Really. Utmost misery. Inability to function as a human being. I've emotionally shut down and all I can do is apologise to the people around me because I can clinically see that its not good. But I'm unable to really rouse myself from this. The only positive thing to do is channel it fiercely and declare war.

Something must work out. I demand it.

Deeply miserable and I dont want to talk about it

"The ships are lost. Mindarus is dead. The men are starving. We know not what to do."

So mindnumbingly STRESSSED!!!!

There were actual footprints across the river!

You tell me you've seen that before and then I'll stop saying it again and again to myself. I can't believe some things: that the river is frozen enough and that someone would be as stupid as to try. At least the footprints went from end to end instead of ominously sliding into a hole in the ice (evil grin)

It's been a tiring day. I had my first interview. That damn interviewer put me at my ease and I was fairly myself. Not good. I am not so hot as a candidate when I'm being chirpy and full of energy. I seem like a pre-schooler. And he shook my hand in a funny way when he bade me goodbye. All of this points to a bad interview. 

I am so tired and stressed. Gosh. Bwaah.

I took the long train back home. I could have taken the express but I wanted to sit awhile and look out and see the houses go by and idly imagine. There were dogs playing in the snow and I missed my own snuffly dog. Sigh. The day is short and it's night already. No balm for this injured soul.

Beam in my Eye

This little tale happened this past December. I was in the cafeteria with a friend and it was very crowded. Right next to us, there were two black men talking. They were dressed simply if a little carelessly and had broad southern accents. At first, I didn't hear what they were talking about. I felt irritated, we were studying for an exam and we were students at the school. these two guys were clearly not from our school and they didn't look like faculty. My internal reaction was high handed, snobbish, contemptuous.

Then I began to hear what they were talking about. They were discussing African literature, the consciousness of this in the literature from diaspora and the roots of African American cultures and the emergence of this into current behavioral trends. I can't tell you how amazing it was to listen. They were energetic and invested in the topic and there is nothing more fascinating than to listen to a person truly passionate about his subject. I had my accounting finals in 3 hours time and I tell you I stopped studying for a full half an hour to listen to their conversation.

I am so ashamed of myself. Is this racism? Was I being racist in my initial assessment of these two men? In a cafeteria of tired exam weary students, I assure you, theirs was likely to be the most intelligent conversation. But I started with such unnecessary and biased judgements. Here is the beam in my eye. It's frightening and I am scared but I have to ask myself this question. Could it be that I saw two outsiders who were black in my cafeteria and I felt something akin to superiority? That is an ugly ugly question and I don't know how to answer it. What I do know is that I was the fool, I was studying something as stupid as accounting (ugh) and they were fabulous conversationalists, genuine thinkers and definitely intelligentsia (probably faculty or graduate students from the divinity school or from the arts). 

I am so horrible. I swear to myself that I will be aware of this tendency and work hard to overcome it. 

The First Fall of the Season

I had a group meeting at 5 yesterday, the weather was a balmy -8 and I was rushing up the slope across to Wrigley building. My left shoe began to lose traction. I felt it happen in slow motion. It slid to the right, unbalancing me, and the right foot left the ground and all of me fell in a heap atop my left knee.

Ouch.

Long have I tried to put this day off. The first days of snow and ice, the roads of sleet in November; I thought my time had come then. Alas I couldn't keep it off forever.

Lump on my knee, ouch.

Update: Fell again today. The right knee this time.

Everyone in Chicago is talking about the cold. Weather is always classified as polite conversation, a filler for when there is nothing else to say. But the weather here has personality and a malevolent presence. It walks with you, you feel its absence and changing moods. Talking about the weather is as active a topic as you could wish for.

Yesterday we plunged to -27C. The cold bit, gnawed and clawed at every inch of skin exposed on my face and the wind needled its way into my bones. My marrow, my essence was cold, the roads were white, the trees were black and the sky iridescent in midnight.

They tell me this is as cold as it gets. I am so glad, I was getting to the end of my resources.

Clutch away at the knots but they have been tied many many years ago. Cry futilely as you see the decisions made again and again. It has happened and no amount of wishing or pain will undo it.

I can palpably feel the gossamer shadows of the world that might have been. oh I don't mean one thing above any other. its just sometime when I read of anything in past tense and I am idle, I begin to imagine things go different and the years tumble out of that cusp like a roll of tape, each inch growing differently. 

I am alone and the books about me change their titles, throw longer shadows and the world outside begins to look strange.

"In 406 he was a member of the Boule, and his tribe Antiochis held the prytany on the day the generals of Battle of Arginusae, who abandoned the slain and the survivors of foundered ships to pursue the defeated Spartan navy, were discussed."

A horrible sentence. Nothing in it gives away any of its meaning, the convoluted structure hurts my eyes and I understand two words out of three. Why do people write like this? Do they think it makes them sound more scholarly? I'll prytany them..

(Heading over to wiki to try and unknot brain)

A tabasco boat made my heart thud.