to have this crisis...but rest. All I want is rest from the burden of my family.

I know. I know I'm not responsible for them, and I didn't cause the current state of affairs. But somehow it is my fault. I feel it, even if it makes no sense. There's nothing I can do or say to fix it, but I feel it.

And I just want to rest.

no conclusion or answer

I'm both angry and not? I'm frustrated, which is probably a better word, but it doesn't quite capture the fear.

I've spent several weeks working through or trying to understand the material I've been given for this class. It's all about teaching, or teaching writing.

Thing is, teaching is something I can both see myself doing and not see myself being good at. What my current professors do? I can do that. I can read a book and talk about it. I can get knowledgeable enough about a thing to drop historical truth bombs, and I can figure out enough obscure language to guide a read-through and answer questions about details students didn't pick up on. I can give out assignments and call on students by name to make them squirm. I can even sit and stare at a class long enough to get them to say something.

But the teachers proposed in these theory papers? The ones who are constantly integrating theory into their every move and are constantly aware of their classroom growth and know what it means when a paper talks about working at the intersection of society and self? I can't do that.

And the harder I try to keep up, the more aggravated I get, which makes me less likely to pick up the stupid textbook in the first place. I want to be absorbing all of this, though. I want to be actually learning this stuff, because it is important, and I know that. I guess I don't know if I ever learned how to learn.

I hate talking about how easy everything used to be, because it sounds self-aggrandizing, but it is the truth, and it is what is tripping me up now. I didn't have to try very hard in school, and even if I did at some points, those days are literally years ago, and I've forgotten how to keep going. I currently refuse to stay up into the night for anything homework-related, even if I really, really should. I'm blogging right now instead of writing a homework-style response because I can't bring myself to care the way I should, even though I want to.

So as things stand, I don't know how to learn, and I can't be bothered to figure it out. (Though learning to learn is a circular problem, I feel...if I don't know how to learn, how can I teach myself to learn, and for that matter how can I teach anyone anything?)

It has been like...a week.

It is strange to feel cracked. To be run all through with lightning crooked breaks, held together by gravity, maybe. Like a hot glass filled with ice water.

I'll shatter splinter split if you touch me
So I'll keep you at a distance for now

Though it is nice to see you.

Someone bring me the super glue.

Was it a holiday?

I've been playing a game of emotional fruit basket upset for a few days; ran the gamut of sad to angry to bitter to brittle to dull and back around the circle. I'm still not sure where I've ended up right now? But I don't have time to wallow anymore. I took two mental health days that I really could not afford, and hopefully that was enough "healing" to get me over this without residual damage. 

I've always been pretty good at putting stuff behind me once I've *had the experience*, so I think I'm okay, or at least high-functioning okay. Again. 

Back to work.  

bye

I'm feeling like crap, and my go-to response is to talk to someone, but the reason I feel like crap is because that someone just cut me off, so I'm in a circle of hell right now with no escape in sight because the worse I feel the more I have the impulse to reach out and the more I'm reminded of why I can't which is why I feel worse in the first place and I get sicker and sadder and I'm burning and freezing and nauseated and exhausted and shaken and broken chipped chopped cracked shattered s c a t t e r e d

Lessons in handling stress

I just want it down here for the record, Professor. I tried.

I emailed a very helpful professor who was willing to work with me and I scheduled my observation. Check and mate.

Five days later, she cancelled on me, and it was for very good reason, so I said thanks for the help and asked someone else.

This someone else was also helpful and very understanding about the lateness of the request. She sent me files to answer any questions I might have that she didn't have time to answer. Crisis handled.

Now the weather is cold. Not icy, not even snowy. Just cold. And classes are cancelled. Guess which class was during the cancelled block? My second scheduled observation.

I emailed the teacher again to see if she would let me come to another section, but I don't know when I will receive a response, and it is supposed to happen tomorrow.

I hope the observation can take place within the allotted time frame, but my optimism is flagging.

I tried, Professor. I really did.

BLEEEEH

I'm wrung out, really. I've hit that plateau where I give up again. I'll go through the motions for a while longer, I think. I hope. But I'm not excited about anything anymore.

I need more sleep, I'm pretty sure. And I need something to look forward to, but what? Teaching? It feels more depressing than exciting at the moment.

How did this sneak up on me? I just want to be happy. I just want to live in the moments I have and enjoy them and keep moving forward, because stasis was strangling me. I don't want to keep living in these excessive cycles of up and down. Steady growth would be nice.

I'm trying to be good. I've heard all my life that if you're trying too hard, you haven't given it up the way you should and you'll just wear yourself out. Okay. But if I don't try at all, nothing gets any better, and I hate myself for doing nothing about my problems.

So I'm plateauing. I'm leveling off at the point where I'm exhausted, but I don't want to give up, but I'm too tired to be happy.

Waiting for nothing

I don't wanna. Do homework. Anymore.

I treat myself to Chaucer; this is what we have come to. This is the state of things.

*sigh*

Feeling good like the song says

For the last few years, I've posted only during the most... dramatic? ....traumatic? Intense. Intense points of my emotional state. So I feel like I'm presenting a distorted picture of how I'm doing.

I'm honestly okay. Grad classes are both more and less stressful than I expected. My friends are present but I have learned to say no when I need to. The guy I like likes me back, and I'm learning how to do emotions like an adult. Maybe I'm starting to grow up, just a little bit.

The hope I mentioned earlier is still there, even if I forget it sometimes in the pressure I'm putting on myself. My life has started again.

I'm okay. Everything is going to be okay. And that is a feeling I'm glad to have back.

cabin fever exacerbated

it is friday night, which means i am stuck here

going out on a friday night is bad, or so i have been raised to believe

i will abide by that, because i'm not planning on changing the core me bits

but i also have this intense need to get out, to go out and do something

i need to shop or eat or sing or scream, or all of those or maybe none

i can't and also won't do any, so i'm writing instead

***

coiled up energy and fear and stress and dread and guilt are springs squeezed to potential and let go inside me
where they ricochet off tender walls and poke and scratch with coarse wire ends and leave me bleeding and sore

turns out i never beat depression
and the easy fix isn't fixing anything this time.

***

hope so quickly turns to anticipation which turns to apprehension which turns to terror
and mixed in there somewhere is guilt tied to expectation

confusion is so much more easily conveyed in abstraction

and it's heavy, all of it, and cold

a sodden blanket

How the turntables.

***

Hello from the other side, she says. Laughs. It tastes sour. She bites down on that flavor and soaks it up, because she deserves this. It's her turn.

After what she put the others through . . . it's really only fair. She just didn't quite know it was this . . . this bad.

***


I've got this whole new level of empathy for my exes? Because I'm sitting on the other side of the table at the moment.

Back then, I was never in it seriously. I was having some fun, that's all. I felt bad that they were so much more invested than I was, but what was I supposed to do about it? I kept it as light as I could. For the most part.

And now . . . well. He's having fun. He likes where it's at right now, which is precisely nowhere. He wanted to try out the experience, I think. And that's fine. Very understandable, given where he is and what he is doing with his life right now. He's keeping it as light as he can.

I'm playing along pretty well, or at least I believe I am. I've always been good at keeping hidden what I actually want to hide. (I muddy what I want to make clear, but that's a different problem.) So I'm fairly sure he doesn't know how deep I got before I figured all this out. That's the hope, at least, because to acknowledge anything else would be deeply embarrassing.

But playing along is what I'm doing, and I need to reshuffle. Again. I need to make it true so that when this ends, as it always does with this kind of emotional disparity . . . I can shake it off like he will. Like I did before.

Maybe fatalism creates fate. But I don't want to feel the kind of hurt I know I caused, so.

(Too late.)