Confluere

Everything is coming together.

Not in a good way. Not in an edifying way that enables me to rationalize all of the bullshit that has occurred over the past few years. Not in any way that allows for a deeper understanding of the consequences of daily interactions or a more refined philosophy of life. No. Nothing systemic or methodical. Everything is coming together in a rabble, a murder, a mob. It's fucking pouring.

All of the small academic slights have come to bare full force and simultaneously. I have to deal with everybody's attitude at once. I have the pleasure of meeting everyone's reactionary well-worn drama with my own clenched patience. Everyone else has needs they can't ignore that require my immediate attention and whose requisite work is the subject of endless critique. Never mind the disproportionate duress. Half of them have the gall to judge my facade while they're at it. Amazing. But our failure, as a culture, to self examine is another topic altogether. Everything is breaking down. All of my electronics, for one, are inching toward the door whenever I leave the room. All of the animals that aren't degrading are enacting vengeance on my other possessions. We'll leave my health at the allusion. My relationships are showing their hands a tad too much and my current responsibilities are largely unwieldy and undefined, recognizable only by the ghosts they carry, the diligent, shadowy repercussions of possible failure. I would hate to see them materialize. I am being reminded that I am a player in all of this and none of it was for my benefit so much as for the benefit of others.

Strangely, I find myself taking solace in consumerism. The only peace I find during the day is in my phone (now destroyed) and when I try to imagine what finishing this is worth I find myself dreaming of a small apartment in Chicago, dark and cold outside but white with exposed floorboards and warm shadows from flame on the inside. My own kitchen, private and exposed, with bread baking and no one else's clutter or cleanliness or toxins to worry about. I find myself folding the perfect sail-white featherbed in my mind, touching it, remembering its acquisition as an addition and not a replacement. Imagining well paid-for minimalism. Anyone who knows me well would worry that this is happiness for me now.

What A Mess

Just the regular rigmaroll. Trying to keep up with my obligations and trying to forgive those with greater power who aren't bothering to keep up with their own and expect me not to notice. Watching people make decidedly bad decisions and keeping my mouth shut because, after all, it is their will. I hope to be done with all of this soon. I hope to move off and work well and live alone in a small but private apartment with my animals and my dignity and to just...be quiet for a time. Then I will rebound with noise and force but for now, I have put in my 16 years and I am deserving of peace. Meantime these plans are halted by a churlish insensitive bureaucracy. As if the forwarding of an email takes at least a week. I am trying to pretend that I am not more humorless and the more tired than ever I have been before. I am aggrevated by strangers' selfishness nearly constantly. It's just not the time for joyous endings and I think we all know that I would have been out of here earlier had it not been for my illness. My new doctor is trying to put me through a horrific set of exams in order to teach me not to be afraid of horrific exams, as he thinks I have some anxiety about them. He has admitted that they're entirely arbitrary and that he knows the results will be negative already. Meanwhile people harp loudly about matters of little import and ignore the elephants. To think that as a child I thought I saw some reason to this place. It's hard to motivate people to stay on their shit when a failure to do so only negatively impacts you. We'll see if I can salvage my academic record yet. For now this situation feels dreadfully like being trapped in a painful dark comedy. At least I found some tapioca pudding.