sober bullet points

• I watched all my Sopranos and I worked my way to the end of West Wing so I picked up a whole bunch of Northern Exposures, inspired by my sister. It's weird watching them because I remember them so vividly well, in fact a few I skipped because I could play them all in detail in my head. Two tonight had relevant themes.
• 1) One on tribes, where Joel muses about what it is to be a member of a tribe, anyway. I was with my tribe last night. Philosophers. You can depend on certain things about them, wherever you are in the world - good talkers, funny, witty, atheists usually, irreverant, hardly any conversational boundaries. They appreciate that I speak my mind and hold my ground and raise my voice and, when required, slam my hands on tables to make a point. They like those things about me. I like those things about them. But I am moving back to my other tribe. Family. Totally different set of connections. They don't understand me. But they are blood, and think of things like offering to help me suss out the best way to drive to work, on Saturday, before I have to do it for real on Monday morning. Bless her. I also have passports for both Australian and American tribes. And I'm a member of the Newcastle Knights Football Club. And etc.
• 2) One on exes, where Elaine comes to visit Joel. The very enticing scene when they fall into bed together but then decide the reason it was so great is that they're not in love any more. I couldn't possibly do what she did - remark on his sheets, stay in his house, reminisce. Even ten seconds in his entryway on Tuesday night was freaky enough - I saw the red stepped chest of drawers, I had forgotten all about it, it used to be mine, we bought it together (impulse buy the same day we bought the washing machine, almost the day we got back from our first trip to Europe), I had forgotten all about it, I had been under the belief that my house was complete with its furniture, but there it was.
• I'm so tired that I'm worried I'm going to get pneumonia. My work is very stressy, we're making lots of mistakes actually, and I can't possibly get everything done, much less take lots of time during the day to make phone calls to cancel my electricity and gas and that kind of thing. And the atmosphere is weird as - everyone has moved so far apart from each other that there's no sense of team any more, and I worry that my boss is going to get really lonely for the cool people he's hired - he didn't think this through very well at all. And I thought today, you know, even if this gig hadn't come through, I might be looking to move anyway, because I can't live with these levels of stress this continuously.
• I was already overcommitted. And now as a hobby I'm trying to organise an international move. But I'm definitely not bored!
• Another thing on television - RPA Hospital Where Are They Now special. One woman had surgery for mesothelioma. It's a cancer you get from asbestos, and she didn't even know where she had been exposed to asbestos. She was a lovely, vibrant, young Irish woman, with a handsome husband and two little girls. They tried chemo and she improved and then thought that was all she needed, but no. Surgery was necessary. It was horrendous. The first RPA show where I actually winced and looked away from the screen. But they caught up with her two years on and she was doing well, and she was talking about living with the illness, because I guess it always comes back. She talked about what a shock it was and how she had to rethink her whole future. And now she's thankful to be alive, and lives each moment one at a time. I know about that, sister. What I had was not cancer, but certainly a change of plans. And so that made me not feel bad about my current "in the now" state that I'm living in.
• Because I keep doing fun things and enjoying them, probably attending to my enjoyment while it's happening a bit more than usual, but I'm not at the same time feeling sad. I'm still here, so I might as well live here. There will be time enough to live in my future during my future, when I actually get to Appleton. Am I in denial? It has served me very well during times of transition in the past. I am very in the now. But Linda Goodman says that Geminis typically act that way - make decisions quickly, live in the now until they are enacted, don't fret too much about anything. Bring it on! Geminis were meant for disruption and international transitions.
• The feeling of all the stuff I have to do before I go is just like the boulder rolling down after Indiana Jones. Or being locked up in a coffin alive.
• Can I whinge for a minute? No one is helping me. All those people who were so tearily distraught when I said I was going, where are they? No one ever asks me, "How are you doing?" No one asks, "Is there anything I can do to make it easier?" (except one and it's not wise for me to be hanging out with him too much). I have no one to call, like, now (1am) and say, "Omigod omigod omigod, which things should I have done tonight because I won't be home tomorrow to get ready for Saturday? Which things do I have to do on Sunday and which could I leave until the next Sunday? Where should I have my party? What objects do I have to move in order to free the other objects so there's room to move them? I can't think! I'm too sleepy! Omigod, I'll never get it all done!" Last couple times I did this, I had a strong, sturdy, steady man who had years of experience helping my brain with just the above sorts of matters. An engineer. A Taurus engineer. Now I am alone, alone, alone. Doing it all by myself. Which is why I'm leaving, isn't it? Okay, whinge finished. I'm tomorrow going to get inundated with phone messages saying "How are you? Is there anything I can do to help?" and they're going to irritate the fuck out of me and I'm going to snap at those people for interfering. Apologies in advance, people. It is 1am, remember, and I'm so sleepy I feel like I'm going to get pneumonia.
• This is a lovely villanelle poem by Sylvia Plath and it's haunting me: http://firasd.org/weblog/2006/03/25/i-think-i-made-you-up-inside-my-head