in recent months, my life has dwindled into a rather depressing pattern. working*, worrying about my fibroid and sometimes crying with fear over it and the surgery, staying up late reloading websites. there has been little else that i recall - only some positive moments of gentle loving routines with my oliver. morning grumpies and coffee, waking up at an hour that i can handle. the intermittent return to focus on a few large beaurocratic matters that i have been grappling with this year.

*working:
the problem with my job is that it is wonderful and compelling enough to make me feel accomplished while distracting me from the desire for accomplishment or immersion in my own personal goals and passions. it really is a problem.

is it enough to simply work and do a good job, if your work is something that's really useful and causes you to be in contact with people who are at the top of their game? even if their game is not your game?

i don't know. working where i do (carefully avoiding directly naming the place so this doesn't get googled) has brought me in touch with all these incredibly intelligent people. and involved me, though tangentially, in a movement (really, it is a movement) that is very important to a large number of people. the bottom line, however, is that though i intellectually and abstractly appreciate the work my organization does, it's not my passion. but it is enough to sort of.. keep me feeling like i'm Doing Something Meaningful. and thusly, remove the sense of urgency i have felt about chasing my own meaningful goals.

i'm not sure what to do about this. in my life, my method of being is to wriggle hopefully into spaces where i feel i can Belong More, then study and work and grow in ways that help me do that. But I can't really Belong More in my current position, because I don't wish to study the relationship of law and technology. So i'm a bit confused. Because I also like it.

anyway, i've gotten myself into this sort of depressive escapist habit of laying around for hours in the evenings and reloading webpages. reading blogs, you know. laying about. it's kind of the same as sitting around watching tv for hours. i'm trying not to beat myself up for it, because i truly believe it's a function of just being so worried about my health this year and about all this mundane life stuff. i couldn't do school this fall because of surgery, so i just kind of didn't do anything but work.

but my brain is kind of withered up. my soul is a little weak and hard to locate. i don't write, i don't write poetry, i don't read poetry, i don't read charts, i don't read astrology books. i don't cast the iching, i don't cook, i don't even go out back and hug the tree. spiritually, i have become vacant. i am definitely a product of my environment, and my environment has really only been home and work, so that's part of it.

but i'm very worried. i know it's only been 5 days since my surgery but i'm ready to make a change now, to write again, to make things, to be with like minds, to be in nature, to lose some of the weight i put on, to return to the yoga mat. i want to stop fantasizing so much about how life will be, later, when i can motivate, and just be doing things. seeing poets, hearing jazz, being real. i open my text editor to begin writing but i just get a few sentences out, or half an outline of something, before i get distracted back to the blogs or chat or i don't know what. THIS CANNOT GO ON.

i have so many projects that happen on the computer (i've got tons of small websites that i work on for artists and writers and others who can't build sites themselves) that i feel very bound to the machine - shouldn't i be working on these noble endeavors? but i often procrastinate so much online that i develop distaste for the machine before i even begin the work, in any given session.

i don't know what to do. some ideas:

- stop trying to give every artist/project/nonprofit/etc that i know a website
- in this two weeks i have off work, do some kind of 'internet fast' to change my habits about the computer (is this possible? i fear it would flop)
- start carving out time to write in pen on paper
- take a break from words and word pressure and the computer too and only paint
- start going to the library
- i don't know?

...

in other news, i am recovering well from surgery. my belly feels really weird, it's still numb, i don't get how they made that happen. i am still in pain but as long as i don't move around too much i don't notice that much. i am weak and often tired and have started to become antsy and maybe overly inwardly focused during this time i'm spending at home. oliver is really tired - he's been so amazing through all of this, and is running out of steam a bit. i'm trying to write down the whole story of my fibroid as a resource to others, but aforementioned problems have taken hold.

it's kind of sad that i'm back to this mundane internet habit, because for the first four days after surgery i experienced such euphoria. i felt very vulnerable but very safe and loved by the world. i felt more myself than i had in a really long time. i felt ready to be brave again, and be myself again, and be wild and crazy. to dress how i felt and do what i wanted, and write what i wanted, and think what i wanted. i felt like i had given myself over to something and it had returned me safely. i wish i could maintain that feeling, it was really a pure love feeling, a green heart chakra light. no doubt so buoyed by the intense energy that was poured into me by the beautiful vessels that are my chosen family. by kristie's vigilant meditation in the waiting room, megan's crystals, oliver and jim and everyone. you all know, you know, don't make me NAME NAMES.

how do you make a change? how can i change this life? i'm tired of hiding and laziness and feeling vaguely empty at 2am after reloading livejournal for two hours. really. i want to use the internet for good and for art.

now, i am sleepy and will go sleep for a long long time.

oliver and i like to drive to santa cruz sometimes, to poke around, and eat at saturn cafe. today, i woke up cranky and irritable, storming around and being grumpy from being stuck inside too much. oliver intuited that he had better get me out of the house somehow. so we went south to xep's hometown.
we stopped to get some biodiesel on the way:

we ate at saturn cafe:

wandering around capitola, we found kristie:

and then we stopped for warm drinks in a familiar place, where there was a well loved dictionary available:

after all that, i changed my name to V. Sleepy and we rode home up the 1, listening to epic beautiful sitars on the newest and strangest FSOL album. passing lighthouses and beaches in the dark.

no luck sleeping. was reading stories jhumpa lahiri's "intepreter of maladies" before sleep. wonderful. i got a little too riveted maybe. short stories are satisfying because they must arc so quickly. before you know it you've been through a lot.

i am so in love with my cats. it amazes me at times. my cats and my plants. these simple lives i have around me. today, yoko and the new kitten (buckminster franklin) were harmoniously together for the first time since franklin's arrival here. after slow introductions since his arrival a week and a half ago, i let him out of his room, and they got along. they even played a little! it makes me so happy. i hope they will grow to be pals, though yoko is not the grooming and cuddling type. she is very austere and for this, i love her so.

sometimes, i try to sleep naked and it's just not cozy enough. i think that is part of the sleep challenge on this eve. nakedness gone uncozy. i got up and ate toast and put some of oliver's boxers on.

earlier today, i was suffering from such tiredness. i'd been perky for a couple of days and then today the waves of healing tiredness returned. now, my incision is hurty and tingly and weird, and i will eat some pain pills to hush it up so i can snuggle into bed.

i'm starting to feel the pressures of life return. i was laying awake thinking about all the things i need to do. sigh. i wish i wouldn't do that - they get done, whether i lay awake thinking of them or not.

it would have been cooler if i'd woken up and the doctor came in and was like "ok, you're doing well, it went well... now you should be able to fly just as soon as the new wings heal"
...

IN OTHER AWESOME NEWS:
the kitten (buckminster franklin percival elvis today's name jonez) and yoko (whose middle name is bernice) are getting along! and they have been playing! watching them tonight made me so happy i wanted to cry. my big fatty yoko was scampering!

this all reminds me of when i started complaining that jennifer ringley of jennicam fame was only posting about her cats and her garden. SORRY, gone are the days when i post dramatically about all the broken hearts.