More medication meditation

Without having class tomorrow, today turned out to be pretty productive. I went shopping for some stuff, and got all of my laundry done. On top of that, I learned how to make scrambled eggs. Or rather, I made them. I guess I already knew how. I think a lot of things that I tell myself I can’t do because I don’t know how are things that I do know how to do, but have just never tried.

The only thing with the laundry is that the dryer is expensive and not very good, so I only used it to dry my sheets, which I actually need dry so I can sleep. Everything else is hanging up in various locations, searching for some sun to bask in. On the positive side, having everything hanging up in my room wet has certainly brought the humidity up a little, so I don’t feel quite so parched.

I watched Sex in the City with some of the girls for a long time tonight. I had never seen the earlier episodes, and I really do think they’re better. We watched the one where Charlotte gets married, which was beautiful, but also, the whole Aden and Carrie breaking up thing going on at the same time. There were all of these emotions colliding and intersecting in a beautiful weave. I had never really liked Sex in the City, though I was offered a job as an extra once. Turns out that some of it is filmed on the same street where my uncle lives in Greenwich Village, so when I was there visiting, they were filming. If I hadn’t been on my way to see the sights of New York for the first time ever, I might have done it, but at the time, I thought Sarah Jessica Parker was unattractive and I didn’t get the whole point of the show. I just guess it goes to show, we all grow up.

After Sex in the City, we watched a little bit of The Hours, which I must saw was very disturbing. I didn’t get to finish it, but even the lead-in to the movie is depressing, especially for me. I remember the first time I ever read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s notebooks, entitled The Crack Up. I was petrified. There, in print, was the way my brain functioned. The unrelated fragments, beautiful but unattached to reality. Fascination with the tiniest of things. The slight edge of insanity. I was relieved and frightened at the same time. I was glad not to be alone, but with what happened to Fitzgerald in his life, I wasn’t sure I wanted to follow in his footsteps. Same with Woolf. Reading her work, watching “her” writing away on Mrs. Dalloway, I feel a strange affinity. Like I would have understood her, related. And at the same time, I realize that she and Plath, etc., etc. etc. on down the line all went crazy and ended up with their heads in ovens or their bodies at the bottom of rivers. I don’t want to end up like that, but I do want to use my gift, if that’s what it is.

The way I look at it is, Woolf and Fitzgerald changed the face of literary history. I’m not sure what that means in the long run, as far as worldwide change (I imagine little…) but I do know that it means a lot to adamant English majors. Yes, they were crazy, but it seems hard to find genius without it. I just don’t know if the risk is worth it. I feel very driven to contribute to the literary world…but on my medicine, it just doesn’t interest me the same way. Without it? A slight bit more of a tendency to have my moods get out of hand. In the past, these mood swings have isolated me from people I care a lot about and made it really difficult for me to get my work done, though admittedly, my writing is better. I guess the ideal would be for me to learn coping skills, so that I could not be on medicine and still be able to handle mood swings so that I wouldn’t lose friends, but I know that I can’t get my heart set on it. Either option seems somewhat of a compromise right now. I guess I have to see how things play out.

Music equivalent of the day: Sex in the City
Food: scrambled egg with cheese and bacon sandwich
Major purchase: Calendar!
Meditation/ inspiration/ thought of the day: mental health and writing
What I learned: For a long time, Native Americans could not vote because their land was separate and non-taxable, but now they have the right to vote and are voting in record numbers.
Priority: Mailing a letter and registering as an alien.