July 2006                                                                                Home

July 16 2006 6:47 PM   

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I feel like such a dolt. I don't seem to be able to have a job and keep a blog. I am adjusting to the commute. I like to joke that the job isn't all fun and games. It isn't always fun but it is always games. The work can be quite brain numbing. The commute can be as well, despite the fact that I'm reading a book or two a week. I work mostly with young men and most of the time I love them. But most of the things about me that I think are interesting aren't particularly interesting to them. I come from it all feeling fairly alienated and worn.

I'm not miserable. I have nice days. I love all the reading. I'm happy to be making a little (all be it very little) money. Deb takes me to the grocery store every Saturday afternoon. I still swim three times a week. Life has rhythm. It works pretty well.

And I still think I could be writing. I have a bit of time in the morning though I can't seem to believe that I do. I still leave too early. I have less time in the evening but I have enough to write. I sort of collapse on Saturday and Sunday I do a variety of chores. And the days go by. And the weeks. And soon ... the month.

I've been enjoying the new Moyers series. It's my Friday night treat. The people come out of the Pen American conference. I like the Federman poem on the front page.

I cannot write I cannot write
when I want to, when I need to.
I mean I cannot write
what must be written
what demands to be written.

Every morning I ask myself : why?
No good, nothing, nothing, nothing.
How long will this go on?
Everyday I wake up and around me
terror earthquake murder fire killing
the newspaper the radio the television
tanks famine death war corruption bombs.

Where am I, me, I mean?
And you?  Where are you?
Torn away. Displaced. Angry.

It's not that I cannot write
oh yes I can write
anything I want
but it's this one thing
this one thing I cannot write
this thing that refuses
to let itself be written
to surface out of me.

The horror in the world
the human debacle.

Reading writing speaking
my life has been but that
a life of words
a pell mell babel of words
a life full of stories
but a life anyway.
I awake here in exile
It's because of the world
because of history
because of what goes
on in the world
that concerns us
frightens us
dejects us
saddens us

the moment I jump
out of bed there is
this horror in the world
and I cannot write it...

Yeah.

So I write the same post again and again. About the commute and the reading and the not enoughness. These are desperate posts that really should just say: Don't forget me. Keep checking in. I promise I'll write. I will. Please don't leave me. I need to push myself. But I push to get to work and I push through the day and I push to get home. I don't have much push left.

Today I feel desperately sad. Mostly because of some money stuff that feels beyond my ability. I feel like ... a dolt. And I thought I wouldn't write because I feared the tone. Because I haven't been desperately sad all this time. It's just a thing that's going on.

There was chocolate cake in the cafeteria on my birthday.

 

July 24 2006 7:21 AM   

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Last week was a week of good news, bad news, no news and news I'm still not sure how to categorize. It gave me a wicked case of the spins.

On Monday I had a post forming in my head all day. When I got home from work it was all done but the typing and I was determined to get it down. And then the bad news came. I could feel a hole open in the back of my head and the post rushed out blown by the shock wave of fear, frustration and anger. On Tuesday I tried to pull it back but all I could get was fragments.

And so it goes.

This week I start working overtime three nights a week.