Why?

Today was a productive day:

-I got out of bed. (Trust me, this is a mighty achievement sometimes)

-I went to work.

-I was extremely productive once I got home:

-I remembered to feed myself.

-I washed dishes.

-I cleared out 5 trash bags worth of things I no longer want/need/are relevant to me (mainly old documents, some fabric samples from god-knows-when [my brief internship in interior design, mayhaps?], notebooks from classes long since over that I'll never need to refer back to, and a bunch of medical-things from my grandmother's illness.)

-I packed up 4 boxes worth of books that are not mine and that I don't want and put them in the attic.

-I began transporting my books from the floor, tables, chairs, bed, and other available surfaces to the living room bookshelf. I think I'm going to put the hardcovers that make me look erudite and eclectic there and find a more hidden away place for paperbacks that make me look normal and boring.

-I dusted and vacuumed, and, oh-mi-fucking-god one should do this on more than a bi-monthly basis.

-I read poetry for an hour and then worked on editing my own.

But, in spite of all of the evidence, I've tossed and turned in bed for hours, feeling like I've accomplished nothing. I haven't done any serious writing all month – I just stare at a blank page, write a sentence, and doodle breasts whenever I try. I haven't even updated this damn thing in more than three weeks. The plants around my house are threatening to consume it, and I can't help but think of Still Life With Woodpecker: “I may be the first monarch in history to be assassinated by blackberries.”

Well, in this case, by ivy, gigantic holly bushes, and one dandelion that is as tall as I am, and I suspect others are on their way.

Why is it that on nights when I've accomplished far more than I normally even begin to surmount, I feel worthless, and on nights that follow a day where I've done nothing, I fall I asleep easily, thinking about all the things I will do one day?

Don't answer that. I know why. Productivity is foreign to me, and I feel the need to build all the momentum I can, as fast I can – thus, I usually burn myself out after about a week of the stuff.

Oh, and the perfectionism doesn't help, either.

A Placeholder

"Frighten me? Yes you do frighten me. You act as though we will be together for ever. You act as if there is infinite pleasure and time without end. How can I know that? My experience has been that time always ends. In theory you are right, the quantum physicists are right, the romantics and the religious are right. Time without end. In practice we both wear a watch. If I rush at this relationship it’s because I fear for it. I fear you have a door I cannot see and that any minute now the door will open and you’ll be gone. Then what? Then what as I bang the walls like the Inquisition searching for a saint? Where will I find the secret passage? For me it’ll just be the four same walls."
- Jeanette Winterson, Written on The Body (text bolded for emphasis and relevance to later writing)

I'll probably end up writing two posts about this quote, one only tangentially relevant, entitled "My Love Affair with the Comma," and the other about the circumstances under which I have been both rusher and rushee. The first is in the works as we speak, but I'm a bit tired tonight, so it'll be a little while. The other may likely be incorporated into what I would like to make an interpersonal-relations-arc of posts here, so that I can finally get out that big-ass essay that rumbles and rolls around in my head from time to time.

Warning label

Stubborn. Refuses to admit defeat against (or even the existence thereof) side effects of trauma sustained to the spinal cord until she is a severe inconvenience to herself and others.

Also, why on earth was the doctor's greatest concern that I "don't sound like [I'm] from around here?"

Sidenote: my mother left me the most awesome voicemail -- "Hey, just a reminder. I love you, and don't do drugs until you've eaten something!"