music: Godspeed You Black Emperor!- f#a#oo
I woke up this morning in a basement hide-a-bed in Milwaukee, and am now sitting in my apartment in Boston. I spent the last hour or two putting everything away from my sojourn to the homelands of the midwest and now, by all measures, I’m back. My break is over and everything is pretty much just as I left it, ready to be picked up and worked through. Breaks are cruel in this regard.
I spent a good deal of time organizing and sorting and getting from here to there with the least amount of friction possible. Mom, as always, was indespensible on the Milwaukee end, and tmo was a lifesaver on the Boston end. I brought back my drumset which made things a little trickier than usual, but I miraculously didn’t have to pay extra for any of the oversized and overweight boxes. Between a rolling cart and tmo’s truck, the drums found their way safely to 9 Lothrop and will see good use there under the care of our newly engaged friends, along with OGD, Jeff, and the dog called Sam. They couldn’t have a better home. I guess anything beats them collecting dust in the attic as they have been doing for the past 2 years. But time for music will become a luxury in the next few months.
Now that everything is back in its proper place I can take a minute to glimpse at the state of things here and now, and it does look like I’m standing under a tsunami. I have to finish researching the solitude paper, finish planning a unit on water for my teaching, and write two essays on cognitive theory between the 20th and 23rd of this month. I inherit my own chemistry classroom on the 26th. I realize that right now is the moment of calm before the mad rush; once things are set in motion, I don’t see them slowing down until June when I graduate. And here I am, already thinking about the summer and beyond. I’m getting ahead of myself. There are promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
Taking a break was nice, but it really killed any momentum that I had as far as school was concerned. I hit a nice pace here and had figured out a decent and somewhat sane schedule, but no more. Milwaukee has made me soft. After spending two weeks in revelry and sleep, having meals cooked for me, driving everywhere, enjoying the quiet and the open space, I got soft. I lost some sort of edge that the hustle and bustle, the crowdedness, the intensity of Boston and the East coast keeps sharp. The two places are indeed different, and it is only when I slip between worlds that I see just how different they are. Although I sometimes would have it otherwise, I am glad to be out here, caught up in this chaos and din, being pushed into action and productivity. Things in the midwest move such that I’m not sure I would have the momentum to accomplish all the things I’m setting out to do here. Tonight, though, it’s more of a struggle to work with such pressures after I’ve been free of them for the better part of two weeks. I have gone soft, out of shape. It’s been quite a nice time spending my day how I most would like to spend it, but here, back in the real world, I have promises to keep. The post-travelling ritual of putting everything back in its place today has given me some degree of focus; tomorrow the workout resumes in earnest.
Posted by davidtaus at January 5, 2004 12:03 AM