New Post.

2012/7/9
I am now 27, and I feel old.

The words do not come so easily as they once did. Crafting stories like wet clay is returning to a process of filtering images, and less of cutting words. I no longer wander through sentences as I once did, like streetlamp to streetlamp, trusting only the plod of my shoes between the shining halos of the night. The sun has risen, the mystery is gone. There are no shadows here left to illuminate; they have run from me.

The themes that I looked for in life have now sunk below the framework. They are no longer topographical, I can only dumbly follow the colors and recognize ones I have previously seen. If time is supra-divine, could it go both ways? I wonder how far it can ebb. I’m still thinking about other stories, and god knows I have the time now.

It’s okay, though. I hear blogs don’t have themes. There is simply too much to talk about, and so little really worth mentioning.

Trips are canceled. No Korea, no China. Not even Australia. I have my whole life ahead of me. I’m sure I can manage. And I don’t want to hop into Sydney for a day and call it done. I don’t think I can spare the time for China. There is Christmas to be had in Europe, and there is a short consolation trip to Malaysia for a week. So now that that is out of the way.

I’m in the not so tenuous period between having taken the LSAT and receiving the score. They know a lot depends on your score, a great section of your life may be decided by it, not to mention three years’ time of living space, but of course it must be a major bother to actually scan the damn scantrons. I predict I got within my range, which seems safe. It’s a seven point spread, so I think getting in that is fair.

D.C. is doing very little in enticing me anyway; did I mention I hate the heat? Though I must say Japan is doing little to ingratiate itself to me as well. Nuclear power may have infected thousands in this recent nuclear meltdown, but they’re turning one plant back on because these damn air conditioners aren’t going to power themselves, and I may use mine soon too. It’s been two and a half weeks, only one more remains. My mind had nearly melted down the week immediately following, and I had little power to clean my house, or do much beyond playing my DS.

I’ve expanded the space around which I curl protectively to include my Kindle, and my e-mail, and at measured intervals the news. I may also fire up my industriousness to include two languages, the beginnings of Slovak and mirroring new words in French, as much as is possible. The plan sounds ambitious, and too unfocused to work, and I shall give it my best shot.

(I used to think places had a set amount of inspiration they could offer, but if that’s true, this apartment has never had any, because I’ve drawn none and am receiving little more than a drip, and it’s unsteady.)

Industriousness: How much pleasure can I pull from completing things? Does it too have a limit, and then I’ll need to turn to something else? The actual feeling of achievement must get old eventually, and I feel a dulling already. But what else do I have? I feel most at ease when I work hard. My questions are whittled down to how I can improve my performance, others’, the industry or system, or rather ways to numb the repetition by focusing on the larger goal (21% of the book already?). I have so little responsibility in this current job, I need to turn to hobbies. Sarah has bought a Kindle at my behest, though after finally finishing Seven Pillars of Wisdom (and god, what a book!), I’m having difficulty coming across something I enjoy reading: I’ve gone back to the roots of someone else who I once tried to be, and am reading Richard II, after finishing Coriolanus, and may move onto Twelfth Night. They go quickly, and the language stops me from trying to poke holes in their arguments.

Speaking of which, I have had an incredibly rewarding set of experiences: I’ve been in some debates since I have studied the LSAT, and I can already feel my anemic debating skills beefing up. Rather than blindly leading my opponent into my answer by repetition, or hoping they would fail at diversifying their evidence after implications weakened their initial position, or appealing to the opinion of another, I isolated the argument, ripped apart its cohesiveness, and swept the legs out from under it. It felt almost harsh, but it felt damn good.

I need writing, though. I need it because I love it, as they say, and not the other way around. We’ve been together too long to separate now. Though my fingers may stumble, my hands still move in the familiar motions. There is still the daydreaming over connotations, the isolation of relationships to their bluntest factor, the obsession with who did what and putting people into dramatic and numbered groups, yes, we’re not separate yet. I will not get over this first book until I try to sell it, and that will be the fast-track to regret. Let’s just sleep in different bedrooms for a while, and perhaps that will neutralize the inhibitor, whatever it may be. Maybe this is the period Vonnegut was talking about when he told writing students to not write for ten years or so and just get life experience.

That’s it.
-Schuyler