05/31/00 -- So This Was May

The Month in Review ... Or Something

This was May.  I guess I hit a few more entries this month than last month.  Okay, one more entry this month than last month.  I never promised you a daily journal or anything.  I'm just hoping I can for Clarion.   And, as the ce2k attendees webpage says, after Clarion, all bets are off.

Here's a look at my mind right now... This is directly from an email message I sent to my fellow ce2kites on our mailing list.

I'm living in a world somewhere between: on one side, the reality of Clarion has set in and I'm mentally planning what I need to pack, when I need to get the car loaded, and how I'm going to handle next week's accomplishments memo (and the following handful so I get the right paycheck while I'm gone); on the other side, I've got ages and ages until Clarion starts and I don't need to worry about anything.

I waffle between mental modes. I look at my calendar and count backwards from June 9th to see how many more days I have left, I do the <X>-days-till-Clarion dance, then I get confused when coworkers ask me (later) if I'm ready to go. Go where? Are we having a group lunch?

I don't know what's happened to my brain. I really don't.

Once again I've started a story, got 500 words into it and decided it was utter crap, and abandoned it to my desktop's hard drive while I do other things (none of the things I should be doing -- like the updates for the ce2k webpage -- I will get to them, I promise).

I have ideas swimming around in the quagmire of my brain. But I think they're drowning. They're being pulled under again and again by each other as each one of them strives to be the one I notice, and they're being pulled under by all of the other things running around in my head, things that shouldn't be so important or so thought-consuming that suddenly are. I'm obsessing about stupid things, like what I want from my life, and how realistic it is to want it.

I'm not obsessing about whether I remember to pack a ream or two of paper to take with me, or whether I'll have to go to the store once I get to Clarion so I can get things like laundry detergent. I'm obsessing about whether or not I'll have room for my water filter pitcher thing in the rented fridge and where I'll be filling said pitcher. I'm not obsessing about getting lost on my way to Des Moines (or from there to East Lansing), or about whether or not I'll be able to find Paula in Des Moines. I am obsessing about whether or not Sting will be set on fire at the Great American Bash and if I'll find time to read about it on the 'net somewhere Monday morning before racing to our Clarion session for the day.  And last night I was obsessing about the tone and muscles on the arms of the WNBA players while I was at C.B.Potts eating chicken wings and drinking a pitcher of water after my workout.

I should be obsessing about my job. But there isn't anything to obsess over. We don't have billable work. No one is giving me anything important to do because I leave next Friday (I keep forgetting this so I keep wondering why I'm not being put on the few little projects that creep up.) and what I have been doing is pathetic. I found a bit of JavaScript in an archive and put together a page with roll-over navigation buttons that may or may not end up used in the long run. I put together background graphics ... ditto on whether or not they'll get used.

I should be obsessing about whether or not I'm going to forget something vital when I drive off next Friday morning.

I should be obsessing about getting all of my bills taken care of and getting Jonah a check and a list of everything I still need to get taken care of while I'm gone.

I'm not.

I'm obsessing about whether the two things that excite me (writing and wrestling) are really viable for me to do.

And I'm not writing. I guess I'm obsessing about not writing. But I can't tell amidst everything else I'm obsessing about.

So that's where I am.  And that's pretty much where I've been for the past several weeks.  Most of May, it seems.  And maybe even part of the end of April.

Clarion starts in 11 days.  I leave in 9.  I think I've got everything I need ... and then some.  I think I'll have enough room for all of it in the car with room to spare for Paula and her stuff.  I'm trying not to be a pack rat.  I'm trying to remove the nagging voice in my head that tells me, No, you probably won't need it, but bring it just in case.  I'm trying to bare-bones what I'll "need" and what I'll "want" to make a dorm room seem a little more like home and a little less like the echoing cells I remember from packing up my dorm rooms in college.

My list of bare-bones needs includes my computer (and related peripherals and software), clothes (and there'll be argument between me, myself, and I about which clothes are bare-bones necessities and which are things I want to bring just in case), and toiletries.

My list of what I want to bring is a bit bigger.  There are games, stress relievers, toys, things to hang up on my walls/cupboards, Lansing (the octopus).

Somehow I'll make it all fit with plenty of room to spare.

I hope.