stress

oh shit. shit shit shit shit shit.

meeting with advisor brings on (project-level) crisis of faith.
news at 11.

i have a raging headache, i hate (some of) my (soon-to-be-ex) housemates. i'm totally nonfunctional because most of my stuff is in boxes and my room has that familiar smell of cardboard and tape. i always forget that tape has a smell, until i move.

and i have a ridiculous amount of work that i've heaped on myself, for no apparent reason. well, none other than that it will be vital for my long-term success, i suppose. but still. i didn't really have to start all this now. why do i always think i have to be ahead of the game? why isn't good enough good enough?

why can't i just move to my new apartment and hang out there for a few weeks just doing nothing but unpacking and listening to music and drinking chilled lillet blanc like a normal student in the summer? why??

more vehicular annoyances

do you think it's bad if the DMV has a (completely) different license plate number on all of its documentation for you than what actually appears on your car? i mean, the VIN matches, my name and address and DL number match. it's just completely the wrong plate number on the title and registration card and everything.

which seems...suboptimal.

walking gingerly across the bruised earth

me: sometimes i'm surprised you and i are friends because it seems like you would see me as a heathen and a sinner

Will: haha.
you're my favorite sinful heathen friend.

***

fighting a minor depression, feeling adrift and apart and not sure how to occupy a space. i went to a party and wanted to leave as soon as i got there, so i drank too much and acted stupid. i don't feel like working on any of my projects and i don't want to pack.

oh i'm tired of talking about myself.
i'll be fine in a couple days.

motion

home.
exhausted.

woke up 4.30a central time (=2.30a oaktown time) and managed not to nap. tonight's sleep will be good, i hope, back in my own bed and so tired. gym in the morning. farmer's market. housewarming. then pack, study, pack, study. rhythm.

i packed up all of my fiction, math&cs, poetry, and philosophy books tonight. the linguistics books remain, i think i might be up to two boxes of them which is nice. i feel like i haven't even made a dent, but my room is already a disaster. i hate packing, i hate moving, i hate chaos. i want to be there and settled.

soon.

the quiet and still in my room was making me sad but packing always makes me a little depressed, too. "study hittite" is what will would say.

state of the midwest

thunderstorm teasers today. huge gusts of wind spattering rain into the windows and blowing the deck furniture around. a couple of small, faraway rumblings. once, maybe, a little flash, out of the corner of my eye. i have high hopes for tomorrow at the lake.

tonight we went out to dinner for my mom's birthday and the waiter/owner of the place refused to serve me alcohol. i swear to god. i told him i'd left my wallet at home and he was like "i'm sorry, i just can't do it. you look about 18, i would get fined thousands of dollars if you aren't 21."

dude...it's my mom's 60th birthday, do the math.

whatever, i didn't really care, but it was funny. i get carded now and then, and i always suspect they're just trying to be charming and flattering but this guy was belligerent and grumpy, he just really thought i might be underage.

i wonder how many 18 year olds come in and order bottles of barbaresco for their parents, though.

close temescal stars

and the signifieds butt heads with the signifiers
and we all fall down slackjawed to marvel at words!
as across the sky sheet the impossible birds
in their steady, illiterate movement homewards
(joanna newsom)

hi summer. i've been waiting for you. i'm going to fill you up with papers and institute and projects, nsf and writing another abstract and studying for MA orals, fieldwork and making a website with video, and reading, oh! the reading. i know i should read fiction but instead i crave to read old syntax dissertations. what is wrong with me?

i'm heading to MN for a week and do you have any idea how hard i wish for a thunderstorm while i'm there?

do you??

everything hits at once

today i received word that the abstract i submitted for the conference in leipzig in the fall was accepted. which means, i guess, that i will be flying to leipzig to present my paper. which means, i guess, that i will be writing the paper over the summer. wow.

i've never been to germany!

this is pretty huge, actually. the list of other presenters is intimidating. and they're publishing an edited volume afterwards with selected papers from the conference. so there is the possibility of a publication, too.

i'll write my paper in my new apartment.
hee hee.

calm before the change

after we came out of the bar i waved to my cohort and said goodbye because they were all going to a's house to keep the party going and i was going to sea salt. and a came running over and threw her arms around me and was like no! don't leave me! and then there were five or six people around me hugging me and pushing me with them down the street, they were like "no, you're coming with us" and i was just laughing and getting pushed along in this moving crowd.

it was a really good moment.

then i thought well i'll just walk down to sea salt i'm sure i'll sober up by then. i'm sure i'm a super fast walker when i'm mildly drunk. um. no. i'm not. i drunk called two friends and then i got there and ate lobster.

did you know lobster is from the latin word for locust? the -ster is an assimilated old english ending that was applied when the word was borrowed into OE from latin. and why the c changed to p (which i guess later voiced to b) is a mystery.

you know. in case you were wondering.

i'm in yr syntax, hax0rin yr derivation

you guys, i am maladaptive.

so i worked for the last four days straight on this big research project which was one of two papers due today. well, i worked all the time when i wasn't watching c's bigass tv, that is. it called to me though, i swear..."come to me...come watch the fast and the furious 3: tokyo drift...you know you want to..."

yeah.

i'm tired and i want to be done and i have the second paper to finish still and submit by midnight. and i cannot. get. motivated. seriously, i have like two more pages to write. i've collected and presented all the data, now i just have to write some thoughts down about it, so easy. and here i sit. i have written exactly one paragraph in five hours.

maladaptive.

it doesn't help that my professor told me it doesn't really matter! you're not supposed to alleviate my stress, you're supposed to be scary and threatening, damnit!

this is a lame post.
this is bad.
i feel deranged. TWO PAGES stand between me and summer. two.

maladaptive, i'm telling you.