Where was I…

I can’t believe it’s been five days since I’ve posted. My thinking is muzzy, my eye catching on the mealy nectarine in front of me, the tv static pattern of the grey industrial carpet tiles, the spilled papers at the periphery of my desk. None of it adds up. I feel like I’ve been thrown for a loop, yet nothing very traumatic has happened.

Things that could account for my current distraction:

1) Going rapidly from very little available cash to feeling flush – in other words I was broke on Friday, got paid Saturday and received extra unexpected money on Monday, a dangerous situation for me, since it encourages me to feel like I’ve had to deny myself, and so now I need to splurge. Thus is a pattern that I would constantly fall into during my days of big debting.

2) My therapist ended our session with an acute insight on Friday, the kind that makes me have that despairing feeling that I know what’s the right thing to do and yet am dreading doing it.

3) I’ve spent the last four days wandering in and out of electronics and book stores (see 1 above). I often used to use retail environments to soothe and drug myself, surrounding myself with things I could pick that would never reject me.

4) I got new blood work done today for the first time in 5 months. When I see the results, I’ll know what the effect of the new dietary and activity regimes have been.

5) My nipples still hurt from somebody’s birthday celebration.

6) There are two pork chops in the fridge that have been sitting there three days and I don’t know if it’s still ok to cook them. I am, I think, unduly paranoid about how long food remains fresh, becoming convinced that something must have gone off simply because I haven’t paid attention to it consistently.

7) I finished reading “The Jane Austen Book Club” on Friday evening and began reading Thomas Disch’s “334” immediately afterward. The first made me apprehensive about my social life, and the second is making me depressed about my immediate surroundings.

8) The essay I worked on yesterday, that I meant to work on today, that I emailed to myself this morning, that I placed on my slim little removable hard drive (just to be certain) and carried to work with me, won’t open, because it’s saved in some inexplicable format, for a reason I can’t fathom.

9) I have messages waiting for me on every phone line.

10) there are fare too many postings on my friends list to allow me to figure out what I should read next.

0 Comments +

  1. I’ve spent the last four days wandering in and out of electronics and book stores (see 1 above). I often used to use retail environments to soothe and drug myself, surrounding myself with things I could pick that would never reject me.

    I know the feeling all too well. I had a record/CD buying splurge on Saturday to kind of fill up the empty space, and it wasn’t a good idea. I think you and I are (mentally) alike in some ways.

    The essay I worked on yesterday, that I meant to work on today, that I emailed to myself this morning, that I placed on my slim little removable hard drive (just to be certain) and carried to work with me, won’t open, because it’s saved in some inexplicable format, for a reason I can’t fathom.

    It’s likemy stepmom said, «I thought computers were supposed to make life easier

  2. I’ve always emailed drafts of things to a hotmail/yahoo account when moving from computer to computer. For extra support, I’ll copy and paste the text directly into the message along with an attachment.

    I wish I had insight for the rest, or even the pork chops, but I too have a suspect nature to the lifespan of foodstuffs.

  3. Give them the sniff test and marinate them in olive oil and lots of spices. That should take care of those sore nipples. Now, as for the pork chops….

  4. Luckily I haven’t posted for days, so you don’t have to read my journal. And I haven’t been phoning you about our photo session either, so nothing to worry about there…

  5. Day old pork chops, blood work, sore nipples and acute insights? Fuck it all, Nayland – we’re just happy you’re back!

    (I know I should say something about rabbits but then I’d feel just like a cheap porn star)

  6. #3 is way too familiar. And, in my case, it’s mostly vinyl, which means I can’t even listen to it, say, on the way to work (since, unlike Homer Simpson, I don’t have a turntable in my car – heck, I don’t have a CAR…).

  7. Glad you’re back.
    Your relationship with money is similar to mine. It’s not the cash, it’s what you can do with it. When I’ve got it, I hoard, anticipating the drought. When I don’t, I yearn. In either state, spending is very hard to do. I either feel that I can’t afford anything, or guilty that I indulged myself.

    Where’s Daddy warbucks when ya need him?

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