Day 851: Labeled
Ernie nailed it: “You’re in a funk.”
Yes. Yes, I am.
He’d called me weeks ago. Not once, but twice. A couple back and forths on Facebook. And me falling asleep on the sofa, which was becoming a usual thing. Finally, I decided. I’d call him tonight. At midnight. (Hey, it’s only 9pm in San Francisco.)
And it was like being at the Vineyard, talking while we’re falling asleep. Yammer. Yammer. Back and forth. He left his job. He has several freelance opportunities. Developing a new idea. Dating. Friends. Freed from the tether of an everyday job. Energy! Cool!
I have nothing to complain about, and yet, I complain. Well, not complain as much as try to explain why I have too much to do yet claim I’m bored. Why I have these things that I love to do, like write and swim and proof, and yet I don’t make as much time for them as I should. I go to see theater. I tear it apart.
Funk? Hell, yeah.
But why?
I don’t know. I’m election-weary. I’m cranky about changes in the climate at work. No, I’m not exercising enough, and no, I’m not eating that well. I’m prone to napping, or at least sleeping too late. I’m prone to being lazy. To not having a plan.
Is it because September came and went and I wasn’t truly in school? (I’m taking a class, which is good, but it’s technical and specific and I’m not that jazzed about it. Or I’m not allowing the time to be jazzed about it. I like it when I’m doing it. But I’m not making the time…)
I don’t have a Big Trip on the horizon. Is it time to get that rolling? But where? Paris again? Phoebe’s house in the Loire Valley? Italy—Florence/Tuscany, Venice/Rome? Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Money, money, money. My student loan payments start in December.
It’s 1:30am and I want to be at work at 9am. How’s that going to work?
And no, I’m sad to say. I have done not one thing to advance my thesis into a book.
Oh, this post has been written a thousand time. Deja deja deja vous.
Get off my butt. Do something. DO something. Do SOMEthing. Do someTHING.
Grrrr.
I’m going to end this before it spirals down further. I need a re-do machine to spiral it up!
Up up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon! (Too many late-night baby boomer TimeLife music collection commercials!)
I did my laundry. Every piece of clothing I own is clean. Does that count for something?
I’m counting it. I’m checking it off. Something done. Something positive. Hoo Ray!
Funk, funk, funk, funk, funk. If nothing else, I should embrace it. Wallow in it, right? But for no more that a brief few days.
The election AND my brother’s wedding will be over a month from now. We’ll be well on our way to hiring a new staff assistant. The funk will be a thing of the past. My Christmas shopping will be started and 2013 will be facing us square in the face.
The planets are in transition, said my sister who quoted her universe-connected friend. It’s going to be a challenging year. I’m riding the wave.
______________________________
The Blue Terrance
If you subtract the minor losses,
you can return to your childhood too:
the blackboard chalked with crosses,
the math teacher’s toe ring. You
can be the black boy not even the buck-
toothed girls took a liking to:
the match box, these bones in their funk
machine, this thumb worn smooth
as the belly of a shovel. Thump. Thump.
Thump. Everything I hold takes root.
I remember what the world was like before
I heard the tide humping the shore smooth,
and the lyrics asking: How long has your door
been closed? I remember a garter belt wrung
like a snake around a thigh in the shadows
of a wedding gown before it was flung
out into the bluest part of the night.
Suppose you were nothing but a song
in a busted speaker? Suppose you had to wipe
sweat from the brow of a righteous woman,
but all you owned was a dirty rag? That’s why
the blues will never go out of fashion:
their half rotten aroma, their bloodshot octaves of
consequence; that’s why when they call, Boy, you’re in
trouble. Especially if you love as I love
falling to the earth. Especially if you’re a little bit
high strung and a little bit gutted balloon. I love
watching the sky regret nothing but its
self, though only my lover knows it to be so,
and only after watching me sit
and stare off past Heaven. I love the word No
for its prudence, but I love the romantic
who submits finally to sex in a burning row-
house more. That’s why nothing’s more romantic
than working your teeth through
the muscle. Nothing’s more romantic
than the way good love can take leave of you.
That’s why I’m so doggone lonesome, Baby,
yes, I’m lonesome and I’m blue.
