ariel? ariel!

I don’t keep up on comments. I don’t read enough blogs. You all say smart things and I try to remember to put you in my google feed. But even in my google feed I get overwhelmed. My weeks are full and my weekends are fuller. I am online a lot but usually trying to get work done. I am so sorry — I just saw Summer posted a response to some of what I wrote about gender, other folks have written things too, and it is 12:34am (make a wish!) and this is early to bed for me this weekend and tomorrow morning there’s work and it is going to hit me like a ton of lesbian bricks.

I wish my life weren’t like this. I wish tomorrow morning I got to wake up, eat breakfast, stretch and go to the gym, write, work on my clown piece ideas, go to my Purim writing meeting, go to my IJSN study group meeting, and call it a day. Instead I am going to wake up too late, throw whatever clothing I can find onto my body, run to the train, commute with a frown face, be embarassed and continue my 80% late to work trend, do things I don’t really care about all day, run to the gym, run to the writing meeting, run to the study group meeting, and get home about midnight. Then Tuesday, different meetings, same basic agenda. Then Wednesday, then Thursday I am done at 8 (posh!), then Friday, then it is a three day weekend (thank Gd) where I will not catch up on my sleep because even if I am in bed at 4:30 in the morning I am awake alert alive and enthusiastic by 10:30. So I am always tired, I am always buzzing around, I am always too busy, and I never get to concentrate.

I hate it. I want to savor every word you people read and write thoughtful comments back. I want to write more posts, more about New York, about fashion and gender, about sex, about kissing your friends. I want to do more of my other work, more organizing, more artmaking, more going to the gym; I would settle for more sleeping. I hate that so much of my time is dictated by this job I have that I fell into that I feel trapped in but I can’t see my way to what is next. I don’t have the time for any vision quests. I get a ludicrously generous amount of vacation every year and I am still running a deficit right now — taking time off for performing, taking time off to see my family, and taking mental health days or sick days because I just don’t maintain myself and sometimes I crash out even though it’s Tuesday rather than Saturday or Sunday.

They would keep me at my job if I would let them. They like me there. I like the people and sometimes I like the work. Lately I have run out of steam; my energy is better used elsewhere and I resent my job for making me use up my precious few resources on staplers or copy machine training or all of the work I do so that other people can do the work of the organization. I admit that it might be easier if I got to be a little closer to the action at my job; I stay behind the scenes. It is hard for me to be doing this; I want more, more, more. I either want my job to consume me in the happiest way or to stop making so many demands that feel like such poor fits. I feel immature for saying it but it’s true. I want my time to myself. I want to create things when I work that matter. I want to not feel like the weirdo who goes out, who performs, who has to sew her costume on her lunch break.

But what am I going to do with my life? The fact of the matter is that I am going to have to work and  the question of where and how and for whom is starting to press on me. In 8 hours and 13 minutes — or 20 minutes, or 30 minutes, or who knows — I am going to have to sign in for another week doing work that ultimately I just don’t care about and that leaves me exhausted and gasping because I have to fit the rest of my life in between the hours of 5:30 and 12 or 1 or 2.

This never resolves well for me. It hasn’t been resolved since I have lived in New York. When I quit my old job and was temping I was so desperately broke — counting subway rides broke, eating pizza three meals a day broke — but in some ways it felt so free. I do not know if I can deal with another round of that stress kind of broke, barely making rent temping, not paying my bills — this money is comfortable and it’s nice to be able to cover my ass. I am debating trying some new paths and they’re all killing me; I’m scared. I know I am a good administrator, but what else am I good at?

Clearly not commenting on blogs.