2001-07-16 - 3:55 p.m. - brevis15

To start:

"The day is short and the work is great. It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." -Rabbi Tarphon (from the Talmud). I found it on the Internet, here, but something similar is quoted in Tony Kushner's work "Notes on Akiba."

It's 18 July now - about 1AM local, and it's almost quiet over here... except for some singing going on on the television (a moment ago it was poorly enunciated English, I think - "My Heart Will Go On." I don't like the song anyway.) and my typing. And, of course, the guilt going around and around in my head. It's like... a Lionel train. Except it's the Lionel train from the underworld because it keeps growing bigger with each circuit. I. Am a waste not being the model Jewish mother? I don't know. What makes it worse is that I don't act on the guilt, not really, not sincerely, and so then I feel worse about myself, and that ill-feeling turns into guilt, and... yes. It's a neverending, monstrous cycle. (I can't get away from the thought that perhaps I don't do anything about it because I like to complain.) I slept most of today, so I feel unbearably lazy; on the other hand, I do have a rather large sleep deficit from school still. I gave my mother some Excedrin today; she complained that the water was too warm so I went to go and get some cooler water. She then yelled at me because the coating had melted in her mouth (and I know from experience: Excedrin tastes awful when that happens. And the reason she had a headache today was the fact that I had written my Chinese class's assignments in the only ink available - which happened to be ink that we've had for a year and which we both think had probably gone off - whatever the reason, it stank (forgive me if I conjugated that the wrong way, I can never remember my verbs). So! More guilt! More life!

I'm a bad son.

In other news, I am falling desperately (not in love, or even into desire, but... somewhere) over Zach, even though I don't want to be and really don't know the lad, having spoken to him... what, four times now? and only knowing him because my friend went to camp with him... suspect, yes? especially seeing how he lives six hours away... with no traffic) and am beginning to hate how pathetic I seem to myself. Now's a good time to remember what a lot of people have been telling me: "If you really want to make a change in yourself, you can." Hoo boy.

I don't want to grow up. (It seems, however, that I am: the doctor today said that I am now 5' 2 3/4", or about 159 cm, tall.) What I meant: I'm not sure I want to become an adult. And yet, I do, because I want to get away from myself as I am now. It seems that my period of disgust is getting shorter and shorter: allow me to explain. This thing I call my period of disgust is the time that it takes for me to be utterly ashamed of the way I acted x yearsmonthsdays in the past and also of what I wrote at that time (yes, I'm still pretending to be able to write. shhh, it'll be our secret.) So. Maybe soon it'll become so short that I cross the line into self-hatred. Eh. It's in the future, and that I can't see. Couldn't see it, either, even if I did have perfect eyes (I tried to explain to the person today that it couldn't be much of a vision test if I had my glasses on, but she told me to keep them on anyway. She also told me that my hearing was wonderful- but the thing is, I asked her about my little problem of not hearing well when there's a lot of ambient noise - which there isn't with the headphones around me. She was very nice about it but she didn't seem to understand my question. Sigh.

There's really not much I can do.

Any suggestions on how to get me to love myself and have more patience with others (and, I suppose, with myself as well?) I don't mean to be a second Narcissus... just... where doubt doesn't get in the way of almost everything I do. But if anyone had discovered that secret- we'd be happier, now wouldn't we?

I'll leave you with a question I saw in the comics today: If everyone wants it [world peace], then why is it so hard?

Click here for the next entry- ifandwhen it comes.

J