"My hands are shaking; I'm cold with sweat. The bowl has shattered upon the floor. The cereal looks so pathetic strewn beneath me. It makes me hate myself. I would crush it into dust if I could move. Nothing seems to me more unjust than spilled milk.
It occurs to me that my mother has never thrown anything at me before.
It makes me feel better, really.
Well, no, not better. I don't have the words.
Because I couldn't really tell you what's better or what's worse than this. You might as well spin a man blindfolded and ask him which way is north, cast him into space and ask him which way is down. For years. Spin him for years. Years and years.
It just feels like there's some order to this.
It's somehow comforting to a man like me.
That even everything doesn't extend forever.
That even eternity ends.
I was worried, you know, that it wouldn't."
My experimentation is yielding some results, albeit slowly.
On Mondays and Wednesdays I'm participating in the awkwardly-named "Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children", sitting in on a class that will prepare me for some volunteer work that I am confident I will enjoy on numerous levels: teaching philosophy to non-majors is fun enough as it is, and I love kids with an almost maternal depth, most likely because we have so much in common. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have boxing practice in the mornings, though I sat out this Saturday because my nose is still sore from the last bout. As usual, I have to work on my defense.
I'm watching a lot of good movies. Scarecrow Video is the best video store on the entire West Coast. And Bushy has been in town, though he's leaving soon for more pre-med adventures, this time in the Southwest. Tomorrow I'll start volunteering at the local Theosophical Library, also the biggest on the West Coast, since I always need some excuse to plunge headfirst into absurdity and because I've always enjoyed grasping toward the origin of ritual and secretly enjoy toying with metaphysics, even if I would be happy if the entire discipline were relegated entirely to the occult. The fixation on immortality and communing with the dead disturbs me, again on multiple levels. Though you'd think I'd be more disturbed simply about hanging around people in a secret society who practice an archaic and outdated mystical tradition.
I'm playing Persona 4 through a second time, too, to get the better ending. Oh, man, it's got to be one of the best games I've ever played. I wish I could share it with you guys. Thankfully, Street Fighter IV is coming out before Bushy leaves. And then Star Ocean IV after that. A lot of fours.
But in the effort to "get moving", and create a structure all my own, I'm losing track of what I actually care about a little. Not so much that it's critical. I'm just finding it harder to write. Maybe I need the context of academia more than I cared to admit. That's alright. I'm fine with that. I just wish I could make a little more of an effort. I wish I were surrounded by heroes again. I've been spoiled by that. But then, this was all part of my strategy.
Course, my own heroism becomes more apparent to me this way, as I had hoped and anticipated. My acquaintances were worried by my hitting the gay clubs all by myself; my friends were amused. Ha! I should tell you guys about it. Since you guys know how I dance, and all. They kept sending their friends to tell me for them that they thought I was cute. Like, what is this, high school? But I felt no disdain, even when they were unable to make eye contact with me. Me! Harmless me. There's a power in fearlessness that does not need to exert itself to be felt. The sword of my passion remained sheathed, as I awaited those who it would not blind.
Please don't read too much into that sentence.
Well, anyway, it's a great story, and now I have, in the words of Scarecrow staff-recommended anime Ouran High School Host Club, a "homo homo supporting cast". There's a first time for everything.
Ah, but even as I send in the application to be a non-matriculated grad student, to take a couple classes just to keep myself on track, I'm reminded of all the boxes I haven't opened, all the duties left unfulfilled. Perhaps it's testament enough to my progress that I'm not paralyzed. But I can't be satisfied with that.
Life is very good, if a little overwhelming.
Just checking in.
And that stuff at the top: that's all made-up.
Baby steps, I guess.
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