A random assortment (a myriad, if you will) of quotes that speak to me:


To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. - Allan K. Chalmers

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,Therefore, we are saved by hope.Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;Therefore, we are saved by faith.Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.Therefore, we are saved by love.No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness. -Reinhold Niebuhr

There was never a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn't be. He is too many people if he's any good. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. - Gloria Steinem

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph. - Mark Twain

The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. - Henry David Thoreau

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. - Aristotle


Marge: Lisa, if you want to tell this boy you're not interested, just tell him the truth.
Homer: And if that doesn't work- six magic words: 'I'm not gay but I'll learn'.


Bart: We want the truth.
Sideshow Bob: You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler, you. I deride your truth-handling abilities


Lisa: Relax? I can't relax. Nor can I yield, relent, or... Only two synonyms? Oh my God, I'm losing my perspicacity. Aaaaa!
Homer: Well, it's always in the last place you look.


After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is Music. - Aldous Huxley

In this lifelong battle which I have been fighting, this war of attrition against myself, the simple truth (no fancy words, no overdone hyperbole, no melodrama) is this:

I am losing.

Over the years, I have made strides. Taken some baby steps towards progress. But intermittenly I have also given ground. So therefore I never really make gains, I just recover (somewhat) what I have lost.

I am in the same place and I am losing.

I say it all the time and yet I don't think I have ever really admitted it: I am losing and I need help. I cannot continue to wage this war alone. I need to be victorious in this war and I need help so that I can learn not only to survive and to make due, but to live fully and to cope and reason and enjoy and live and love and laugh.

When I am in a phase when I lose ground (as I suppose I am now), I do not like myself. Let's face it, I loathe myself. The hatred and contempt that I launch at myself is not anything I would wish on my worst enemy and yet it is par for the course for me. I can take it. I always have. And yet, I cannot. Why? Because I see how hard it is for my friends and loved ones (I suppose they are one and the same) to watch. It is painful for them. I try to isolate myself to spare them and yet I cannot. But when I am around them, I start to believe that they *must* loathe me as much as I loathe myself. That is when I start to say silly and unreasoned things, frustrating to the normal and well-balanced people I am so blessed and so lucky to call friends.

For instance, tonight I could have gone out with the gang. The function in question was invite only. I did not have an invitation. There was one available. I could have gone. And yet, I couldn't. I felt like I was intruding. Why? Well, I am not sure. What did I expect? What did I want an engraved invitation? People had asked me to come along. What more could I want?And yet, I think what I was really suffering from, under all of the shrieks and pretense and protestations was this: Because I really don't like myself very much right now, I don't think they like me very much either. So I take what are genuine displays of friendship and affection and assume that "they are just saying that" because they need to be nice etc.

How dumb is that? And yet that is my gut reaction and even now I can't shake it.

So dumb.

So can a miracle brain-drug help me see that that is dumb? I mean really. I know it is dumb, but I am unable to believe it/to know it in the moment in which I am making an ass of myself in front of my friends who are doing nothing more than care about me. Will an anti-depressant (there - I said it - are you happy now?) really help that? I suppose it couldn't hurt.

Why am I so afraid of it then?

But I am also so terribly afraid of losing my friends - that they will lost patience with me and my ridiculous guerrilla campaign against myself. You can only watch someone throw themselves against a wall (even after you begged and pleaded with them to stop) so many times before giving up on them as hopeless.

Is it too late for me? I don't want them to give up on me.

I have to do something. I am now in a place where there are too many people I care about in close proximity. I can no longer shut my door and wallow in my misery alone. Everyone else is exposed to it now as well.

Agh! Why do I make things so complicated/difficult/melodramatic. Really?!

More from the front lines of my battle with narcolepsy, frustration, and an apparent life-long inability to shake a perpetual state of PMS:

Being extremely tired does not make it any easier to cope. Not a revolutionary concept, but true. It also makes original thought, smiling and/or laughing, and common courtesy more like aspirational goals than achievable realities.

In my ennui and my fatigue and perpetual state of just-below-the-surface crisis, I have been having a GroundHog Day like conversation with a good friend of mine. He is kind enough to ask me how I am. I respond with an obfuscatory, "Well, you know..." He prods me for details. I demur for a split second and then rant on incessantly till, tears brimming, I make a declaration that "I just can't take this anymore" or "I just can't do this anymore" or "I am just so tired." He then says he is sorry. He is sorry for me, he genuinely feels bad for me, I know. The rant was likely meant to incite such pity, however, once it is forthcoming, I am ashamed. So I always reply, "Sorry for what? There is nothing you can do about it." And there we stand. Not very productive. Basically, this is just an example of how I have made all my friendships boring. I have either tuned out of them altogether or I just prattle on in lamentation about my favorite topic - me. Nothing interests me more, apparently, than my own misery. Who knew?

My problems are of my own making. With luck a good night's sleep (which should bring along with it at least a modicum of perspective) will be forthcoming, and I can make some progress here.

I will finish my random thoughts post from November 4th - because I think it is worthwhile and because I have a lot of random things to say. If I don't write them down, then I will forget them, and then the records of my randomness will be lost to the world forever. Oh, woe is everyone. Tragic. Well, not quite, but for the sake of memorializing things to amuse myself with my inanity at a later date, I should and will write it down, soon, when I have time, which will be, well, soon, I think, I hope, I delude myself.

Really, I think I could have time now, if only I weren't so tired. I don't remember what it is like not to feel tired. Basically I just live on a scale between "So utterly exhausted that blinking becomes a Herculean effort" and "I know I got six-hours of sleep last night, but I still have that 'my head is stuffed with cotton' and I drank too much cheap tequila after running a 10K" kind of feeling. Basically, I drag myself from place to place. I continually make lists of what I have to get done. I cross about a third of them off right away then spend the next few weeks/months putting the rest of them off. I am perpetually late for everything. The first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do at night (sometimes, many times, these two events are not all that far apart) is that I make a mental list of what I have to do that day/the next day, I order it and reorder it in my head, allotting each activity an amount of time, trying to impose logic and efficiency on my schedule while still building in time for contingencies. Does it ever work? Nope. Never build in enough time for (1) stress, (2) several mini-mental breakdowns over the course of the day, (3) more stress, (4) the inability to get out of bed due to anxiety, exhaustion, sheer inertia, (5) additional stress, (6) guilt about having to rearrange said schedule and inevitably flaking on something, or more often, someone, (7) apologies for the aforementioned flaking, (8) more guilt and stress about said guilt, (8) frustration with self due to seeming inability to concentrate and hopeful contemplation of the possibility of adult-onset ADD, (9) additionally, contemplation of potential undiagnosed narcoleptic tendencies, (10) whining, complaining and lamenting to anyone who will listen about all of the above, (11) apologizing to anyone who had to listen to my unrelenting wailing about all of the above, (12) guilt about all of the above, and (13) oh yeah, more stress.

As you can probably tell, I don't have time to be writing this either. Yes, it is 3:30 on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, but I don't have time. I am in my office, writing this, when I should be researching and drafting a memorandum. I have been researching and reading, but I still feel as though I have done nothing. It is 3:30 and I have been unable to write anything down due to overwhelming anxiety of not having written anything down yet. Flaked on 3 things, people, events yesterday. Gonna have to flake on at least one more person tonight due to my inability to get anything done in a timely manner. Slept for 8 hours last night, I think. Still feel like crap. Tired of feeling tired. Seriously, when does it end? "I need a vacation" no longer seems like it will cut it - I am moving on to "I need a sabbatical." Oy.

It has gotten so bad that I literally sit and imagine bad things happen to me (e.g. getting mugged, hit by car, falling and breaking an arm or leg) and think, "Well, at least that would be a legitimate excuse for not getting X, Y, or Z assignment done." That is not good.

Other people do their jobs without this happening to them. Other people do my job without this happening to them. Everyone I know works harder than me and this does not happen to them. What is wrong with me? Seriously? Why am I (1) unable to be efficient, and (2) seemingly unable to cope? Why does the sky always have to be falling?

So not cool.

I know, I know. Time to make the appointment. To deal with things, or rather, have things dealt with for me. People I have told of my contemplation of making said appointment with said doctor keep asking me if I have done it yet. Guess they wouldn't keep asking if they weren't concerned and if they didn't think it was a good idea. I am scared to do it. But I think I am scared to continue the way I am. Okay, that will be the first thing for the contemplated list of Monday morning - make the call....

Random thoughts (which I shouldn't be writing because I don't have time, but I never have time, so it appears that now is as good a time as any):

Signs of the Apocalypse: A Meditation of the Irrational, the Exuberant, the Faithful, the Blind, the Miasma, and Why That All Pleases Me.

(1) Joy In Mudville:

The Red Sox Won The Pennant. The Red Sox won the World Series. The Red Sox Beat The Yankees. The Red Sox Came Back from 3 Games to 0, from within 3 outs of elimination in the ALCS, to topple the Evil Empire, to sweep through the Midwest (0 for 4, Sorry Cards - October is never Tony LaRussa's time of year anyway - magical World Series moments are made against him, not for him. Takes a natural disaster - be it of 7.2 magnitude on the Richter scale or simply by the name of the SF Giants to bring him a championship ring). The Red Sox silence the smug Yankee fans. Rooting for the house in blackjack is not indicative of strong character. It indicates only a strong predilection for bon-bons and whining. It builds no heart. The Red Sox Win the World Series. They make an inordinate amount of errors along the way (heart palpitations all around), but they win nonetheless. The Nation rejoices (except for A-Rod and Jeter - too busy frolicking - and the black hearted aforementioned Yankee fans).

Question: Why was the experience all so moving to me? I am not a Red Sox fan. Never have been. Spent four years in Boston. Never picked up the bug that is Red Sox Nation. So why the tears, the joy, the elation, the giddiness, the deep-seated satisfaction, the unrelenting grin?

Answer: Because all lessons in life were encompassed in this magical October.

• LESSON #1: Evil is Fallible. Pinstripes, cash, a smirk and a steady stream of condescension put you on a collision course with karma. Fly a little too close to the sun, blind yourself to real problems, trade for a $250M shortstop-cum-thrid baseman who is a little too pretty, and the result, in the end, will always be the same. You get what is coming to you. 26 World Championships. True enough. But no one - no one - will forget the world's most spectacular collapse of four straight games in the ALCS when coming within 1 out of victory. It wasn't lack of skill. It was a classic Wizard of Oz problem - no brains, no courage, no heart.
• LESSON #2: Why not us? The ode to Schill' was to take place a little further down this list, but now is as good a time as any. So this man makes a promise to the longest suffering fans (if not in the measure of years, then in tragic near misses and resultant lamentations thereof) of the world's most exhilarating and yet heart-breaking sport. He promises them they can win. They can be the king of the mountain. They can be "that guy." They can take home all the marbles for once. They can decide whether to take the lump sum or pro-rated payments over the next 20 years. They could be Miss America. This would be their prerogative. He would deliver to them the joy and they, like children with a bag of long awaited candy, could decide what to do with it. They all thought he was crazy - the members of this ragged brethren of suffering souls, as did the rest of us, observers of the game, of the long-standing vigil in the northeast at the precipice of that large green wailing wall in left field. The MLB thought him crazy too. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=1683054
• The contract provision making the promise one of legal tender was nullified. There would be no paper to back this promise up. Nevermind. In the end, there really was no need. What surfaced instead was the following - this blue t-shirt. Cotton and colors, spelling out one simple phrase: "Why not us?" It got a lot of attention in the press, then and now. There is a certain sense of it being revolutionary. However, the magic is in the fact that the revolution, the resultant victory, were based on words the brethren had had access to, had in fact been using, over and over, all along - then entire drawn out, nearly century long journey. "Why not us?" "Why not us?" "Why not us?" How many times had the words been repeated over the years. Babe. "Why Not Us?" No, no Nannette. "Why Not Us?" Bill Buckner. "Why Not Us?" Clemens. "Why Not Us?" Grady Little. "Why Not Us?" Over and over. So where was the revolution in the t-shirt? In the phraseology? In the timing? No. The Revolution was in the source. A man who can be described in conflicting terms - which make him as unpopular as they make him awe inspiring - a man who is both heroic and audacious. He is a man who believes. He believes in himself. He does not hesitate to let everyone know that. It grates. It is difficult. It has been overpowering to teammates and managers alike in the past. And yet. It was this power, this energy, this jarring audacity, that was necessary - that set it all into motion. He was the one who asked, rather than cried out, "Why not us?" He refocused the query from lamentation, to incantation. This man believed. He believed in himself. He made incredible things happen before. He had beaten the Evil Empire before. He had done so almost single handedly. He could help here. He believed he could do it. He believed they could do it. He believed it could get done. On top of that, he was not afraid to say it. So he said it. And he said it. And he said it again. Were the motives purely altruistic? One suspects not. There is a sealing of his legacy that goes along with this feat. It feeds the ego. All those deciding how to memorialize the moment, as well as the man point to this. But they don't get it. It doesn't matter. Whatever the myth is, it was the man that the team needed. Someone with such unmitigated gall, such unabashed hubris, he could speak the unspeakable, mention the unmentionable, think the unthinkable. And then, of all things, back it up. The message, the magic, needed to be one of words and action. That is what they needed, that is what they got. The psychological state of the RSN, of their team, of their collective psyche was such that they were their own self-fulfilling prophecy. They couldn't see past the next bobbled ground ball. The next departed superstar. Yet Nomah was shipped off. There were 8 errors in the first 2 games of the World Series. They still won. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't pretty. Neither are they. But they won. They won because of guts. Because of heart. Because of courage. Because of faith. Because they dared to believe. Because they ignored Tim McCarver. Because it was destiny. Because (as Manny Ramirez stated in an appropos Yogi-ism) it was destination. Curt Schilling asked "Why not us?" and, in doing so, tipped the downtrodden faces of the Red Sox brethren up ever so slightly so that they faces the sky, the sun, the stars, the moon, the possibilities. All in one brief moment that is 162 games in an 86 year vigil.
• LESSON #3: Redemption of Magic Moments
• LESSON #4: Heroes Can Be Made
• LESSON #5: New Chapters - though scary and inconceivable - Are Made To Be Lived
• LESSON #6: Happy, Happy. Joy, Joy.
• LESSON #7: Outcomes Are Not Determined By Your Color Commentators.
• LESSON $8: The Best Things Can Happen When There Are 2 Strikes Against You and You Step Up To The Plate.
• LESSON #9: It is Not Destiny - It is A Destination.
• LESSON #10: I Believe.