Effervescent

Effervescent (adj): 1. to bubble, hiss, and foam as gas escapes 2: to show liveliness or exhilaration

The champagne I am drinking is effervescent, but I am not. I don't bubble any more, with anxiety or excitement. I'm on Prozac now, and it has evened me out so effectively that I don't worry all the time, I don't feel a tightness in my chest or an inexplicable anxiety in my whole being. But I also don't feel inspired - I have no drive or passion of any kind. I can't write and I don't have any particular dreams. I have some small worry about not being able to pay for my life a year from now, after graduation when the loans dry up, but I can't muster a substantial enough concern to force myself into any sort of action. I wonder if the trade was worth it - if the lack of terror is worth the absence of exhilaration. I don't want to go back to the ongoing misery of before, but I don't see anything in front of me, and the void isn't worrisome. And that's perhaps the most troubling prospect of all.

But of all the problems to have, this isn't a bad one.

Situation

Situation: 1. the way in which something is placed in relation to its surroundings b : site c archaic : locality... 5.relative position or combination of circumstances at a certain moment b : a critical, trying, or unusual state of affairs : problem c : a particular or striking complex of affairs at a stage in the action of a narrative or drama.

I have, as my previous post make clear, been considering my situation - in all senses of the word. The effect, on reading back over it, is like a broken record. But today, we consider geography.

I have been poking around Craig's List looking randomly at apartment listings in different cities : Seattle, St. Louis, San Francisco, Boston, etc. I want to move after graduation, even if it's just around this city, but I think it will be good for me obtain a new situation: in location, employment, and health. I have come again to the part of my mood cycle that is intrigued by the future, and excited rather than simply, wholly terrified of all the possibilities. I like this part.

I have broken off my diet, ordering a pizza last night and dinner with my grandparents tonight. I'm taking a week off, and then I want to start cooking for myself. Clean out and restock my fridge, start with some simple recipes, and go from there. I'm tired of putting crap, even diet crap, in my body. Part of improving my situation must be improving the care I take of myself. Groceries tomorrow!

Flexible

Flexible: characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements

I would like to be more flexible. To that end, I am starting to do some yoga at home and hope to work at least one class a week into my schedule. I would also like to ease up on my invectives against myself and my self-proclaimed cowardice. I would very much like to achieve some sort of calm, rather than a brittle equilibrium, and will work on my flexibility.

Pusillanimous

Pusillanimous: having or showing a shameful lack of courage

There's a challenge floating around online to live with only 100 personal possessions. It sounds marvelous. I feel so constantly weighted down with things and school and books for school and business attire and heavy, heavy things. I'm making a list tonight of the 100 things I would take if I could leave. And of course the "if I could" is a lie, since I choose every day to stay here.

I saw Eat, Pray, Love tonight with J. It was wonderful or awful, depending on how you look at it. If nothing else, it made me want to get in my car and drive away. I've had this urge before, getting stronger and stronger lately, but I'm too much of a weak coward to actually do it. If I could wake up one morning with the courage, I would just be gone. Take my hundred things and a full tank of gas and find out exactly how far I could get and see where I would end up.

I despise the voice in my head that reminds me that this is a cliche, that extent of the idea's unoriginality is as vast as the landscape into which I would escape if I could. I hate that nasty little voice because it's right: this is a cliche, the dream of a college kid younger than I am, the mundane abhorrence of materialism and capitalism and ism-ism and so on and so forth in a long and sustained war of attrition against whatever passes for a "hippie" these days, or a happy person, because the critics are all pusillanimous idiots who must resort to comforting themselves with their own jackassary. So there.

I am making a list of 100 things. I am starting with that. And I know that I will still be here in the morning and the great Something Else will still have to wait for me. But I am starting with this. I'm starting.

Captious

Captious: 1. marked by an often ill-natured inclination to stress faults and raise objections 2. calculated to confuse, entrap, or entangle in argument

There is something missing in my life, and it has nothing to do with my intellect. I have in the past been too cynical or too analytical or too something-twisted and captious to consider that I might require analysis and nourishment beyond the life of the mind. But the cynicism and the biting critique I have always favored are strong now.

I bought a translation of the Dhammapada, one of the fundamental Buddhist texts, and plan to do yoga with a friend. I want to start planning for a future where the captious voices in my head are muzzled and finally flee. I want I desire I need I strive... I am not yet a Buddhist. I don't even know if I'm trying to be one. But I want to go to sleep untroubled and wake feeling rested, after sleeping through the night. I don't remember what that's like, and I will try anything I can that will help me remember and experience it again. Eight hours in a row is surely an attainable goal.

Story

Story: an account of incidents or events b : a statement regarding the facts pertinent to a situation in question c : anecdote; especially : an amusing one

The weekend was amazing.

I have started listening to the podcast "This American Life." Everyone said it was amazing, and so of course I doubted them. But the great They was right, and it's fantastic. I especially like that it's broken into segments that are short enough for my commute to work.

I love stories. The form or genre is almost irrelevant, as long as the format does not interfere with the story itself. I want to be entertained to have related to me the events of other worlds and the feats of heroes. I can think my own thoughts - entertain me. I adore stories. I appreciate them, devour them, absorb them, regurgitate them. They sustain me.

I have a number of stories from this weekend, but they are not all mine to tell. Feed the veggie bears.

Hiatus

Hiatus: 2. an interruption in time or continuity

I am leaving tomorrow for my cousin's bachelorette weekend, and won't be posting until I get back. I love being other places but I generally don't like traveling. At least the flight from here to there is fairly easy, and I don't have a layover. Sometimes I wish I could take a long hiatus from "real life."

I was talking to a friend about Sleeping Beauty the other day, and explaining why it's one of my favorite Disney movies. First, I think she's the prettiest Disney Princess. Second, sometimes, I think it would be great to take a really long nap and wake up to find that everything has been fixed. Not all the time with every problem, but just a restful hiatus from...everything. I realize this might not be a particularly "feminist" position (though what does feminism really mean? I have no idea), but I also don't think it's a "weak little woman" idea. It's a tired person's idea.

So now I get a long weekend to hang out with a bunch of great women in a huge house we are renting for the occasion, withe no deadlines or schedules. A mini-hiatus, and a good start.