Lately, every time I sit down to compose a post a strange feeling bleeds into me that I can’t quite fathom, and I haven’t been able to find the right words to describe it. It’s definitely a physical sensation, very slow and liquid, something like weariness — but there’s no reason for me to be tired, especially before I even begin to type at all. It feels a bit like my whole body’s been turned into a breath, and someone’s sighing me out of their lungs.

I don’t think it really has anything to do with this space, or with the writing I do here. Sometimes I sense it when I wake up in the morning, or when dinner time rolls around and I can feel the weight of one more day in which all of my questions have found no answer and all of my promises are still waiting for their fulfilment. It’s really not a sadness so much as a feeling of frustrated fatigue, like when you get to the spot that you thought was the end of the trail only to find that there are still miles to go (before you sleep).

The best way I’ve found to get rid of it, at least temporarily, is to do a physical task that I can be sure I’ll complete: wash the dishes, fold the laundry, bike for half an hour. Reading helps too, but only if I either finish a book or read a number of pages that feels substantial when I flip through it with my thumb. If I make (not just assemble) a meal, do a two- hour recording session at RFB&D, or reply to all of the emails that I’ve decided need replying to, the feeling does ebb.

I know what this is. It’s one of the things I yearn for without really understanding why I yearn for it. It’s a longing for completion in life. By that I don’t mean that I think my life is incomplete, although I suppose I do feel that way. And I don’t mean that I want my life to be over, not by any means (worrywarts). It’s not even that I’m searching for accomplishment in my life, although I certainly am. It’s just that there’s something in me that kind of wishes, sometimes, that I could be done with the part of life that requires me to be constantly working at figuring things out all the time. There’s something in me that gets overwhelmed by the task of unceasingly trying to solve the problems of how to live well, what I want to do while I’m here, how to love, how to give, how to be honest, how to be worthy, what it’s going to take to be happy. That part of me wishes that I could just be done with working things out about life, so that I could get on with the business of living.

Which is of course absurd, since the business of living is all about trying to work it out. And mostly I like that. It makes sense to me that being engaged in a struggle to build a sense of the world, a well-shaped life, and a source of joy and satisfaction, is how we’re supposed to be living. But it still sometimes feels like I’m taking an endless exam, administered by a diabolical computer that attends to all of the answers I’m writing and keeps generating new questions. They aren’t always harder questions, either — sometimes exactly the same problem I thought I answered on page 67 reappears on page 134, but wouldn’t you know it? I still have to work through it all over again.

I know that none of this is unique, and that I’m hardly the only person scribbling furiously on the paper, staring out the window, clock-watching while I try to flip to the end and see what the last question is. I’m probably not even the only person to ever make and belabour this awful metaphor. :-) Once upon a time that would have made everything worse — I would have hated to think that the way I feel could possibly be so pedestrian that it could be shared by vast tribes of others. Now I figure if I’m feeling something that lots of people feel too, it probably means that I’m doing a pretty good job of being human in this skin I’ve got.

Which is a darned good way to start the business of living.

This is cracking me up.

I’ve been feeling frustrated lately with the number of (individually good, positive, and fun) directions I’m sending myself in, and struggling with a lack of purposeful direction. I keep opening up new creative opportunities for myself without seeing the kind of progress that will really satisfy me. I’ve decided that I’m going to spend some time making a list of projects I’d be interested in completing before the end of the year (finally start working on the comic book idea Ross and I had, research Mira for the nonfiction book I want to write about her, craft a few short stories based on notions I’ve been kicking around for ages, work on an oral history photo-essay of some kind), and really focus my energies on only one of them for the next three and a half months. I need an achievable goal, especially during these chill grey seasons.

Although it is true that when I woke up this morning, the sun was shining on Ross’s eyelashes for the first time in over a week! And Jenn, who’d slept over, was sitting at the kitchen table taking a sunbath while the stereo played piano! And the sky was blue! Elated, we proceeded to Ryles to squander what turned out to be the only two hours of sunshine we were going to be granted today — by the time we walked out the door after a wonderful morning of eggs and jazz, everything was grey again. Oh well. I’m working on keeping those endorphins up; I bought an exercise bicycle yesterday and plan on at least using the damned thing more often than I use the weights Barb left here for me (sorry, Barb!). Already, I’ve cycled 7.6 miles and burned 150 calories, according to its suspiciously flashing console. I love the flashing console. The flashing console is like a night sky full of little gold stars, confirming my accomplishments and showering me with positive reinforcement as my legs pump away.

I am so easily manipulated.

Ok, now we’re going to make lentil soup and settle in for a double-feature: The Exorcist and American Psycho. One of them had better be scary, or I’m asking for my money back…

It’s been rainy and cold since last Friday, and it doesn’t look like the clouds are going to break for another couple of days — fall is here with a vengeance and it’s not even pretty yet, which I consider a bit impolite. I still don’t have permission from the Powers To Be to go back to work (even though according to the processing dates on their website, they should have looked at my application by now), so I’m doing my best not to run out of steam. And by steam, I mean positive energy for doing the Volunteer Things! and the Reading! and the Musical Projects! (someone is paying me a little bit to record the vocals on some songs he wrote, and I want so much to tell you about that experience, because it’s been kind of funny — but I’m afraid he will someday find my website, so I am exercising great will-power) and the Productive Use of Free Time! It’s really hard to generate steam when it’s all grey and gloomy in the morning though, so right now I’m mostly running on mist, I think. Or fog. I have a lot of fog.

It’s getting to be that time of year when sadness slips under the windows before they’re closed for the season, and stays through the dark and the cold. I’ve been dreaming about school, lately. Thinking about this time last year, cringing at the memory of what an absurd mess I was, now that I have some distance from it. One of my girls called me the day we flew to Seattle and I never called her back when we returned (I should write to her.) I’ve also been realizing that I still haven’t gotten over the shame I feel about quitting teaching. I know I’ve forgiven myself for it, and that’s a pretty big deal. But the fact that I still think about it in terms of an act that needed forgiving is going to be a harder demon to kill.

So I guess it’s a good thing it’s demon killing weather out there. I’d better put on my pointy boots and grab that crossbow I keep under my bed.

I think I’ve mentioned that Ross and I have been reading Godel, Escher, Bach together — you may remember this evidence of the unusual heights to which we are sometimes inspired in our journey through the book. Our usual practice is to take turns reading aloud, stopping to talk whenever one or the other of us has a question, comment, or confusion. 9 times out of 10, we stop because of me — GEB is a difficult book for anyone to read, but it’s particularly slow going when you don’t have a solid background in mathematical history or concepts. Still, I remain convinced that nothing in the text is beyond my comprehension, given sufficient patience, determination, and clear explanation (either by Hofstadter, or, if he didn’t do such a good job in the writing, then by Ross, the nearest knowledgable body). Sometimes, though, the road is rough with puzzles for my literary brain and I get passionate.

Anyway last night we got to pages 261-263, where Hofstadter describes Godel doing something sort of like voodoo, and I am sorry to say that I may have slowly flipped out. By which I mean, my inability to comprehend what Godel did (just wait till you hear!) escalated into a hot-blooded fury complete with shouting and sobs. In my own defence, I want you to know that:

a) I have spent months trying to understand why people might want to invent such a nutty thing as a typographical number theory in the first place, and then I’m told that Godel’s brilliant stroke of genius was that he figured out how to translate the typographical representations of number theory back into arithmetical operations? I mean, come on! What is the point.

b) This translation Godel did? Really resembles numerology more than anything else, and at first blush seems to make about as much sense. It’s kind of crazy and mystical, in a lot of ways. It’s like mathematical wizardry, and it seems completely impossible that it would actually ever work. And for me, working my grey matter like mad to even come close to comprehending — in a plodding sort of way — the ideas in this book, it felt like a bit of a betrayal that one of the most exciting revelations in it was going to require a huge leap of faith. There was no way I was going to be able to plod my way through this one, with no mathematical training. I was just going to have to accept it and move on. Which, as I said to Ross, is a bit like saying to someone running a marathon, “Well, I know the first 5 miles are going to be completely impossible for you, but don’t worry — once you’re at mile 6 it’ll be smooth sailing!”

Fortunately, my desire to finish reading this book is Herculean at this point, so after a bit I subsided into a merely teary sulk and Ross tried explaining it one more time. This seemed to help. I’ve also been given two additional slim volumes on Godel’s life and work that will hopefully be of use, and will almost certainly not result in weeping, if I am very careful. Also fortunately, Ross understands that I rage because I really care about this stuff and want to learn it, and therefore I have decided to believe that the occasional fit of bawling over mathematics is really an endearing quality. Please — don’t disabuse me.

*******

Jordan’s in town for his usual round of high-holiday money-making — running kiddie services and storytelling at progressive Jewish synagogues all over the state. He came over today for tea and Nutella toast, after which we adjourned to the Museum of Science for a presentation at the Planetarium — so now I am desperate to get out of the city to stargaze. While waiting for the show to begin, we wandered around their “Mathematica” exhibit. I am pleased to report that, although many of the explanatory plaques were somewhat vague and confusing, the exhibit did not make me cry.

The last of the roadtrip photographs — except for two rolls that I shot on Velvia slide film and have yet to figure out how I’m going to digitize — begin here. Highlights include:

absolutely my favorite photograph from the entire trip,

a few more charming slugs,

and the return to civilization and intellectual thought – phew!

I am in a whirl because I just drove Jenn to the T so she can go meet her date (eep!) and Ross and I are driving up to Ipswich tonight to house and cat-sit for the sweet Meredith, but before that we’re going to try to fit in a talk about fractals at the Museum of Science (it starts in an hour and we haven’t had dinner yet, plus we are both tired and cranky. I am especially cranky because Wordpress is threatening not to post this post, and I have just told Ross to go away and leave me alone while I get ready. Does it sound to you like we are going to have a congenial evening? I thought so!). Anyway, we are doing this because we are crazy and we love mathematics. Or at least, Ross is crazy and loves mathematics. Me, I am just crazy.

See you Sunday!

I wish that I weren’t so tired, because I actually did something halfway interesting today that I should tell you about — but it’ll have to wait because I’m rubbing my eyes and yawning like the old lady I am. In the meantime, fortunately, I have happy news. Sarah the craftilicious just sent us our wedding presents: awesome hand-printed T-shirts!

Here is a picture of us looking very proud that we’ve managed to successfully position the camera-in-timer-mode in such a way that it cuts off neither our heads nor the fantastic designs on our SMI-Tees™ (using three books and a bottle of cologne). You can tell that I am still not quite sure about things because I am pushing my breasts out in an oddly awkward manner so as to make sure the spider is fully visible, and also staring at the camera with the intent look of someone who believes that thinking about whether or not we are in the shot will help us actually to be in the shot. It is not exactly a model’s insouicance.

And here are the notes that came pinned to our soft new apparel, elucidating their designs.

Aren’t these great? Don’t they make up for the fact that I have told you nothing of substance in weeks and weeks? I certainly think so.