amul | there are all kinds of wagons (Reply)

I've been eating Fast Food again, when I'm eating at all. Lucky if I get a second meal in. Haven't bought any groceries in I don't know how long.....last time was a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs, that was it. Before that....it's been at least a month, possibly since before the Ozarks.

Stopped waking up early enough to pray, too, mostly because I don't go to bed until 4 or 5 in the morning.

Haven't been doing my dishes. The dishes really concern me. My kitchen is a gauge for my mental state, and my sink is full of dirty dishes, my larder is bare. I'm unprovisioned and rotting in apathy. Well, at least in terms of my kama. I've been ignoring it in pursuit of my artha and dharma.

Again, not strictly true. I've been seeking additional dharma, when I'm not really handling the lot I have now.

I dive into my work, convincing myself that someday, perhaps, it will be profitable. I let myself drown in it.

I've been thinking over it rather carefully for about twenty minutes, and I think it's probably due to lack of human contact. I am letting myself become more isolated. On one extreme, I'm pretty sure the last time I was in actual physical contact with another person for longer than a handshake was.....Dead Can Dance? That seems wrong.

indienoir & Brad came the weekend after, but I can't remember....

Anyway, on the other extreme, when I go out in public I always have my iPod on, and so I'm not really even looking at people. Not even eye contact. Usually, I'm very extroverted, butting into people's conversations when they seem like they wouldn't object, or generally engaging with the world. But lately I haven't been. It's just....I'm always playing music, always drowning out everything but the task at hand.

I mean, I've been intentionally starving myself because I'm "too busy to eat." Doing what, though? Redesigning a website? Working on my homework? Preparing a portfolio? Why have I kept myself so busy, pushed myself so hard into the isolation of Deadline Mentality, when I haven't had any pressing deadlines in over two weeks?

Breathes In Slowly asked if I would sit for a painting. "You'll need to be still for about an hour for the sketches" she told me. "Most people watch TV."

I don't watch TV. I was almost defiant. "Well, you could read a book." Well, okay...yes, I have several books I've been meaning to study. "No! I don't want you studying. I wanted to draw you relaxed, in repose."

So, what you're saying is, you need me to sit still for an hour? "Yes." Can I diagram photos? It'd just be my arm moving. "No. You can't do anything but relax. Can you do that?"

Okay, admittedly, a lot of that conversation just happened in my head after I agreed, but....I have returned to the subject repeatedly ever since. Maybe I could work on.....well, I could just finish the.....

I don't know why, but just now I was pretty powerfully reminded of the one time I accidentally hurt my dad's feelings. I was nineteen, I think, and we were looking through old photos. It was weird seeing him that young. A bunch of photos fell out and got mixed together, and as I was picking them up I found two photos of my dad, spaced about twenty years apart. Hey, dad, look at this. What happened to your smile?

You could see it, in the later photo his smile was really forced. About a month later, he called me to tell me he'd been sorting the rest of the photos, and he couldn't stop looking at his smile, watching it grow more forced over the years. "What happened?" he asked me. "I thought I enjoyed my life, but look at my face."

"Look at my face," he said. "And tell me this is what happy looks like."