AbsurdBeats

All that there is to write, and all that I don’t write. Bits and pieces, effluvia from the day, surfacing only after the computer is turned off, or things worthy only of quick hits.

So, some of the jottings:

NaNoWriMo: It’s a week from National November Writing Month, and I’m starting to get a bit freaked. Fifty-thousand words! In a month! Jesus Christ!

There is no possible way that I can do this. I have one day off a week. And while I write fast. . . I have one day off a week.

Ah, fuck it. Try and fail. That’s life, ain’t it?

—-

Blogging extras: I see RSS and CSS and Twitter and Deli.cio.us (or whatever) and all this other crap and I go, Huh? Should I be doing something with these?

Nah. Or at least, not now. I don’t have to know everything before I start—do I?

—-

Crushes, cont.: I neglected to mention the anti-crushes, the horrifying obsessions with ideas and worldviews so on the other side of you. Pat Robertson. Jerry Falwell. The 700 Club. Trinity Broadcasting Network. Rod Parsley. John Hagee. All crack for the lefty brain: you know it’s bad for you, but you can’t. stop. watching.

And then, of course, there’s Ayn Rand, the Objectivist wonder drug, turning readers into zombies. Best not to engage them at all.

Like my crushes, I carry the obverse inside me, too, but not willingly. Nope, viruses lodged in my brain,  waiting, waiting, to be reactivated with just one           more            hit.

Brrrr. Scary.

—-

Settling in: Two and a-half years in New York and I’m still not settled. I would like to settle.

When I moved to Bummertown, I thought it would be my last city. Before that, I lived in Feline City, which I loved, but which was also located in another country. In fact, I moved to Bummertown because a number of people had said, Oh, you like Feline City? Well, then, you’ll love Bummertown!

No.

So when I heaved out of there to NYC, I did so with the idea that I would stay—but knowing it could all go bad.

It is not bad. I would like to stay. But for this to be real, for this to be my last(ish?) city, I gotta sink my feet into the concrete.

Hasn’t happened yet. Soon, please, soon.

—-

Procrastination: Sixty papers. Not long, not difficult to grade.

And yet I don’t grade.

Baaaaaad professor. Can I blame my status as an adjunct?

—-

God and alienation: Still working my way through the Bedlam Farm archives, and reading about Jon’s conversations with the Hound of Heaven (Pastor Steve from a local church).

Jon often quotes from Thomas Merton, and he writes often about his struggles with his own spirituality and doubts. This past winter he started blogging about his regular conversations with Pastor Steve, and his uncertain steps toward God.

I, too, for awhile engaged with a local priest (variant: Episcopal) about God and doubt, but after awhile felt like I was simply wasting her and my time. I am not uninterested in God—duh—but I don’t feel any great need to move out of my doubt. I wonder why other people believe, and what God and their relationship to God means to them, but I’m fine with my role as observer rather than participant.

And I admit to some bewilderment at the notion that one can get closer to others by getting closer to God. How does that work? Isn’t that simply a kind of alienation? Running away from the world rather than opening oneself to it?

Not that simple, I know, and it’s entirely possible that opening oneself to God helps one to open herself to the world (cf. Caputo and Vattimo and the concept of weak theology).

Still, as someone who struggles with openness, I see God more as an escape than an entry.

—–

S&P.A, who I knew in Bummertown, have just had a baby. S. was in labor for 25 hours (!), but in the photo of her and her son O., she looks terrific. Really beautiful.

And my roommate’s sister also just had a son. Cute, she said. Round head, round face, and loooong fingers. (Roommate and I are getting along better, these days. All for the good.)

Welcome to the world, boys. We’ll try to keep to keep the lights on for you.