![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraHonestly can’t tell whether I’m being the worst kind of slacker or way, way too hard on myself. All I really want to do is lay in a semi-stupor, smoke unfiltered Turkish cigarettes and think about the lost empire of Byzantium:
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Of course, to allow myself to do that would be to be self-destructive in the worst possible way because there is just so much fucking stuff to do.
I keep reminding myself that as of July 1, it all gets so much better. Casssandra and I will make really good housemates, there’s so much I like about her, she’s smart, common sensical and no bullshit. I have a really strong presentiment that we will be sisters of choice. I have never wanted to be a solo householder; I have always preferred living communally with groups of people, although as a married woman and a mother, I sort of had to do the solo householder thing.
I have the best possible feelings about what happens after July 1. I’ll be close to my NYC peeps, life will be good.
But life until July 1 seems pitted with these big yawning abysses. So, so easy to lose my footing and fall through. So help me I’m terrified and paralyzed. The proverbial cat crossing the intersection at 72nd and Broadway.
Does turn out that there are literally 30 postings a day on Craig’s List for summer sublets. Most of them are students, so I’m not sure how they’d respond to a senior citizen who only wanted the damn room for a month. But it means I should be able to find something.
Hopefully what’s wrong with the car will turn out to be the fuel pump and I can get that fixed this week. Life this far out in the country is very difficult without a car.
I’m one of those people for whom life is very hard. I think – I have to think – that it’s something I do that makes it hard. There are a lot of people – I won’t say “most,” but certainly a lot – for whom life is not hard, who actually seem to enjoy being alive. That’s never been me.
The things I enjoy about being alive have always been very cerebral things. I like the stories, the great narrative sweep of history, the little eddies pitching and swirling beneath it. I would love to stick around as a fly on the wall to see how things turn out in 50 years. The great American empire crumples, as every empire – even Byzantium itself – has crumpled. The Chinese empire succeeds it, but, of course, the intervals of empiric succession are getting briefer and briefer. The U.S. had 120 good years; I’d give the Chinese maybe fifty. But what happens after that? Haven’t a clue.
But really, I have to figure out what I’m doing to make my life this hard and tone it down several notches. I’m sick of staring from the edge into the precipice. Time for another view.
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Of course, to allow myself to do that would be to be self-destructive in the worst possible way because there is just so much fucking stuff to do.
I keep reminding myself that as of July 1, it all gets so much better. Casssandra and I will make really good housemates, there’s so much I like about her, she’s smart, common sensical and no bullshit. I have a really strong presentiment that we will be sisters of choice. I have never wanted to be a solo householder; I have always preferred living communally with groups of people, although as a married woman and a mother, I sort of had to do the solo householder thing.
I have the best possible feelings about what happens after July 1. I’ll be close to my NYC peeps, life will be good.
But life until July 1 seems pitted with these big yawning abysses. So, so easy to lose my footing and fall through. So help me I’m terrified and paralyzed. The proverbial cat crossing the intersection at 72nd and Broadway.
Does turn out that there are literally 30 postings a day on Craig’s List for summer sublets. Most of them are students, so I’m not sure how they’d respond to a senior citizen who only wanted the damn room for a month. But it means I should be able to find something.
Hopefully what’s wrong with the car will turn out to be the fuel pump and I can get that fixed this week. Life this far out in the country is very difficult without a car.
I’m one of those people for whom life is very hard. I think – I have to think – that it’s something I do that makes it hard. There are a lot of people – I won’t say “most,” but certainly a lot – for whom life is not hard, who actually seem to enjoy being alive. That’s never been me.
The things I enjoy about being alive have always been very cerebral things. I like the stories, the great narrative sweep of history, the little eddies pitching and swirling beneath it. I would love to stick around as a fly on the wall to see how things turn out in 50 years. The great American empire crumples, as every empire – even Byzantium itself – has crumpled. The Chinese empire succeeds it, but, of course, the intervals of empiric succession are getting briefer and briefer. The U.S. had 120 good years; I’d give the Chinese maybe fifty. But what happens after that? Haven’t a clue.
But really, I have to figure out what I’m doing to make my life this hard and tone it down several notches. I’m sick of staring from the edge into the precipice. Time for another view.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-05-07 02:00 pm (UTC)KIDDING! You're surrounded by tough circumstances and bad timing and stuck in a place that doesn't suit you and all that can be very depressing. Think of July 1 as a goal you need to put forth effort to get to. You do have a lot to do and I don't envy you.
Hey wait, I have a lot to do, too. Eek.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-08 06:15 am (UTC)Yes, I relate to this very much. I wonder what it means to be happy and how you get there? Is it for everybody? Am I simply handicapped?
no subject
Date: 2012-05-08 12:55 pm (UTC)The rest you can figure out when you get to a more suitable starting point.
turning of one's brain
Date: 2012-06-10 12:09 am (UTC)i'm unconvinced that in of itself, it makes life hard, but it certainly doesn't help.
(i've always wondered if i should cultivate a practice of medidation.
(have you tried it? did it work?))
while i know you are very cerebral, i've always though of you of someone with a great deal of heart as well.
Re: turning of one's brain
Date: 2012-06-15 02:21 pm (UTC)Never consciously meditated. I do go into what I can only describe as fugue states all the time. I'll get really caught up in some pattern of light and shadow on a wall, look at a clock and realize I've been staring at the damn thing for an hour. This is definitely not meditating, but it does perform the function of turning my brain off.
i've always though of you of someone with a great deal of heart as well.
Well, thank you! I am kind of plucky in my doddering, senescent way. I also think I'm unusually empathetic. Although one can never be sure whether one is empathizing or projecting, I suppose...
p.s.
Date: 2012-06-10 12:11 am (UTC)Re: p.s.
Date: 2012-06-15 02:15 pm (UTC)