Month: January 2010

No Unrequired Reading for you this week! That’s due less to my malaise, and more to my laptop being in the shop. It suffered the hinge-break that first-generation MacBook Air models are prone to (“so take / this broken hinge . . .”). Apple is replacing the monitor and hinge gratis, but the laptop has all my RSS feeds and saves, which is how I compile Unrequired Reading each week.

So you’re outta luck! Why not just check out my blogroll over by clicking on that Sites To See link instead?

Well, dear readers, your Virtual Memoirist has a confession to make: I’ve been in denial about how badly my pal Sang’s death has affected me and I belatedly realized that I am in the midst of depression. I’ve been chalking up my symptoms to some other cause, as if there’s some clearer  reason that I’ve been emotionally flat, unable to craft a sentence, sullen, and physically cold for the past two weeks. The world itself has felt like it’s at arm’s length. If it weren’t for Amy’s love, I think I’d have drifted away.

I don’t know when I’m going to write another post. I’m trying to get myself writing, but everything I’ve tried has come out lifeless. It’s all just a collection of mundane events, with no magic, no song. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and I’ll just feel right again. Maybe I unburdened myself a little when I cried to my wife this evening. Maybe I need to cry more. I really can’t tell. I’m 39 years old and barely know myself sometimes. I honestly didn’t attribute all this to the most obvious cause there is. I feel like I’m in a mist.

I took Tuesday off and went to the city to visit the Morgan Library and Museum and have lunch with a pal. I added some more stops after that, and managed to turn everything into a race; I had to get back to the car by a certain time, to try to miss the traffic and get home in time to take care of the dogs. In my heart, I knew that I’d created that compressed timetable deliberately, because I wanted to worry about the immediacy of something, to be in a race. I was creating anxiety because I didn’t want to address the angst that’s been lurking since Sang’s death.

I got almost nothing out of the Morgan; it was a limited exhibition space, but I still flattened out the experience almost to nil. My only moment of joy was when I discovered that JP’s old library contained a 1595 edition of Montaigne’s Essais.

Lunch with my friend was better, because he’s known me so long, but I fear that I was somehow absent in that conversation; rather, the part of me that’s beset by grief was absent. And without that, what’s left?

So you may be getting a reprieve from this heap of broken images while I try to feel what I’m feeling.

What I’m reading: Cloud Atlas

What I’m listening to: Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Who Are You, White City: A Novel, and some B.S. Report podcasts

What I’m watching: In the Loop. Are you telling me you haven’t wathed it yet?

What I’m drinking: DH Krahn & Q Tonic

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Their first Sunday greyhound hike together.

Where I’m going: Nowhere! So don’t try and get me to go anywhere.

What I’m happy about: Not being in Haiti, I guess.

What I’m sad about: I think I’m going through that seasonal affective disorder. I’ve just sorta generally been down this past week, not just because of my pal Sang’s death. Also, my iPod repair ultimately failed, so I had to order up a new one.

What I’m worried about: That I won’t get round to writing that Books O’ The Decade post, nor the Emerson seminar one. I gotta buckle down. You guys deserve it.

What I’m pondering: Who to cheer for if we end up with a Saints/Jets Superbowl.