10.18.2005

cranky

i have been ignoring this blog for way too long because lately, my attitude about life has been for crap. i think there's a very distinct point at which i started being a crank and it's when i came home from boston. i keep referring to this past summer as an absolutely wonderful deliberate de-railment of everything i had become. but the awful truth is that in exchange for a minor notoriety among a select group, i threw away some independence and, you know, adulthood that i am missing desperately right this second.

no regrets, though, still even now.
i've been and done a lot to end up empty-handed.
to quote cake: how do you afford your rock and roll lifestyle?

i've gone prodigal son (yes, i mean daughter) and left with a full pocket only to return with an empty one. and i see my mother's disappointment when she's looking at me, and it alternately makes me feel sorry for myself and resentful of her because how easy it must be to look down upon me from the golden tower of a successful life. i'm still back at that place making the decisions that are building my tower, thank you very much. the foundation is only now being laid.

i'm only twenty four years old. and yes, right now i'm a crank because i'm STILL unemployed, i owe money i don't have, i just today found new health insurance because I GOT SCAMMED BY DIRECT BENEFIT SERVICES (so humiliating). today my mother took me out and helped me find a new cellphone plan and new eyeglasses, and it was simultaneously the most generous and discouraging thing that's happened since the plane ride from boston. i feel like such a loser. sometimes it can't be helped.

the point, ultimately, of the blog was to be honest all the time about what i'm going through. right now, this is it. this is all i know how to be right now, and i'm desperate to grow and change. i'm back at that "anything goes" choice platform, and people are suggesting relocating to minneapolis, relocating to san diego, relocating to north carolina. i have friends in all those places to help me along. but i can't shake this desire to live in chicago, to work towards living in the loft i've dreamed of since i was nine years old, to be a museum "regular," to get into the music scene, to develop the friendships i have here, even though there's a competing desire to get into samana buddhism. or maybe i'll just keep telling myself i'm cool and worth the trouble, i'll just keep blowing smoke up my own ___

Samana: contemplative. This word is derived from the adjective sama, which means "in tune" or "in harmony." The samanas in ancient India were wanderers who tried through direct contemplation to find the true nature of reality -- as opposed to the conventions taught in the Vedas -- and to live in tune or in harmony with that reality. Buddhism is one of several samana movements. Others included Jainism, Ajivakan fatalism, and Lokayata.

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