when i felt more like a mouse than a man

i would go home to los angeles, get a job, and be working through the summer. i would write letters to eric and other swarthmoreans, and keep track of all those who mattered to me. i would work hard, and earn enough money for me to go out as much as Mikey and Anna always wanted to, and love every minute of it. i would make enough to pay for superb fencing lessons at the la fencing club in westwood, and would practice so damn much that i would be an amazing foilist by the time autumn rolled around. i would even make enough to perhaps take cello lessons maybe once a week, and hopefully bring myself back to where i once was, and try out for orchestra in the fall.

these were my plans; my best laid plans. or, at least, i would work enough to be so busy that i wouldn't be able to feel regret at not carrying out the rest.

of course i did not account for the fact that jobs might be so scarce right around now, and that I might be arriving home just a tad bit after high school students in the area had begun applying like mad to every job in the city. i did not account for the fact that most of my friends might not be around. and i did not account for the fact that my father might faint and break his hip, leaving him bed-and-wheelchair ridden for two months while my mom is away at work all day.

needless to say, now I need to be at home; all the time. whether or not I do very much here is not the issue, all that matters is that i need to be home, just in case my dad needs me. and being at home; being alone; having so much time to do nothing; has forced upon me the ideal situation for discovering how little of me there is left.

i've written--or should i say begun writing--two short stories since i've been home. one is character driven, one plot-driven. they are very different from one another. what i have come to realize, though, is that both stories are about me. they have become an exploration into my own, unhappy mind, and the layers and layers of craven emotions that have manifested themselves there as a by-product of doing nothing. thus, these stories have become larger than me, because they are me. they elude me because i cannot fully see myself. and when they are finished i am almost afraid that i will have defined parts of myself.

and this is why i can't finish them.

so, here i am, in this big pile of nothingness, trying to make sense of things, and i can't.

if i had more energy, i would draw some sort of parallel between my constant urge and failure to write and the myth sisyphus, and throw in for humor the fact that every day i tear a tiny bit of skin on my ear when i put on my earring at night, and every day it heals because of how long i take it out to hide it from my family.

to put it plainly, i'm terribly unhappy.