Not Like Last Year
In the spirit that it’s better to write something, even if it’s not perfect, than to write nothing at all, I’ll try to fill in the last few months.
Swine Flu: Had it for two weeks from late September to early October. Fever coming and going, some auditory hallucinations, a whole lot of things moving around in my head. My first day back at work felt like someone had pushed the ‘reset’ button on my mind; it felt like I was looking at everything in a completely new way. Solutions that weren’t previously acceptable suddenly were. That feeling was completely gone two days later. I wanted to write more about this, but don’t know what to say. It made me think of the anthill analogy in GEB–specifically, after the anthill is washed away.
Tire: Went out to Dad’s for my birthday after the flu passed. Saw a loose tire on the interstate that, like too many things, led me to question my perceptions. It was rolling across the median from the oncoming lanes, crossed my lane right in front of me, and bounced off the front of the car at my five o’clock (making a Don Martin-like “THOONK!” sound as it did so) and back into the median.
While telling someone about this, he asked if it was an entire wheel or just the rubber tire, and I said it was the whole wheel; I clearly remembered seeing the center of it. But how did I see that? The several seconds I had to watch it approach, it was edge-on to me. Then I thought about the bounce; I remember seeing it bounce off the front of the car beside/behind me, bouncing over my car, and off into the grass — how could I see that?
Fat: I’ve gained about fifteen pounds since September.
Employed: Work continues to suck, and I continue to stubbornly not believe in alternatives.
Christmas: I dreaded it altogether too much. It went fine.
Time: This year feels different, but I can’t be sure it has been. I’ve continued to make the same mistakes, and still live in this apartment full of boxes. Every time I think I’ve found something new to think or believe, it’s turned out to be a lesson I should have learned years before.
There’s still a lot of bitterness and self-recrimination over past relationships, real and imagined.