26 December 2003 (Friday)

on to other procrastination techniques

This journal, as I'm probably the last to acknowledge, is dying, ladies and gentlemen. I've always been a poor correspondent, and now it's compounded by the fact that most of what goes on in my life must be kept under wraps -- both personal and professional. All that's left are abstract philosophical musings, which eventually bore me (possibly you too), and blather-nothings about my daily life that give nothing away about what I'm actually doing, which bores me even faster. There's also politics, about which I am woefully uninformed and better off reading than writing, at this point. So. My friends, you will have to connect with me some other way. Strangers, thanks for stopping by, despite the BLOWOUT SALE sign.

For those of you who would like to know: life is good. I am happy. (I've figured out by now that I have chronic episodic depression, or something like it, which means every few months or so I lie on the floor and think about ways to kill myself, but really this is exaggerating the matter and it's a head cold compared to what other people go through. In any case I don't have a head cold right now.) I have everything that I could ever want, and I'm aware of all of it the instant I wake up in the morning. I am surrounded by love. I have remarkable friends, many of whom are also impressive to boot, but this is not what makes them remarkable to me. I have a family whose gatherings always seem like Rockwell paintings. I have Soren, whom I have explained enough. And, recently, I have had time. To breathe, if nothing else. It feels good.

A long warm hug to you, yes you. Happy holidays.

posted by enjelani @ 02:42 AM PST [ link ]

13 December 2003 (Saturday)

living with it

The problem with this apartment is what I associate with it -- memories that have collected and still cling to the walls. A number of painful arguments have happened here. There's been a lot of curling up into a ball and staring at the ceiling, mired too deep into a strange despair even to move. And just walking in the door sometimes reminds me of all the lonely evenings I've spent here, working in solitude when I might have been somewhere else, connecting with people, laughing. This is where I've come when I had nowhere else to go. This is where I do all the stuff I hate doing.

An incomplete picture, of course. There have been plenty of perfectly innocuous nights in this apartment's history with me. The light is beautiful at any time of day, and I love going down the stairs at noon to eat at the Thai restaurant next door. I was standing in this doorway between the main room and the kitchen, curling my fingers against the thick white paint, when I took a phone call that changed my life. I remember hanging up and bouncing all over the room, onto this chair, spinning here on the linoleum floor.

There are times when I badly want a house. Just a two-bedroom place with a basement or garage, and hiking trails nearby. But this is both financially impossible and logically untenable, and anyhow I suspect it's just a desire to move on from this place in particular. Bury the bad memories; press the good ones into a scrapbook and put them away. Don't live with them. Start anew.

For now, a compromise. Loft the bed. Hang the pictures. Change the lamps. Buy a couch, curtains for the bay windows, cloth for the kitchen table. This place has never been home, but maybe that's because I've never allowed it to be. Time to find out.

posted by enjelani @ 01:34 PM PST [ link ] [ 4 comments ]

1 December 2003 (Monday)

please stay on the line, your call is important

You might all have left me for dead, and I wouldn't blame you.

I am in the midst of some kind of cold/flu thing, the kind of ailment that arrives as predictably as the phone bill when one works too much and sleeps too little. My immune system, bless the poor bedraggled thing, held up bravely while I needed it to, and now that it's finally safe to collapse for a bit, it has promptly done so.

On a separate note: I seem to have a distinct problem answering emails and returning phone calls. This is not a good thing when one is self-employed. Or when one has friends who occasionally get tired of trying to keep in touch. But there it is. I think the phobia at its root is one of losing control; I don't like living hour to hour responding to other people's wants. I like having time on my own terms. But this is hypocritical, of course. Where would I be if people never replied to my questions, or never called me back when I needed them? Common courtesy exists for a reason.

Which is a roundabout way of saying, to whom it may concern: sorry. I'll get back to you. Promise.

posted by enjelani @ 04:59 PM PST [ link ] [ 2 comments ]

6 November 2003 (Thursday)

if i never loved i never would have cried

Most days it seems like my heart is made of plastic: a sturdy material, manufactured, the child of chemicals poured out of vast industrial silos. It is useful. It molds neatly against beauty and stores its shape; it bears minor scuffs with the steadfast cheeriness of logic. The cabinet handle, the casing of the answering machine, and my heart -- all everyday objects, all taken for granted. A warranty card came with it but we've misplaced the box, not that we'll ever need it again. Maybe it's in the attic.

But sometimes...sometimes the plastic turns into something different. A dandelion. A nectarine. And the blue sky not BLUE.SKY but my god how the wind is blowing across this endlessness that frames our little world, can you feel that, and suddenly I am proud of tall buildings and community gardens and suddenly I am amazed to be of the same species as the beautiful woman taking my endorsed checks at the bank saying will there be anything else for you today and suddenly I am so very, very scared of losing Soren, to accident or aging or anything else. Right then my heart is not plastic but something porous, fragile, alive and therefore capable of dying. As I walk I feel as though I'm cupping it in my hands, not sure if I'm protecting it or offering it. Times like these I learn the most.

posted by enjelani @ 10:00 PM PST [ link ] [ 5 comments ]

16 October 2003 (Thursday)

reading list

The trend of Posts Without Real Content continues. Here are the books I'm working through these days:

Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics. An excellent introduction to the dismal science to a layperson like me. Think Econ 101 as taught by one of those passionate, entertaining young professors, clearly biased but also clearly up on his research. Don't agree with everything in here, but that's the idea of an introduction, I guess -- to point the way to further inquiry. Probably will go back and read it a second time, with a pencil. I figured I should get through this before I launched into the others.

Jane Jacobs, The Nature of Economies. I'm a sucker for nonfiction presented as dialogue. This is to economics what Janine Benyus's Biomimicry is to engineering: why not mimic a system that's nearly perfected the art of complexity? Haven't gotten far in this one yet, but it's holding the attention span. I should get Jacobs's Death and Life of Great American Cities too.

William Greider, The Soul of Capitalism. Haven't cracked this one open yet, because I just heard Greider interviewed on NPR this morning. Funny how blips show up on the radar right as you start looking for them...

Also, Good Poems, ed. Garrison Keillor. I guess it's akin to buying a Mozart For Romantics compilation, or worse yet, an issue of Reader's Digest. But I opened to random pages in the bookstore and loved three out of three, dammit, and the success ratio hasn't fallen much since then either. Truth in advertising.

This was supposed to be a post about my thoughts on the first book, and it was supposed to have a big "more" section and spawn an even bigger set of comments. But an early Friday morning is in the cards, and I would rather sleep.

posted by enjelani @ 10:09 PM PST [ link ] [ 10 comments ]

5 October 2003 (Sunday)

sorry, my pockets are empty

I have only so many words in me, at any given time, and these days I've been handing most of them out to private parties. Handwritten letters to my parents, emails to friends, conversations with Soren, jotted thoughts in my private diary. There aren't many words left for The Last Embassy.

There is also the problem of visibility. I'm startled now, reading back at what I dared to write in the beginning. Of course, that was when I thought I was anonymous, read by close friends and maybe a fellow blogger or two. Now I feel like I want to be careful. I don't want to give anyone away, including myself, though I'm sure it's patently obvious to anyone who cares to investigate a little. This, too, narrows down the supply of possible words.

>> more...

posted by enjelani @ 06:55 PM PST [ link ] [ 2 comments ]

24 September 2003 (Wednesday)

fly-by

There's a cat in my laundry.

My favorite season, autumn. It's a good time for noticing.

The line between laughing and crying is so thin these days. So much being open. Too much?

Morning becomes midday, midday becomes dusk. Time doesn't let you hold on to anything. In two weeks I'll be a quarter century old.

A thought: can becomes easy when it's disguised as must.

posted by enjelani @ 07:05 AM PST [ link ] [ 4 comments ]