Dance

There's no need to talk about work anymore. Last couple of posts cover that. This weekend I'm trying to stretch after being crunched up in a tight little ball of responsibility, exhaustion and depression for a few weeks. Last night I saw 'Where The Wild Things Are' with Mel. I don't recall reading any reviews of it so I don't know what general opinion is, but we both loved it. Chatting in a bar afterwards, when someone asked me what it was like, I said that from the moment he lands on the island, I had the feeling I get in dreams, and especially used to get when I was younger, when the dream isn't strictly lucid but there's a cloud of your conscious self sitting over everything that's happening, saying, "This isn't going to last. I'm going to wake up. I need to absorb this and enjoy it," and it makes the dream feel so precious. It's not an especially happy story, it's sometimes scary and ultimately rather melancholy, rather world-weary, but even at the saddest moments you feel that special-ness, you grasp that this is an experience to be indulged and cherished. One of my favorite books when I was little - still one of my favorite books now - is The Secret Garden, for the same reason. A chance for a child to have something absolutely for him or her. I guess that's what makes Peter Pan so compelling, too. So I loved the movie.

We had drinks in the East Village with a bunch of people, then went to a club and danced for hours. I did ballet when I was little, then from the age of fifteen I was out clubbing in Newcastle, then Oxford, then London (a lot), then finally here. I am a big subscriber to the theory of the healing power of dancing your ass off. Haven't been going out so much this last year, but last night was medicinal. Lovely people, not too much booze, lots of esteem-building attention, home very late and falling into bed feeling deliciously worn out. I need to start doing that more; I think it may be what kept me sane for such a long time. It's pure happiness, self-indulgence, goodwill to all who surround you. The link between mentally letting go of the week and physically shaking it from your person is undoubtedly very strong.

Was supposed to clean my apartment today. Instead I had a 4-hour brunch with Frank, one of the few people with whom I can keep an almost headache-inducingly rapid and sprawling conversation going for what seems to be an unlimited time. I remember in Ohio last year we were both sleeping in the basement of the delegate's house and I could never remember quite when we'd gone to sleep, could only assume that we quite literally talked ourselves into subconsciousness with no "well, good night then" hard stop.

Reclusive

At least when it comes to blogging. I'm not very interested in myself or much else so it's difficult to find things to write. There's normally something that's intriguing me, but right now my only function is to be very good at my job, which I'm doing, just it's emptying me of all value. Feel capable but hollow. I worked 18 hours every day last week, and this week is only marginally better. On Thursday night I went out with some people from work for the first time in forever and had a pretty good time: I was tired but needed to let off steam, to detach from sobriety and the Blackberry for a few hours, and sometimes it's best to be with people who have a grasp of what your job's like so it's okay to sit around looking a bit stunned or complaining. Saturday was Hallowe'en. I felt ill-disposed and irritable, too many parties and taxis and friends wanting to meet up, then the group I was with got steadily wasted while I stayed inexplicably sober. It wasn't a terrible night, just more effort than I'm prone to expelling, and I've been feeling sad for a while and found it hard to shake that off. We did look fabulous, though. They may as well rename it Halloslut.

This weekend will be proper time with proper friends. Business trips to France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Brazil and Thailand are all possibly clustering together over the next month or so. If I can time them with weekends it could be good. My parents are here in a couple of weeks, too. I simply cannot imagine them in this city, will.not.compute.

This time last year I was in Ohio working like a robot on the Obama campaign. I felt at the time, and still do now, that it was one of the best weeks of my life. Such purpose and camaraderie and hope mingled with terror. It's been a quick year.

Toddling

You know when you see a small child, one who's only just learned to walk, and they start trundling along and they pick up speed and you realize the only thing that's preventing them from falling over is the momentum itself? Rather like the force that allows a rollercoaster to go upside down, too. That's what my life is like right now. I wake up and accelerate into the day with a bundle of things to do before that evening's call with the clients in Korea, none of which I've been able to start beforehand because yesterday it was the same story on something else, and I list dangerously through the day, get it done just in time, present it to the client, leave the office at 11pm, come home and go to bed. And for as long as this loose and maddening ritual is repeated, as long as the momentum is kept up, I don't have to think about the things that are really bothering me. I can just write creative briefs and presentations about brand positionings and go to meetings and tell people what to do and the more I do it, the more I get good at it and get paid a lot of money to do it, the more I realize how it is that so many people get completely absorbed into this sort of life, of perpetual forward motion, except they aren't going anywhere, they're just standing still, and suddenly they're old.

Disorder

I was going to take a photo of my apartment and post it here but it's more embarrassing than funny. When I got back last weekend I decided to get my winter clothes out, but instead of unpacking them properly, I just exploded them all over the floor, where they remain, the top layer changing daily as I dig around for something to wear.

I was supposed to get stuff done this weekend, but I failed to convert the energy of the week into doing laundry or paying bills. Friday I went for drinks with friends, then to David's, inexplicable insomnia in a tangle of limbs and bedsheets, inactive exhaustion yesterday, 12 hours of sleep last night, brunch and a trundle with Jamie today, now it's Sunday night again. I haven't written much at all, just odd pencil scribbles in my notebook but no verse or proper scenes for a month or so. I've been distracted and ill-disposed; it's bad. Sent a friend some finished chapters this week, and she was overwhelmingly lovely about it, but now I've shown a handful of people my writing I've realized it doesn't get me anywhere. And that's not a bad thing, it's a relief: I've come to see that the approval or even enjoyment of others doesn't matter to me. Of course I'm glad if they like it and I hope it's published one day and I'm not silly enough to believe that the first time someone admits they hate it or think it's weak I won't be crushed, but the only person I want or need to satisfy with it is myself and that's the biggest challenge but also the biggest comfort. I think, or hope, that's healthy.

"I have seen so much blood and guts, so much suffering, sadness and sacrifice. For what?"

I guess a lot of people have seen this by now, but I thought I'd post it here on the off-chance you haven't. Because of who he is, his age and his background and his majestic achievements and his personal family story - his American-ness - you get something here you don't often get when people speak up for gay equality. You get to see the purity of the argument: defending the rights of gay people isn't liberalism gone rife, isn't a mockery of religion, doesn't create a cancer in the nation's values. It is the nation's values; it's American.

mood shift

It's perplexing to track my mental state as it careens wildly from morose to merry. Yesterday I felt like shit and everything was wrong. Today I feel skippy-good, and it's tough to know why. It may be that I'm insane. It may be that I'm becoming a victim of the female hormone rushes that never plagued me in the past. It may be that sometimes a string of superficial but positive events through a day can shoo out what seemed like unliftably low spirits more easily than I'd like to admit. I had a good meeting with my clients today, they agreed with me, I got what I wanted. My colleague, a woman I really like, drove us back to the city in her battered car, smoking a cigarette with the windows down and the sun shining and the wind messing up our hair. I was very, very busy but on my game for some reason. I felt capable rather than demotivated; I got stuff done. When I walked out of work it was a perfect Autumn night, there was steam rising from a pipe in the middle of the street, I had one of those 'shiiiit, I live in New York, that's awesome' moments. A photographer putting together a fashion piece on animal print clothing stopped me to take my photo. Or maybe he was a fetishist and wanted a photo of my seamed stockings - he took a sneaky picture as I turned away. I guess I'll never know. Yesterday's pickle is a little less pickly today, not resolved, but I feel like I've said and done the right thing and can't do any more and for now the anxiety has abated. Hoping this continues tomorrow. Need this sort of mood to propel me through the demands of the week.

Natural history

David Attenborough makes everything a little bit better, doesn't he? That wonderful voice, that gentleness. Here he is with the lyre bird.

These past few days have been brutal in every possible sense. Trying to shake off a cold and manifest an appetite and sleep for more than two hours at a time. Work, always a little silly, has become absurd. I simply cannot bring myself to care about my pointless job, but the ever-increasing, unrewarded workload begins to distress me. A beloved family member is horribly sick and the prognosis is very bad. Every time I think about it my insides go hollow. And I'm in a messy little pickle and don't know how to unpickle it without some help.