I was gently berating my friend for not posting more frequently on her blog. Selfish of me, since I haven't posted since July 6th. I think my friend and I share a common ailment - the events and feelings of our lives feel at once too mundane and too complicated to explain. Sadness, malaise, ennui, SAD, depression, anxiety - whatever name you choose to give your overriding sense of wrongness-with-the-world, it makes blogging difficult. How should I choose words to describe something that I don't even understand, but which is so central to my being? It's like trying to describe breathing, or thinking, or feeling. Or the way the blood feels running through my veins, even while I am not aware of it.

I am drinking an iced coffee with a flavor shot of chocolate-mint, which was suggested to me by the overwhelmingly cute coffee-bar guy. As with all flavor shots, I am ambivalent about this one. I like the flavor, but not the icky sweetness that lingers on the palate, forcing one to take sip after sip in order to wash away the ickiness with another taste. I prefer straight coffee. But, gazing into coffee-bar-guy's eyes, I thought I'd give the flavor another shot.

I don't know how to delete posts, so I am just erasing the text. Blogger was having hiccups yesterday and today I checked my blog to find my painful thoughts and inadequate words published in triplicate. Ouch.

My heart and mind are so full lately. Last night, after a full day of 4th of July festivities, I lay in bed, sweltering and thinking about my life and myself. It felt very painful, shockingly rich, and somehow unfathomable to be lying there, in this body, in this consciousness, in this life. I thought about what I want - that thing that is always just beyond my reach. The unknowable seemed almost knowable for just a minute. The feeling passed - it was too big to carry for longer than a moment. But there are vestiges of it lingering in me today.
A fellow-student's daughter was killed over the weekend. My co-worker's uncle died suddenly yesterday. My boyfriend finally told his parents about his alcoholism. I had a talk with my dad on Monday and told him how I've missed our connection over the last few years. It seems to be a time burdened with too much life and too much death. I don't know where to put all of it. Is it all right to simply go about the day to day routine at a time like this? Can I do anything else? Coming to work feels like such a relief because I know where I will be and what I will be doing for 8 hours. I feel like a dog who wants to go sit in her crate because it is small and protected and known. The world out there is too big sometimes.

3:39pm, Wednesday afternoon - the moment of truth. Making it past this moment means that the week will come predictably to an end, providing closure to another 5 days of meaningless, frustrating toil. My hyperbole makes me sounds much more disgruntled than I actually am, but who wants to hear about the minor disgruntlements of a fortunate daughter? Workers unite! (The first time I typed that, it read "Workers untie!" which may be more on my level.)

Discovery #1: Coffee made via the French press method is only superior if it is made from good coffee beans. Intensifying the flavor of Maxwell House does not serve the greater good. Good to the last drop, my foot.

I salvaged a grey metal box from the trash today. It makes me absurdly happy. It is square, about 6x6, and has little rubber feet on the bottom. It is perfect for treasures (and Latin flashcards).

My guilt about what I am not doing is growing apace with the heat, the mosquitoes, and my belly. Instead of working on my thesis project, practicing Latin, or enriching my mind in any way, I rush home to watch TV, read romance novels, and have rich meals with friends.

I wish I knew a way to harness the energy of a particular conversation and keep it humming once the talk has ended. I suppose this is a reason to be in contact with other people. Somehow, it is never quite possible to generate the same friction alone. I guess Good Vibrations has been working on this problem for a while.

I am interested in just about everything I read, when I read it. This is exciting and intellectually stimulating, but not very focused. As I am looking around for the perfect grad school, the perfect career, the perfect thesis topic, I find my multiplicity of interests (to use a sociological phrase) somewhat detrimental. Perhaps I am a true liberal art-ist, but is there any place to put that in this world? I know, I know, I'm supposed to create my own niche to fit me, rather than trying to fit myself into some prefab slot (eww). But how can I figure out what to do if it's never been done before? Or am I just looking in the wrong places?

I think my preoccupation with self and identity may be blinding me to alternate ways of living/being/doing. My friend was trying to articulate her philosophy to me, as philosophers will, and I kept getting hung up on the self. If we can only experience ourselves through an individual consciousness, how can we ever truly connect to an "other" or "others"? The more I think about this, the more I see my own limitations, perhaps stemming from an immature, or inexperienced, point of view. I don't really get how to connect to people, or to something "greater" than myself. Obviously, I am not affiliated with any religion - a position I've always worn as a badge of courage. But I wonder if I'm missing out on the big kahuna by refusing to connect to a spirituality. (Am I refusing? Does this imply that there is something to refuse?) I've always thought that I worshipped at the altar of the psyche, which is all well and good as an ironic intellectual position. However, it does not function as a worldly emotional recipe.

I am experiencing blog envy. And Blogger's Remorse. I am convinced that my blog is inferior. Does it reveal too much without revealing anything substantive?

I spend a lot of time at work looking over my shoulder and startling, like a cat in a room full of invisible moths. If I were to perform actual work-related duties, my nerves would be able to settle. But I persist, like a modern-day Don(a) Quixote, tilting at windmills labeled "MySpace," "Facebook," "Blogger," "gmail," "hotmail," and "petersons.com". Oh yes, and my nemesis constantchatter.com. This display of utter disconnection with reality further convinces me that I am unsuited for the world. Do I really wish to spend my life in an ivory tower, jotting strange poems, and putting all my hopes into posthumous recognition? I would like to think that I truly want meaningful engagement with the world. How that would actually look remains to be seen.

Typical archival request #1
The phone rings. It's an elderly woman, asking for Patty. I tell her Patty is on vacation and ask if there's any way I can help. She says "I sure hope so," in a dubious tone of voice. She wants to know if I can find out about a professor "Conlon" or "Condon" who taught in the Religion Dept in the mid-80s. I tell her I will look into it and call her back. I search every directory from 1980-1994. No luck. I search the Religion Dept files for that year range. No dice. I search the faculty bio files for anything starting with CO. Strike three. I call her back to let her know I haven't found anything. She can't hear me and we yell back and forth until she realizes she needs to switch phones. All this time, she is also yelling to someone else - a man, maybe her husband, who is there in the room with her. They decide that maybe the name is not "Conlon" or "Condon" but simply a 1-syllable name, and maybe he taught earlier than the mid-80s. Biting back my frustration, I offer to search again. I go through the directories from 1960-1990 and find an F. Benjamin Carr who taught in the Religion Dept from 1969-1974. I have a feeling he's the one. I pull his file, and while I'm at it, I pull the file of the caller, Gwen Glass. I call her back to give her the name. It's the right one. Her voice warms and she and the man in the background both sound happy. She thanks me. Turns out she's an alum who also served as Secretary of the College from 1973-89. She's a pistol.

This exchange is typical because it involves the 3 main ingredients of archival work: the frustration, the search, and the discovery of information and resultant connection. It's pretty cool, when it works out.

My friend Corinne has inspired me to resuscitate my blog. Sadly, I find myself in a similar situation to last summer - working a job that requires little in the way of thinking, or even doing. I developed an instantaneous addiction to constantchatter.com last Friday. I will try to nip that one in the bud and constrain my chatter to this blog.

Goals for the summer include: checking out MassMoCA, finding a good swimming hole, reading a lot of sociological theory, exercising semi-regularly, and forcing others to cook-out with me. So far, I have made little to no progress on any of these things. However, I can report that I am much happier this year than I was last year at this time. Can it be enough for life to improve incrementally, invisibly, internally, rather than in a mad rush of external accomplishment?

I have 2 favorite blogs: A Traveler in the World of Work by roaster boy, an old friend of my father's, and Muddy-Footed Hill Troll by hilltroll, a dear friend of mine from CA. Check them out!