I woke up today and spent an hour or so sitting in bed reading Fatal Subtraction, the story of the Buchwald v. Paramount case. I had lead feet and couldn't get started doing anything, even taking a shower.
I eventually went out to the Burbank Media Center to do some more shopping for stuff I need around the apartment -- kitchen things, knick-knacks. In the middle of walking by the California Pizza Kitchen, I found myself on the verge of bursting into tears. I don't know why. I don't know if it's depression or loneliness or fear. The immediate cause was that I had just spent more money and was feeling guilty about it, but usually that's not enough to get me crying.
When I came home I dropped my bags on the floor and started milling around, trying to tidy up a bit. (More of that internal fear coming out as a need to be neat and put a good face on things.) The phone rang; it was Darin. Out of the blue. Usually we talk in the evenings. He just wanted to talk a little bit.
That little bit of synchronicity helped a lot.
I still need to tidy more though. I've got a lot of confusing emotions mixing around in my gut these days. I go from elation to sadness to confusion to pride in a matter of minutes. What I'm probably going to spend some time doing this afternoon is clustering, trying to sort out what's going on inside.
Since Edgar and I didn't go out for a movie last night, I invited him over tonight to watch Cronos, the Mexican vampire film, on the science-fiction channel. We're going for pizza or something afterwards.
Edgar, since moving down here, has been doing the (unpaid slave labor) internship for 30 to 40 hours a week and working a part-time job to pay rent besides. He saved up some money for the move, but on the whole he doesn't have very much. I noticed that he saved half his burrito from lunch yesterday -- "For dinner," he said. He also came out with this shocker: he's taken up smoking. "It suppressed your appetite."
He's lost twenty pounds since he's moved down here, from having no money and smoking. I admit that I wouldn't mind losing twenty pounds, but I'm trying to think of better ways of doing it (eating better, being so involved in what I'm doing I forget to eat). Taking up smoking when I'm definitely old enough to know it's uncool (in addition to everything else)...sheesh.