good morning

maybe i should stop trying to set a title every day. but the title gives me some sense that these days are all different, a notion that becomes more important to me as time goes on.

as if i need more help every day to distinguish one day from another.

this isn't a problem i thought i'd have, but maybe it's a problem everyone eventually finds. my days are packed, my months ahead are packed, and sometimes i forget to live the moment i've planned, or just the moment.

what are you so afraid of?, i ask myself every day. what are you so afraid of?

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02 May 2016 07:18

Filler

I've developed a stock response to people because I know there are questions they want to be asked so that they are given an opportunity to talk about something they need to say out loud, yet I have no interest in hearing. I promised myself a long time ago that I'd never be one of these people. I haven't yet decided if it's better not to do it or if it's better to ignore people.

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05 May 2014 21:18

Era Vulgaris Noon

My collective tardiness for the week exceeds four hours, and there's still not enough motivation to get moving in the mornings. I cannot tolerate feeling rushed in the mornings. I cheat this by starting my mornings before I go to bed, and make the act of waking and sliding into my clothes, my breakfast, my bicycle, as part of a continuous flow.

Fridays always feel as if they aren't happening. I push forward through a headwind that persists regardless of which direction the road is pointing. "Do you need help?" she asks when I approach the door, when I'm untangling my hair from my face.

"Nah, I've got it," I claim, but she's held the door for me anyway. "Thanks a lot!"

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14 February 2014 15:00

Dawning

Heavy snow creeps up the way a good rain never can; I didn't notice it until the dawn broke and I coal make out the contrast between the blue light of morning and the orange glow of sodium vapor lamps. One confused and over-enthusiastic bird was rapidly silenced by the blanket of snow draped over the trees, and I only realized what had happened overnight when I noticed that I could not hear the usual stream of early morning traffic. The packed snow muffles the sound of tires slapping against pavement, and only the occasional crunch of chassis against a bank of ice gave me a sign of cars on my street.

I find the most fascinating questions about humanity lying along the edges of boundaries, examining the very existence of delineations and wondering why lines, sometimes seemingly arbitrary, are drawn in one place and not another. The lines are our way of asserting that something is known, that enough knowledge has been collected in order to justify the existence of that boundary. The lines give a sense of control, a demarcation from which we can proceed; the lines are a challenge, because I never feel as motivated to do something as when someone draws a line in the sand and dares me to cross it.

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09 February 2014 19:21

meta-meta and routine living

I'm flopping between desiring the accountability that comes from blasting content into the unspecified void, and fearing the stage of my life when I did that as a pure expression of adolescent ego. I've gotten past the point of self-importance that let me think everyone and their mother wanted and needed to read my drabbles, but I still wish I had that importance.

The winter this year has been colder than most that I can remember, and I'm grateful to be in a house with functional heat. The thermostat maintains a comfortable 57F in the center of the house, but the old radiator system means that my room hovers somewhere in the upper 40s. Swaddled in blankets, I can bear it to work at my desk for a little while at a time, but eventually I have to move back to the dining room table to warm up. My shins press against the radiator grid and I wrap my blanket around my chair so the heat builds inside.

Sometimes, I want to delete everything I've written as soon as I've performed the act of purging the words from my mental palate, and sometimes I don't believe I have the right to make that decision. The present I should not be permitted to perform acts that a future I would find distressing, and there have been countless times when I have been glad to have the opportunity to scan over archives of the past I.

I'm settling into a routine of waking, breakfasting, biking, working, exercising, eating, cleaning, and sleeping that is not displeasing, but I wonder how long it will take before I get restless. I can keep maintaining my productivity indefinitely, especially as I continue to improve my ability to compartmentalize and assign blocks of time to certain tasks. A problem I have always had is my inability to switch gears smoothly, and perhaps that is the one thing I can correct at the moment, and then I will see how things are.

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21 January 2014 21:25