This week has been full of the satisfaction that comes with quiet accomplishment, mixed with the bitterweet realization that what I've been anticipating has come, and is on its way away already.
I suspect it's simply the drag of winter that has caused the weight in me lately. It could be academic fatigue, or the fact that I don't make enough money to actually pay my bills (how do I pay my bills, then, you ask? I'm not really sure. It's a month-to-month process of getting lucky really), or some other unidentified pull, but it's undeniable that the last few weeks have found me heavy. It's been a great pleasure to steal extra minutes of sleep in the morning, to go to bed early in lieu of doing homework, to stay at home an entire day and get lost in an online fantasy; it's been equally difficult to conjure the vim and vigor required to be a productive human being.
I spend a lot of time deciding exactly what to blame. As a post-industrialization human, I expect myself to operate according to calendars and clocks and around holidays and weekends. However, I happen to exist on a tilted planet at a higher latitude than my ancestors originally inhabited. During winter, I feel as if my biological clock and my United States Citizen clock are in discord. This discord brings with it a sleepy magic, and I try to focus on that. Maybe you know what I mean.
In the end it doesn't matter at all the reason I am feeling a certain way. I try to keep that in mind. Reasons are impossible to assign anyway. I find it more worthwhile to synthesize my present into a valuable experience than to spend time hypothesizing on my past (at least in theory).
The anticipation I mentioned is due largely to Spring Break and the plans Tiana and I have for a hiking trip. We are going here. Upheaval Dome. It's a large crater in the middle of the southern Utah desert, near Moab. The geological jury is out as to whether it is an impact crater (the more popular possibility), or a salt dome. Either way, I'm very excited. I am very attracted to other-worldly landscapes, especially very isolated ones. Last summer I went to Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake with my lover and one of my best friends. We spent a few hours wading through ankle-deep, bathtub-warm milky water that seemed to stretch for miles in any direction, fading gently from navy to pink toward a horizon of salt crags. We imperceptibly grew cakes of salt up our legs as we walked about, sometimes near one another and sometimes surprisingly distant. If I had awoken from my normal life to inexplicably find myself in that landscape, I would have been easily convinced that I was the object of an alien abduction. I hope to find a magic like that again this week on our trip.
The best part of my week was taking my 12-year old orange Persian cat Gustav to get his annual haircut. They shaved 5 inches of fluffy fluffy feline into a suave little gentleman fit for a goddamned ragtime bowtie and vest. I am honored to call myself his cat daddy. (And believe me, I call myself that often.)
The really best part of my week was verbally brainstorming an idea for a short movie with Tiana. It might take a year or so to actually get it produced, but we have a pretty solid outline right now and I'm planning to wake up tomorrow and start working on some rough dialogue. I can't tell you anything about it because it's a secret so shut up. I'm really happy about the ideas we have had so far, though. I want to tell you but I can't. Just shut up.
I hope you all had moments worth remembering this week, and that you also have things worth looking forward to. I'm going to go play some Zelda on N64 now.
Here's another song to dance around to, from the other side of Deerhunter:
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