take your instincts by the reins

I'm making chocolate chip cookies right now. It's not a smart thing to do, when I have a whole bunch of reading to do, it's 90 degrees in my apartment (but of course, these days, 90 degrees is called "cooling down"), and I just looked at some embalmed lungs, up close and personal. I guess it could be worse- I could be telling you about how I was just fixing to broil myself a steak.

Instead of studying, as I should have, this long weekend, I spent a lot of time doing little things that are my version of chilling out. I roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic. I made muffins. I brewed myself a big pitcher of iced green tea and sweetened it just slightly with honey. I began working on a little project that might be useful come winter. I pondered how I might spend my vacation in December. It's a sad fact, but it's time to admit the truth- this is my idea of decompressing. These days, going out to a bar and getting loaded with friends is not my idea of chilling out. Which is weird, because it would have been probably as recently as three months ago.

But that's just what happens, and I know partly it's to do with the state of my life at the moment. It's a good state, mind you. But it's pretty self-contained and isolated, and I spend a lot of time even more self-absorbed than I have in quite some years. I waste a lot of time assessing what I need to do for myself, how best to take care of myself, what I need on any given day.

I don't think it's just school that's brought this about. I think it's just feeling very much alone. Not alone in a bad way. I know no one believes there can be a feeling of being alone in a good way. But I don't mind the solitude. It's just that I'm quite aware that there's no one here looking out for me. I could pull some dumb sh*t in SF, and someone (more often than not RR) would notice and slap some sense into me. But I don't have that luxury right now, because there are no RR's checking in on me. I mean, he is, by email, but it's a bit more removed.

That's the right word for it- removed. I feel removed, and I feel you have to be removed in some ways. But on the other hand, I've already made a mess of a few things and I need to clean them up quickly, instead of relying on the old but I'm very busy with school Twinkie-defense. The tipping point occurred a few weekends ago, when I suddenly had this surge of disappointment towards a number of people. People who'd been clingy at one point or the other over the past year, people who'd been all you're my BFF!, but who had made little to no effort to check in on me now that I have a lot to reckon with. I never had big expectations of such people, so mostly, I was annoyed with myself for being annoyed, if that makes any sense. And in the next instant, I was even more annoyed with myself, because I noticed I was conveniently forgetting a very important point- while I was sitting there b*tching about these people, there were handfuls of emails in my inbox, emails from other people who have genuinely been asking after me, emails that have gone unanswered. So, that's when I realized I was pretty much full of crap.

That's the problem, when I get like this. The removal isn't just circumstance. I'm removing myself. And I need to stop doing that. Just as soon as I finish baking these cookies.

p.s.: It's the best-hearted blogger's birthday today- seriously, I do not think this girl (and yes, dear, you're still a girl to me) has ever had a hint of malice in her fiber towards anyone. Happy happy, V!