so…tonight marks not only the start of a new year but the start of a new decade, which hadn’t really hit me until oh…20 minutes ago, i guess?
i never put much stock into new years celebrations and retrospectives, so i was definitely caught off guard. and then i realized…holy shit a decade.
and what do i have to show for it, really?
it’s no great big secret that 2009 was one hell of a bumpy ride and i’m nothing short of fucking OVERJOYED to see it finally come to an end… but i’d be lying if i said there wasn’t some good that went with the bad (and the ugly!). in all honesty, it seriously was one hell of a year…and i can’t believe how quickly time just slipped through my fingers. am i ready for 2010? who knows? will it be better than 2009, i sure as shit hope so! am i gullible enough to think all my troubles are passing with the year end? definitely not.
january: it was pretty uneventful for me, if memory serves (which it usually doesn’t). i remember being beyond stressed and freaked out about my job and feeling like i was ever on the verge of being fired. what would i do with my life? how would i survive? constant, constant freakouts and worries. every little thing piling up. without work how would i handle bills, rent, health insurance, kitty care, car expenses and maintenance and so on and so on and so on. every day was a mild victory and preparation for the next uncertainty over the horizon. i did not think i would last out the month and it was frightening and tiring after a while. also, we were supposed to see radio 4 and did not. first concert of 2009 totally let me down (though not their fault). also: chinese new year was delicious, as always.
february: was pretty much eaten up by super bowl (oh my god…somuchfood!) and battlestar galactica. seriously, i’m not sure there was anything else worth it, and that’s ok because february is a stupid, short month anyway. one highlight, though, is my very first trip to providence. it was brief, but sweet.
it’s practically worthless. work was still maddening and a bit scary (now, with lower pay!), and i was trying to balance sorting out my work issues with my ladyparts issues while there was still health insurance to be had. frustrating squared!
all wrapped up in one go.
and then covered by randoms.
i admit i love teen witch, don’t you judge me!
lately (sometimes) i’ve been feeling like i wish i could go to art school. which is weird and so wrong. i hate the douchey hipster art crowds around new england and the art schools out here are lame but really what i’m consumed with is this unrelenting urge to create and this constant, gnawing frustration with my inability to do so. it’s not like i’m all ‘oh i’m so creative and overflowing with fabulous and magnificent impulses to make art!’ it’s just…
god, i don’t even know how to explain it properly, you know? and the art school in my mind is all mixed media and studios/ware house rooms with various types of natural light and limitless supplies and opportunity and space…and…it probably doesn’t even exist in the real world, you know? and definitely not in mine.
i just feel so constrained. i have images and ideas and all sorts of vague creations swirling around in my head until they get bigger and bigger and start pushing at the edges of my skull and stretching out my brain until it feels like they will burst out on their own whether i’m ready or not. clawing and clamoring and gnashing their way out.
i feel like i never finish the things i start. ever. which is also uber fucking frustrating. i’m sick of seeing these seemingly-simple artistic crafty things that everyone else is doing and finding them so fascinating and fabulous and spending money on them when it makes me have these stabbing pains of ridiculous internal guilt like: why are you spending money on that stuff when you should be doing it yourself?
that’s not so self-involved or whatever as to discount anyone else’s artistic prowess…but i don’t think i’m trying hard enough at all, you know? and sometimes i can’t even begin to start because it’s so maddening to not be able to just close my eyes and project the images in my head onto paper or canvas or sculpture or whatever…
why can’t my mind and my hands cooperate?
but i’m probably psyching myself up and psyching myself out all in the same go. because, who the fuck am i to think i could paint or draw or sculpt or whatever, right? lord knows if i were really in a place where i had to create art or had to write or had to craft then i would not be able to do anything but, right?
because if you’re really trying to convince yourself you’re, say, a writer…then you can’t do anything but write?
right?
i just don’t know. i have itchy fingers, man. itchy fuckin’ fingers.
right now, right this instant?
is to go home, put on my pjs and put on some six feet under. because i have to say, i love that show now.
really, i do.
and later tonight: dexter!
(such a couch potato, yet none of these will be viewed on tv. hah)
2 years
732 days
104 weeks
17,568 hours
1,054,080 minutes
63,244,800 seconds
i don’t really talk about it. i don’t know how, or even if i would really want to in the first place. but it’s always there, always. i can feel it, pressing down on me and closing up my throat and blurring my vision.
some days it’s easier, some days it’s harder, but every day it’s there. every day. it’s there.
it’s there every day.
my heart and my mind wriggle and writhe around it the way your tongue investigates the gouged out hole where a tooth used to be post-extraction. curious, investigative, cautious. except, if you have a tooth pulled eventually the wound heals. it closes up and you forget about it and go about your business as usual. it’s temporary, transitive, fleeting.
there is really nothing, nothing on this earth that neil patrick harris is involved in that i do not love.
really.
it’s like, a physical impossibility.
