March 15, 2002

As I was getting into the shower, I was overcome by a wave of what I initially mistook for melancholy. After a few minutes of trying to figure out why I was suddenly sad, I realized it wasn't melancholy but discontent.

I'm discontented.

I switched off the shower and turned on the bath instead, and slid down flat so my ears were under the rumbling water and I could be alone with my thoughts. I lay submersed in my rumbly water pod and stewed.

I realized I've done fuckall but nest in the last year. No new sites, no significant updates to the existing ones. Smile and Act Nice has been over for months, Frying Pan has more or less deteriorated into a coma, and the only thing I've done on this stupid dump of a site is merch.*

It turns out the epiphany I've been waiting for is a realization that I've been almost completely unproductive for the last year. Or, rather, I've been incredibly productive at building my nesty bubble around me at the expense of doing anything lastingly satisfying.

(Although not much matches the inexplicable level of satisfaction I soak up from a well-groomed lawn. I can survey my freshly cut, freshly edged lawn for hours and feel at peace with the world. And a clean, thick bed of new mulch over everything just makes me feel happy and ripe for possibility. I think the hypnotic contentment of the nest is what has about done me in.)

I thought of something my friend Cameron said about working really hard at something you really like, how good you feel.

I've spent the last year putting my house in order (literally & figuratively) after the dissolution of a long and ultimately messy relationship. I had grown accustomed to throwing myself into big, involving, and gratifying projects as a distraction from the burden of the constant low-level drama and crisis of being with the wrong person (and being the wrong person for someone else--which, after so long, is incredibly stressful and difficult to admit).

I've been building my nest, hoping to glean some mental order and resolution from the physical order. (If you could see my house, you'd probably think I'm crazy to call what I have "order"--but you should've seen it before.) I've been picking the monkey fleas off the back of my life, but I think it's time to get back to working really hard at something I really like.

Now I just have to figure out what that is.

03.11.02

(I just put my hair in two tight, uneven ponytails and then chopped them both off. I've been trying to grow them to 14" so I'd have more to give Locks of Love, but they'll just have to get along with 12 1/2". I now have an adorable, choppy, completely uneven swing bob. I look like Scout. I feel good.)