david taus

Dis-integration, Dis-Orientation

music: Digable Planets- The Blowout Comb

Sunday night is always a slower time, one that allows a brief examination of the week previous and a foreshadowing of the week to come. This week, time has moved unusually and as such, it’s hard to sit down now on Sunday night and process just what has happened over the past couple of days. Still, at this late hour, I feel the need to do just that. Much has happened this weekend, and much more is to happen this coming week, and I would like to pause now to gather my thoughts as much as possible before I am thrown into motion and am forced to adjust to an extreme shift in place and perspective. This is less about insight and more about getting things out there, putting them down on paper (well…), externalizing it all with the hope that I’ll feel better about all this business once it’s out. We shall see.

This weekend was turbulent. Friday was a behemoth 20-hour day that left me spent and ill. I forgot to bring my new migraine meds to school with me on Friday and didn’t get back to my apartment until 8:45pm, so I skipped my dose and as a result had a substantial headache on Saturday. I’m beginning to think that these headaches I get are not spontaneous; rather they are all due to some sort of drug or chemical that I am purging, and that if I clean out my system entirely and keep it that way, I’d stop getting headaches. Saturday was miserable-there is really nothing worse in this world than waking up with a headache. I took one of the PRN migraine meds on Saturday morning because I wasn’t in the mood to deal with the pain and promptly got knocked the fuck out for a couple hours. I woke up with tension and pressure, but less pain. And groggy. I’m quickly becoming very opposed to these drugs, but in keeping with my plan I’ll give the daily ones the full month and use the others increasingly sparingly.

There were strange to-do’s this weekend in the social realm, none of which were tainted by headaches. Friday was the holiday party for the high school in which I’m interning. Quite a scene-teachers really let loose when they can. I think that the more taxing a job is on one’s soul, the more one drinks. Teachers can pound booze, but not quite as much as the unlucky few who work with the mentally indigent. That was followed by a world class funk show at the Middle East, which was so loud that I suspect it contributed to my headaches the next day. By 1:00 AM on Friday, I’d been up and running for almost 20 hours and had to cut out early and get horizontal. Saturday night was a small and friendly potluck style dinner party at Ch.’s house with TAC friends. It was a different crowd than I usually run with within TAC, a lot lower key, relaxed, mature? and I was glad for it. These days I’ve been more in the mood to share a nice extended dinner with a friend than go out and rage. Yet another indicator of how I’m quickly becoming an old curmudgeon.

I meant to knock off a paper over the weekend, but only got halfway through. it’s the only thing standing between me and break (if it could be called that, with a term paper to write and a unit to plan), and I managed to squander enough time on dumb shit like organizing my music collection and that sort of thing to not even get a full draft out. I have until Thursday technically. Fine. Buy-in is so low for this class that the only way I’ll be halfway interested in what I am writing is to write a subersive critique of the course’s themes. They can’t expect simple regurgitation at the graduate level. They just can’t. But I think they are. I won’t play those reindeer games this time. We’ll see how it goes over.

This week is going to be a tough one-there’s more that I want to do than I have time for. I fly to Milwaukee on Friday, and besides Reuben’s wedding next weekend and the trip North for New Year’s, I’m not looking forward to being there for so long a time. After not being in college for a couple years, the college-esque schedule this time of year grinds on all the wrong nerves. In my discomfort, I see indicators of exactly what I need to confront, but perhaps it’s not entirely about making my peace with Milwaukee and my family. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m in my mid-20’s, and that any extended length of time spent in the house I grew up in will be stressful. On top of that all, my impending birthday is sure to guarantee a substantial affective downswing. I’m thinking that it’s already started. I’ll have plenty of schoolwork to keep me occupied. Wonderful.

But I can’t think of Milwaukee quite yet. I have a lot to do here in Boston. I feel like I haven’t given things here their due attention since I’ve come back from Thanksgiving and it’s frustrating. I want to have time for friends, I want to really buckle down on what is left of my schoolwork, I want to tie up all these loose ends that I have dangling seemingly everywhere and none of it is happening. I’m trying as best I can, but it’s just not happening. I have this sense of urgency to cram all this stuff in before I leave on Friday, but I don’t see it all happening. Hopefully I’ll check enough off the list to be able to leave for two weeks with a certain peace of mind. Maybe I’ll give up sleeping for a while.

It would be one thing to go into winter break with no academic obligations, but Harvard decided to have exams after the break. I thought there were supposed to be smart people here.

It started snowing again this afternoon, then turned to rain about four hours ago. The streets are a mess. somehow it’s so appropriate. The more I sit here and stare at this computer screen, the more foul my mood becomes. The more time I spend in the apartment, the more foul my mood becomes. And because it started to snow, I didn’t go to the library like I was planning and I’ve been sitting in my apartment staring at this computer screen for a good long while. Plus it’s much later than I wanted it to be. Foul.

This entry is disjoint enough-time to get unconscious. I don’t think anything else productive can come from being awake right now, and sleep will be most welcome. The one possible upside to these meds is that I’ve been having some pretty surreal and memorable dreams, which entertaining. Sort of.

Posted by davidtaus at December 15, 2003 01:56 AM