the end of a third

Good grief, is there a more complex feeling in the world than the feeling you feel after you have submitted your last piece of written work for the quarter? relief hasn't come just yet. i am still worrying fit to tear my hair out. my last paper is in, though. all 13 pages of it. some parts i am ashamed of, some parts i am proud. i think that's what does this to me. my papers are like my children. anything i write in all seriousness, with a beginning, middle, and an end that also serves some kind of purpose and will be exposed to public scrutiny makes me feel like i'm at the top of some absurd precipe, beaten by winds, afraid to fall all those leagues but exhilirated by that feeling of being at the top. THE TOP. where you feel that anything is possible because you're so high. high up and just euphorically high. i can't even explain myself, i'm so frazzled. a few minutes ago i was frantically writing, writing, writing. about inherent blackness and how it manifests itself in African drama and poetry. i am so afraid that he will read it and know that i have no idea what i'm talking about. but if this ruse works, then all the better for me. i have no idea what to believe in anymore, least of all in myself.

my insides are like oil in a fryer. they're fizzing and popping and won't lay quiet. something's cooking somewhere in me. i'm done and yet i'm still so anxious. even remembering makes me anxious. i knew after work today that i would have to seriously skidaddle on home. as fate would have it--as fate would always have it--when i'm in a hurry everything goes wrong. there was this really nice couple at the store who needed book suggestions and they stayed past closing time. of course my boss wouldn't force them out because we needed the sale. i had to contend with my own anxiety and the impulse to do everything at top speed in order to mask my worries and serve these demanding people. and my demanding boss who does not know me at all even though she thinks she does. when i finally get out, i have to walk leagues to my car because i parked in the netherlands. then i get onto culver and there's 1. a stalled car and 2. a car accident. i decide to turn off of culver onto a parallel street and take that home. well that parallel street a block away from the street which had an accident and a stalled car that i was trying to get away from had no electricity whatsoever. i was PISSED. from one holdup to the next. i had to reroute out of the area with no electricity and promptly got lost which did not improve my mood. i found my way home 45 minutes later. then i ate and went right to my paper which would be due at midnight tonight.

and that paper...i hope with all the goodness in me that it is coherent and with the semblance of the effort and intelligence i do my best to put in my other work. with the time i had to do it, i did what i could. and i suppose that is all he can ask for.

i did have a couple of thoughts, though, while i was away slaving over schoolwork.

of the first: physical attraction is narcissistic. half of being attracted to someone else is seeing how they are attracted to you. i mean reciprocal attraction, that is. there are many instances where attraction is wholly one-sided but that's a-whole-nother barrel of apples. reciprocity is what i'm talking about. if i am attracted to someone and they are attracted to me, that someone is like a mirror, like narcissus' pool of water. i look at him and what i see in him, in his face, are my own attractive qualities. he likes me because i must look beautiful because i must sound intriguing. and i am his mirror, his pool. he sees in my face that i like his looks that i like his style. the attraction we see in ourselves, that we feel for ourselves, we see in that other person--and that, you could say, is what makes them so attractive. they allow us to see how attractive we are. don't so many women say that they like this man, that man, those men, because he makes her beautiful. that is what it is about. physical attraction is not about the other person its about you seeing your beauty reflected in that other person's face, in their eyes. there's probably some freudian term regarding this that i don't know of but i think its disgustingly fascinating--that inherent selfishness and vanity. and yet--and yet--what comes out of this initial attraction is chemistry and then, maybe, love. it's a noble sentiment, nothing i can say can reduce love in any way. but i don't know how love, which requires so much self-sacrifice, can be born from that inherent vanity. can anyone deny that love does not involve physical attraction? i have learned, i have been taught, that without that physical attraction, without the physicality of love, love shrivels, shrinks and is become dust. it seems that the search for self leads one only to others. selfishness to selflessness. how like a soup life is. you may pick and choose what you don't want to eat (the carrots in chicken noodle, the bits of bacon in split pea), and yet you can still taste it there in the broth. there is no escaping it.

of the second: pulse. a lot of things about your body tell people who you are. your skin. it is old, young, black, white, tan or pale, dry or moist. your eyes. close-set, wide-set. green, blue, brown, black. large, small. even the things inside your body. jaundice is a very clear example. you would be hepatitic. that would be who you are. cancer, leukemia are also very telling. in a lot of cases, you are your body. but what about those things about your body that you don't even think about? what about your pulse? i sat in church on sunday half-listening to the announcements when i decided to take my pulse. i checked at the carotid artery and at the radial--for good measure and because they say the radial is preferrable. i don't remember why. all i know is that you shouldn't use your thumbs. anyway, as i sat there feeling the glub glub glub of blood flow through my body i knew that i had no control whatsoever over it. if i run it will speed up, sure. but i can't control to what speed it will speed up. if i hold my breath it will slow down. i have a sort of inducement over pulse, but no control. it goes on without me having to will it. your pulse doesn't say anything about you except perhaps your age, since the older you get, the slower it gets. the same thing with breathing. i suppose if your nose is plugged up, your breathing would tell people your congested. but that has to do with the state of your nose, not with the state of your breathing. if you're diaphragm is especially muscular than you know how to control your breathing--i'd assume an opera singer's diaphragm would be rather tough. but again, the state of the diaphragm, not the state of your breathing. they're invisible these things. you have things about you in your physical form that are invisible. i don't know why that struck me as a little frightening.

of the third: i find it a little unjust that i can never appreciate my own abilities. no one ever tells you how truly, truly perverse the idea that the grass is always greener on the other side is. it means never being able to satisfy yourself, because whatever you are, whatever you do won't compare to whatever everyone else is, whatever everyone else does. it's hopeless. what's the point of having any grass if it will never be as green? i admire so much the talents of other people but when i look at myself there's nothing i am pleased with. there are times when my writing is something to be proud of. at other times, i wish it would be more like this or that or these or those. sullied. our own talents are sullied in the face of others. envy is born from the opposite of narcissism.

i am tired. i am done. goodnight.