Renaissance Grrrl

I finally had a few spare moments to clean up my computer a bit. It's been a couple years since I've really had the time to do a complete reorg. I've needed this for a while. I didn't finish the reorg, just cleaned up some of the cruftier corners, but still it's nice. I noticed long ago that the organization of my computer has a direct link to how organized my life feels, and hence my happiness. As far as OCD goes, it's a simple enough burden and frees me from worrying about so many other things. Unfortunately, the main impetus behind the organizing is so I can get a nice clean fresh backup. My battery's been going on the fritz and I blame the manufacturer. Might be some other power issues too. In any case, xenobia's still under warrantee, but in the event I need to use those backups, I'd rather have them be nice and pretty.

Taxes are done. Note to self: never be self-employed. Or a farmer.

I'll be attending Johns Hopkins in the fall. I've talked myself out of that pesky CS PhD again, which makes things easier. I'll have to check to see if I can apply my excess CS credits to the cog.sci PhD if I end up going for that over linguistics (which depends mainly on the school I go to, e.g. at JHU cog.sci subsumes linguistics).

Still no word from Seoul.

Classes are good this term. Much nicer than last, even if one does have a fucktonne of work. Note to self: if you've never needed programs to randomly partition and shuffle files before, you've obviously never created training sets for machine learning.

It's time to try to break the coffeeine addiction again. Boozeohol might be the key.

The light of my life is getting depressed again. I feel bad because I don't know what to do about it, how to help. Being all too familiar with depression, I know what doesn't work, but that doesn't help to know what does and the only things I know require being in person. It doesn't help that I've been stumbling up and down over my own for the last year or so from the look of my posts. Back in days of yore, she was the one who helped me through so much but whenever she needed help she would run away and hide. But how can you help someone who doesn't want it, how can you take away the barbs and scars of history, of others' failings, or a world cruel and harsh and unforgiving?

Now, back into the fold. I'll try to send a missive next we meet civilization.

This morning, said a week hence, was the first in too long that on waking I wished to get out of bed. That morn and the night afore I learned something I'd been trying not to learn for years.

It's been long a time since I've felt in full sorts. Not since leaving Reed, truth be told; though perhaps even that may miss the mark. But since then I've come to be a bitter, cynical, man— traits I neither endorse nor have wished to accept. It's funny though. Since realizing it, I've not felt that weight so severely. It still creeps in to cloud my mind from time to times, but recognizing it and knowing something of the cause makes it easier to avert from sinking in.

I ran into my ex-fiancée that night, online, first time we'd talked in months. She was worried because the next day she would have her beau's kids all alone for the first time and so was seeking moral support. The realization began to sink in as we were parting ways, she for insobriety and I for sleep— which too is an insobriety of sorts.

For those who don't know the story, we were together for about three years, though after ending it we still lived together for another before finally I moved out. And as sadly with so many lengthy relationships, it was over long before it ended. We had only to convince ourselves.

It's always strange, looking back. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I still love her. Much as I expound upon their importance in objective circumstances, in dealing with people I've always had trouble with shades of grey. For all we never had a ceremony, it's all too like a marriage ending; you've grown so used to the other's presence, even if the spark is gone, even when you can't live together any more, you're not sure how to go about living apart. Do you want the kids today? Okay, well can I have the car? Or you could drive me there, no? well, we should go so I can drop you off then.

But until recently, looking back I would only see that liminal, perpetual, ending. It being so much more recent makes it harder to see further, to remember the first months and years, to remember what it was like to love without complication. Remembering how things used to be helps me to understand why I still care. She was too kind to me, kinder than I ever let her know.

There's a peace in brushing off the old limerance. After clearing the dust, you thumb through salty pages with their faded letters and gummy photographs. As each one crackles by eternity flows past. Memories forgotten, cherished smiles. Concern for the age and fortitude of the binding, but without worry.

The last page lingers, turns, and is empty. You wait. You close the cover. You put the book back on the shelf where you'll forget it. You close the cabinet and slowly click. The hollow brass of a key put down and left on the lacquered wood.