Wow

This is my first post since April! I think what happened is all that responsibility stuff I was raving about finally overwhelmed me to the point where I stopped thinking and just kept moving. Survival mode. Then I purged it all at a bonfire. All-night dancing and celebrating. I was caught off-guard by the level of catharsis I experienced. People talk about that word, catharsis, but I wonder how often they actually experience true release. I think that was my first time.

So now, I have no excuse to procrastinate, haha. While all those pressures have eased up with the ending of the spring term, I am at risk of becoming overwhelmed by the summer to-do list I've made for myself. You know, all the fun stuff I never have time to work on. I realized that I tend to pile stuff on, like I'm afraid of sitting still. So, I making myself take a day off, sit still one day a week, all summer. I'll see how long that lasts, I guess.

Research gives me cramps

No post today (or yesterday, really, since we're now into the A.M.) Kickin' butt on research project!

I have a cramp in my shoulder from hunching over the computer. OW.

Progress

At last! Well, in one area, at least, at the expense of others.

You see, I haven't had a working kitchen since sometime in February. My dishwasher leaked water everywhere, resulting in a parade, in and out of my house, by insurance adjusters and contractors. All the cabinets were ripped out, and the appliances had to be moved into the dining room. The floor was dried out and refinished by tough-looking men with noisy machines. This was all uncomfortably smelly and stressful. Then the Doing Nothing began, and that seemed worse.

Not being able to cook or do dishes is sort of novel at first, but then one gets tired of trying to figure out meals that the microwave can produce or that are electricity-free. And washing dishes in a dishpan on the dining table is not all that much fun. It's a little like camping, without the good parts. So, we started using paper plates and plastic utensils (gasp!) and eating out a lot (which also sounds like a good time, at first).

The Doing Nothing phase meant lots of wistful staring into the empty kitchen but no actual painting or remodeling or anything. We'd decided to do it ourselves (haha) to save money. Paint was purchased and even a new sink cabinet and other kitchen-remodeling goodies. But Nothing happened. I felt too confused and crazed by all the other things going on (once again, ladies and gentlemen and other non-existent readers, the Main Point), so not much happened after that. More wistful staring and some fantasizing with IKEA catalog in hand, mostly while choking down yet another frozen Lean Cuisine or an instant something-or-other. Meanwhile, my child whines that there's never anything good to eat and gets constipated from eating too much instant something-or-other (mostly generic Easy Mac), and I get depressed (more).

But today, there is progress! Happy day! The kitchen is almost entirely painted, and all systems are go for the sink and stove to be put in SOON. It may be that I am euphoric from inhaling paint fumes all day, but I'm so thrilled at the prospect of having a working kitchen. I'm not even especially worried about the fact that I didn't spend any time at all today on the research project that's due in three days.

Why I Miss Douglas Adams

Some time ago, Douglas Adams, of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame, wrote a silly little book entitled The Meaning of Liff. This is a dictionary of words for concepts everyone recognizes but has no words for, such as "the vaguely uncomfortable feeling you got from sitting on a seat which is warm from somebody else's bottom." Thanks to Adams and co-writer John Lloyd, this can now be expressed as "shoeburyness." Apparently, Adams, Lloyd and others came upon the idea as the result of a drinking game, in which a player stated the name of a town, and another player had to assign it a meaning. They quickly realized that there are quite a number of things that are universally known but for which there are no words. Hence, shoeburyness. It helps that English towns often have ridiculous names.

I mention this not because I am a fan of Adams' work (although I am), but because one of the words from The Meaning of Liff gave me insight into The Main Point of this blog (see previous post).

The word is "farnham." I experience farnham on an almost daily basis, and it's somewhat depressing. Farnham is the feeling you get at four in the afternoon when you haven't got enough done.

That's me. I miss Douglas Adams.

Why "fragmented"?

Where to begin? Part of the reason I began this blog was to have a place to put my head, which is too full of too many ideas, responsibilities, anxieties, frustrations, and desires.

This may come out like a rant: it's the one thing about my life that make it "hard." Even suggesting my life is difficult seems totally arrogant because I live in a safe, generally happy environment where people are mostly nice to me. I eat regularly, it's unlikely that anyone will try to shoot at me (like in Iraq) or bulldoze my house while I'm in it (Palestine) or kidnap me for money (insert African country here) or stone me for sleeping with someone (insert unpleasant middle eastern country here). So, what's the problem?

It's less of a unhappy problem and more of an uncomfortable dilemma. My time is split (or should be) into all these tiny slivers, between service to my community (multiple places and levels), my own personal interests, my desires (like writing), my homework for a class that may not do me any good, and the pressures of homeschooling a child who has Asperger's Syndrome (this is a new name I've been given to understand why my child is so difficult, but more on that later).

At the risk of sounding like a whiner, I started this blog, with hopes of connecting with other people who feel as disjointed and confused as I do every day. I wake up with a sense of dread some days, wondering how I'm going to do it all, and often I go to bed at night reflecting on how little I was able to accomplish. In between those moments, however, there are bursts of energetic action and insight, and moments of satisfaction and wonder. Sound familiar at all?

Just For Once

Instead of feeling overwhelmed by too many choices, I'd like to feel bored.

So why start a blog? It's one more choice, one I can settle down with for a few moments and not feel guilty. I chose it.

Today, I should have been doing specific things (a list was even made). These activities benefited other people, generally, not me. I am a chronic volunteer; it's damn near pathological. It must be the validation I receive from being needed that convinces me to volunteer in the first place, but later I experience ongoing sensations of being trapped from which there's only momentary relief.

I chose to avoid those activities and spontaneously built a sad-looking compost bin out of old bricks I had in my garage. They were old and painted yellow: one split when I chucked it out of the garage into the yard. I stacked the bricks in a Red Rider wagon and hauled them around to the other side of the house. I pushed a row of them down into the wet earth and then stacked more on top, the result is something like the ruin of a burial cairn. Sweat ran down my stomach and soaked into my shirt, and I had dark, dirty bits under my fingernails. I raked up leaves and filled the space I'd built, then rushed inside to retrieve the plastic bowl full of kitchen waste to make my first deposit.

It was weirdly satisfying. About an hour was spent on that little project, an hour that I wasn't being "productive." No one helped me, and it's unlikely I'll be validated or praised for it in any way. Why'd I do it? I'm not going to dwell on the why and wherefore, just the satisfaction. Whatcha think about that?