It's raining, but there ain't a cloud in a sky. Must have been the tears from your eye.

[raybear]

"Attempting to burrow and disappear into admiration of certain works of art, I tried to make such deep and pure identification that my intergrity as a human self would become optional, a vestige of my relationship to the art. I wanted to submit and submerge, even die a little. I developed a preference among others, for art that required endurance, that mimicked a galactic endlessness and wore out the nonbelievers.....By trying to export myself into a place that didn't fully exist, I was asking works of art to bear my expectation that they could be better than life, that they could redeem life. I asked too much of them: I asked them also to be both safer than life and fuller, a better family. That, they couldn't be. At the depths I'd plumb them, so many perfectly sufficient works of art become thin, anemic. I sucked the juice out of what I loved until I found myself in a desert, sucking rocks for water."

Damn you, Jonathan Lethem and your New Yorker article, "Beards", that made me cry last night while reading.

Ah, Friday night and I'm on livejournal. I'm a rockstar.



I've now moved onto the 2-hour section of my illness. In the mornings I feel like hell. I start to wake up and feel better, so around 11 amish, I get a burst, then 2 hours later I need a nap, then 2 hours later I'm chipper and less icky, then 2 hours later I need to be horizontal, etc. etc. until bedtime where I usually lie there for over an hour unable to sleep and then the whole thing starts again the next day. This has been the latter half of my week.

But at least my brain is more together. I've done a little e-mailing, done a bit reading, even done some writing. Five minutes an hour. That's my new motto. If I can spend five minutes of every hour writing, every day, with a nice chunk of an hour or two in the morning to make up for sleeping, then I will not only get more done, I will be constantly generating and in a writing mode. Also, write slow. I tend to do this: wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, OK GO NOW DO IT DO IT DO IT, stop, projected completed and tired, so I wait and wait and start over. I did this in my office job all the time. I do this often with home tasks, where I sit around then go on a cleaning and laundry and home decorating frenzy all at the same time.

So, now it's write slow. Write carefully, write intentionally, concentrate, and do it for five minutes. I guess I'm trying to combine all the things in my life that I'm trying to 'work on' under one path, so they all feed on each other.


Damon's in town and this morning I took him to Cozy Corner for brunch. My first real outing of the week, and it felt good to walk that far, even if I was a little tired after each trip. The food was really good and hit the spot, and when I left the hostess talked to me by name and asked about my meal. She remembered my name from when we came in and asked for a table. And this place was busy. I was a little touched. We spent most of the afternoon napping on the couch or watching My Neighbor Totoro.

This weekend is about plugging away at the paper (five minutes an hour!) and helping out DYA if/when I'm able to that she doesn't spontaneously combust. But I think she'll be pleasantly surprised with how fantastic it will all turn out, assuming she's awake to notice it.

Comments

[gloeden.livejournal.com]

I've got to read that article. That guy summed up a feeling I can relate to VERY WELL.
I hope you feel better soon and give Damon my love.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

what are you doing tomorrow night?!?!

come to Logan Square. for this: http://www.livejournal.com/users/dommeyourass/109670.html

you can FINALLY meet DYA. and you can hang out in the back with the cool kids (aka me and Damon!)

i just got your e-mail and thought "why aren't we neighbors?" cause i'm super lazy but i miss you. though we do live fairly far apart and neither of us has cars. but still. we should find a time. i'll get back to you on a more specific one-on-one interaction plan.

[gloeden.livejournal.com]

Interesting.
Yes, I think.
And we aren't neighbors because your 'hood scares me.
I'm such a 'fraidy cat.

[isis-venomz.livejournal.com]

OMG...best icon ever.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

ha! it's all about the unfamiliar, i guess, cause your 'hood scares me a little. well, not your block, which seems all nice and wholesome, but some of the surrounding areas.

it's a good thing you never visited me in humboldt park -- i lived there everyday for 9 months and found it scary.

[gloeden.livejournal.com]

You know where you are?
You're in the Jungle, baby...
and you're gonna Diiiiiiieeeeee!