110518 now firmly back in the “why the fuck am i doing this” camp, i sit here with my sore back, my dim awareness of the funciton and flavor of sentence structures, my twisted neck, and a hollow feeling the result of of the conversation with megan last night about her boyfriend’s indiscretions. old friends are best dfrieds, firstd thoughts are best thougts, etc; it all depends on wherever you’re at. sometimes the morning thing doesn’t work. that thing where you’re supposed to have freer, more flowing thoughts, more liberal images, more generous associative powers-- sometimes it just doesn’t work right now i feel absolutely no trace of magic whatskecer i’m simply nothing bu tired nagging thoughts nag at the base of my mind like individual letters turned into invisible silent mosquitos of an unfathomable thirst you are what you eat i like anthony powell’s sentence structures but now i’m self-conscious this seems *rather* more pointless today than it has in quite some time; i am always on the cusp of giving up and closing my eyes for the few sweet moments before millie -- whoops too late the floor is speaking in its creaky voice; and so it begins; the day; in all its pedestrian horrors “i have things to do” beats against the inside of my forehead like a sickly bat, drunk on his own melancholy i have other people’s problems to address my own reputation to ensure towers of inconsequential nonsense to attempt to solidify really my entire job really the entirety of my job really my job is really my job comprises vouchsafing certain sanctified forms of make-believe: convincing the school board, if indirectly, that my thoughts have shepherded the thoughts of the rowdy and irrascible young into the kinds of thoughts that are supposed to-- to what? build and sustain suburban sidewalks? be safe, just wealthy enough so as not to be a threat to whatever stability remains? i’m supposed to teach people how to go to college and pretend that everthing’s ok, basically. what is teaching? it’s so distressingly abstract. i have this feeling lately that i’m pouring gallons and gallons of thought-energy into the wrong facets of my job; that the energy is really going towards proving to the “man” who writes my paychecks that i’m essential or actually “doing” something. in reality, teaching itself is so incidental, so tangential, as to be almost effortless--if it exists in the penumbra of real activity, of making or building something, of-- just, why did we make a profession out of teaching? we should have made professions out of all the things we think are important, and then yeah but does the idea of apprenticeship scale? if everyone is supposed to go to school and learn the same things-- why is-- i just-- i truly can’t think this morning my head fucking hurts and i can’t sleep hardly at all for the last few days and i’m not sure how much of it has to do with thc or other factors, and i’m still worried about my decision to drive across the midwest for thanksgiving and and and it’s hard to be a good listener when you have an opinion it’s hard to be rational about boys when you have daughters it’s hard to be bisexual and yourself when you can’t get past your own dreams it’s hard to keep doing a pointless exercise if there’s no one around to share in its pointlessness it’s hard to live and be happy when you’re socially isolated and mind-numbingly lonely you play out scenes in your mind, scenes that aran’t going to happen, like when you confront the little shit’s parents about his assault of your daughter (this you’ve already imagined numerous times; it’s hard to listen and be supportive when you have strong opinions based on a potent cocktail of your own insecurities and your interpretation of what she’s told you hers are; or as that askance-glancing whiff of a boy said in that gay cafe that existed for what, maybe half a year or so at most, down by the ragged southeast end of the gay district where warehouses and indistinct weeds and parking lots begin to encroach on the enclosure, the oasis, “this is all too het-ro-sexual for me!”); phrases fly off your pillow into the aqauarium of the sleepless night; you could let them go but you feel obligated to “capture” some of them because you feel like daydreaming (which is disctinct from actual dreaming, even if it occurs at night) is too easy; doesn’t build or make anything; even a commitment to a sequence of words is some “thing,” isn’t it? i don’t know i really don’t know i’m just having a hard time today did i mention that my head hurts? and that i’m reading a book that makes me think “HOW DID HE DO THAT?” and the answer, i’m pretty sure, is not by constantly second-guessing himself, skirting around what he wanted to say, and having lengthy conversations via text with his daughter about her little shit boyfriend’s socially retarded self-centered offhand insensitive thoughtless unchecked imnpulses. my head’s fuzzy; my mornings assaulted by the presence of other human beings; i’m going to miss them when they’re gone god can i please just give up for now and try again later? there’s a peculiar ache to that; but i’ll be back; you’ll see; like a vulnerable faithful daughter; you’ll see; trust me ps: to some extent i’m complicit if when he said “you look ridiculous” to her when she put on my big shirt as a jacket i didn’t at least say “no you don’t” - unconscioulsy adhering to the rules of the boys’ club where we subtly undermine the confidence and the adulthood and the dignity of women whenever we can also whenever in the morning (yes i’m tired but shit) and i see millie but don’t even ackowledge her these are my failings. fortunately they’re not as immediate and dramatic as the failing in my dream (or is it? maybe the big and the dramatic are a blessing because you can see): i was on a train or bus and i forgot to stop and get off and pick uop megan. i was literally pounding the sidewalk screaming in frustration and rage.