A Paper Bag Over My Head

I was upset so I sat in my room with a paper bag over my head. Inside the paper bag I looked around, felt cramped and absurd. If someone could see me the would probably break out in laughter. So in my stress I broke out in tears.

Realist, let's be real right now! In less than two weeks I am going to New Orleans, I feel like such a world traveler. I will watch my wallet, but I intend to enjoy myself. I can do this, I think.

The job search. When does it happen, I have a couple of lame options. They're options though.

I finished reading The Beautiful Room Is Empty. Very good novel, so earnest and sincere.

I have been feeling sad recently, it's a tough feeling to fight. It's fall and things are changing. We are trying new things (ie: Paper Bag on head) and seeing different results (ie: Tears).

This weekend is dedicated to homework. Model building, studying, outlining, drafting, etc. Just need to get through this semester and it'll be okay. It'll be okay.

And Thus I Knew Hope — A Haiku

Joan Didion was here
Starring into my own gaze,
And thus I knew hope.

-- E.Iguana 9/14/08

Why Joan, Why This?

Since Joan Didion has been very correct in the twists and turns of my life. This one took me for a turn:

But the problem is, you can’t simply leave New York—you have to quit New York. You have to admit to yourself and the world that you’re packing it in, calling it a day, turning out the lights. You have to walk away from, as Joan Didion put it, “the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.” (It should be noted she wrote that in an essay about her decision to leave New York.)

I got it from this article. Interesting. The rest of the article is a little clunky, but it presents some interesting points. If I left I wouldn't die. Food for thought.

Things To Be Happy About

Things I am happy for:

• Watching Golden Girls with my roommate who has never seen the series before.
• Getting a package from a friend through blogging. One of my four readers. Beckett on film and Joan Didion. What more could a boy want?
• Re-watching Cowboy Bebop and remembering happiness and times when you didn't lie awake at night. I'm working with the insomnia.
• Seeing Burlesque Shows in Coney Island and knowing that not only are you seeing a forgotten art form and a celebration of the unorthodox body, you are in a place that holds a little bit of Americana, soon to be torn down.
• Knowing you have a voice over in a small independent film and that voice over is: "Cum in my ass." This is my legacy.
  

This quote: In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral verve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues.

And this quote: They are willing to invest something of themselves; they may not play at all, but when they do play, they know the odds.

Oh, and this one too: As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with one's head in a Food Fair bag.

In short, I am really thankful for Joan Didion. It's amazing how we've lived such separate lives in different times, but I read her books and feel like she's writing letters to me. This is how to dealt with this when it happened to me. Here is how you can deal with it. Don't worry, I know because I've been there.

I know that it's preemptive to say that life is on an good level. It's very early, since we are just beginning another phase of life. Moving onto adulthood and figuring it out. I know it's all for the best, I've yet to really feel regret.

What's nice is in writing this all out, I've completely forgotten what I was going to write that made me angry.