July 31 Yesterday, I had a rather unpleasant awakening. Though not as uncomfortable as waking in an oozing sea of placenta somewhere south of Rwanda, it was not appreciated. Should I be seized by anxiety, dolor, or sheer bitchiness during the day, there's no problem concealing it. Mornings are me at my most vulnerable. Anything unexpected will throw me off my guard, crushed by an anxious stampede before I have had to properly reassemble my barricade of defense mechanisms. All surprises are threats before I am properly medicated.
What was this jarring conundrum that shook my mind to vertigo and turned my day to horse shit? It was a phone call. A nice, friendly phone call from Carl, the bookstore manager. Naturally, I was asleep at 8:30, but he said he would call back at eleven. I had just under two hours to anticipate my summer's untimely death, create a tentative work schedule, and remember how to be assertive. In doing this, I also argued with the inner voice of dissension. You don't need to work. I like paychecks. And you don't spend them. Maybe it's because I have no more money coming in. Maybe you want to use a shitty job to feel better about yourself, to feel like you're doing something as you vegetate, so you don't have to think. It's someplace to be. I like have structure, and obligations to work around. Then you can look like you're juggling when you're shooting yourself in the foot. You like being able to use it as an excuse for being lazy and not creating anything meaningful. Admit it: you need something else to bitch about now that you're not sick as a dog. And I'll fucking tell Carl that's the reason I cannot wait to return. You have no idea how little you are worth to him. It won't be long before it rubs off on you again. What do you have to say to him?
The phone rang at 10:15. I was not surprised: he wanted to leave early. He asked when I planned on coming back, as expected. I told him towards the end of next month, working fewer hours than before. When I do go back, I have a raise waiting for me: my wages are up by a whole buck. It is less than my time is worth, but more than I expected. It means I would only have to work seventeen hours a week to rake in the same four hundred eighty dollars a month. Before taxes. Swell.
Financial aid will be up and running August 12, and I am welcome back any time after then. How depressing. I can feel the summer slip away, but not like I have exercised its potential at all. No matter how many scrapbooks I make, poems I write, and walls I reconfigure, I still feel about as efficacious as a fingerless handmaid in a crochet competition. There is nothing I can do to make it seem as if I have done anything. An anomie and spent, I gaze back into collage-filled May, somewhat Spanish speaking June, and an especially poetic July. What have I done? Why does it take me ages do anything? Why do I sense a sharp drop in estrogen following my eighteenth birthday? The only time everything escapes question is when I walk. I clear my head and just appreciate the tire-melting heat. Of course, as of late, I am too fucking lazy to walk for more than twenty minutes at a stretch. It is too beautiful out for me to have started hating everything because someone's knocking on my vacuum door.
Dysphoria is not to be denied. Having finished another wall, I embarked on a project guaranteed to be as depressing as my inner narrative. A stack of newspapers, magazines, and other propaganda from September 11 to May 26 has been festering in a corner for too long. My brother asked why I waited this long to begin the scrapbook. Why wouldn't I? Imagine what an evening and an afternoon sifting through images of monolithic devastation does to someone's sense of well-being. Forcing myself to select scruples of destruction to preserve is daunting, and suited to the mood. Which of these images best embodies the essence of sheer terror? How much rubble is too much rubble? If I cut the article into columns, will it all fit?
My day has been pervaded with headlines like, "No Blood. No Cries. Nothing." The hardwood floor is blanketed with photos of flaming towers, pensive firefighters, clouds of smoke, and faces contorted in expressions of horror. It makes me glad I remember next to nothing from a dream last night, but upset to consider how much of the initial shock has been forgotten. This project is not one I dove into headfirst, it is not as fun as sticking postcards to my wall, not as soothing as scribbling in a journal for an hour or two. About thirty pages into the scrapbook, I have not gotten to the heartwarming bits yet. I have run out of tape and glue.
I have gone through two whole gluesticks in the past week, one of which I just opened today. This summer alone, I think I have used up about seven. Gluesticks are like people and beliefs. You think they will adhere forever, then they end up being as plastic as everything else. Pity.
Not until I reread my own retarded musings am I aware of the triviality of my personal woe. Being submerged in collective desperation has put things in perspective, if not lifted my spirits. Fuck work. Once I obtain more adhesives, I will continue to immiserate myself for the sake of memory.
