November isn't starting off at all well, is it? An entire week, only 4 entries. I had vowed to do so much better; honestly I had.
Like I said on Tuesday, I've been a wee bit depressed. More than a wee bit, but I won't go there, because you don't want to hear it. (Trust me.) Winston Churchill evidently called depression "the black dog." To me it's more like a vampire that sucks all life and hope out. I was such a happy camper last night that I composed a journal entry entitled "Dark and Angry Gods," and let me assure you that you are glad I didn't write it or post it. Last night was not one of my best. This week hasn't been one of my best.
I looked at my Real Astrology prediction for this week. Yes, I vilify astrology; yes, I am a faithful reader of Rob Breszny's Real Astrology. I am large, I contain multitudes. The RA fixation started a couple of years ago, when a group of us at Apple would read our horoscopes each week and they were so dead on that we were convinced that they were being written by someone we knew. Or at least, someone who knew us.
Are you going to wheeze or bellow this week, Leo? That is, will you emit intermittent and ineffectual little puffs, or hearty, nonstop gusts? For that matter, do you plan to sip or guzzle? Nag or exhort? Tease or pounce? I think you know which one of each of these pairs I'd like you to choose. It's high time to graduate from the ancient struggle between dabbling and mastery.
It spoke to me, particularly the last line, mostly because I feel like I'm in way over my head at this point. You've managed to dance over thin ice before, goes the voice in my head, but the ice is cracking; in you go.
It's the end of the semester, and we at are the "run to stay in place" point. At least, I am. Perhaps if I hadn't gone away four out of the five weekends in October I either wouldn't feel so far behind or I wouldn't be so behind. And perhaps not -- other people are stressed out too.
In the spirit of making real what needs to be done so that I don't have a giant, shadowy boogeyman in my head, I wrote down a list of what I have left to do in this quarter:
I sat down and sketched out a calendar of what has to be done by when. Thanksgiving -- a traditionally happy time when Darin and I get together with his extended family and have a really good time -- is making me nauseous, blotting out a huge section of the calendar. I'll have to do a lot of writing during that week. When I get tense it's extremely hard for me to relax, and when I am tense, I am No Fun. (There is actually a body of academic thought that believes that I have never relaxed in my entire life, and there is some evidence to back this up.)
When I don't get my assignments done, I start feeling a giant lead weight sitting on my chest. For example, big confession time: my Reality Bites directed scene was due today. Now, Nina and Jennifer (her TA) are pretty cool about the fact that it's going to be late -- other students were late last week, we couldn't even get to everyone's scene this week -- but I have to get it done.
I want to film it this weekend. I can't find actors. The pressure is sitting on my chest, literally making it hard to breathe. I'm waiting by the phone, hoping to get a return on one of the pages I've sent out. I've gone by the USC Drama Department's Casting Office twice, and both times it's been closed.
"It's staffed by volunteers," the lady in the department office told me.
"They're missing out on work," I told her.
"I know," she sighed.
When Tiffany and I had lunch the other day, we agreed that the key was to "be here now," but that seems to be the hardest thing in the world. There are a couple of big things on my mind right now (there's the usual "whyamIdoingthis, I'mcrazytothinkIcanmakeitasawriterinthisBiz," along with other, more tangible problems) along with the feeling that I have to get-through-this-semester...a feeling I'm not very happy about. Because I don't want to just "get through it" -- I want to enjoy it, I want to learn, I want to have a good time as my fellow and students go down this path.
I'm not enjoying it; I feel like crying most of the time, actually.
When I get the big boogeymen out of the way -- the production nightmares, to be specific -- I will stop feeling quite this bad. And then I can go back to having the happy-go-lucky, funny entries you all know so well. Really.