Nil by Mouth

What I did over Spring Break

It’s fun that when one’s out of school spring break can mean anything, and fall at anytime. I made mine nearly all of March. But for full disclosure, I’ve really taken the whole winter off. I never could figure out why. There was just all these open issues swirling around. I could write and write and write, but I had no endings for anything. No final thoughts, no way to wrap up the last paragraph with a joke and an exasperated sigh.

There’s the fact that the whole world seems to be spiraling into doom. I considered developing a series of essays with the loose theme, “Asshole of the Moment”. Its features might include the president, the governor, the guy painting the apartment downstairs who will not stop being a jerk to me , the head of the MTA, whomever decided to cut off IFC from my channel selection, and any one else contributing bad energy to the world. But then I thought that perhaps reacting to this bad energy in kind might exacerbate the gloom and doom, in my world and yours. That and when I’m pissed off about something I have a tendency to sit by myself and stew rather than producing anything worthwhile. I’m not good at being pissed off. I try and leave it to Bill Maher and other professionals.

In some sort of cosmic energy shift, or just stroke of luck, I have recently started working like crazy. Timing is good because I’ve been broke for too damn long. The new iPods just came out and I’ve been lusting after that thing for a year. I’m getting one in the next month no matter what, though I might possibly wait until mercury is out of retrograde, and also the inevitable first-release bugs are worked out. Besides for money it’s been a blessing to be working 12 hours a day since I’ve been going through a break up, and it’s a hard one. It was a relationship who’s beginning caught me by surprise, and also it’s end. I haven’t finished going through the five stages of loss yet. I passed (1) denial, (2) bargaining quite handily, but I seem to be stuck with one foot in (3) anger and the other in (4) despair. So feigning optimism, (5) acceptance must be just around the bend. (Sound convincing?)

I am projecting that to happen when it starts to get hot. All my life stages eerily correspond to changes in the weather. Spring has consistently been a bad season for me. I am of course thrilled to come out from the oppression of hats, scarves, and gloves. I had several fantasies about setting fire to my winter coat. But I think I hate the winter so much that the skittish nature of spring is a let down. I expect so much from the temperature shift, and it never measures up, sunny one day, and cold rain the next. Summer however generally delivers, and I repair winter’s pale skin, slack muscles, and emotional disappointments.

It’s also been exactly a year since I returned from Paris which is an anniversary I keep trying to avoid. I was supposed to have a lot more of my shit together by now, but no dice. What I’ve termed a “Transition Phase” persists. It’s going to be bearable though, as long as I have 30 gigs of music in my pocket.

• May 3