Mount Mabu has not been touched by modern man. British scientists found it using Google Earth. Whoa.
I voted for Obama. I'm hopeful for America's future. But the first thing I thought this morning was
Perhaps not for my whole life, but definitely for a good portion thereof, I've felt cut off from other people, like I don't quite connect. (Wow, I sound like an angsty teenager....) Like Dian Fossey and her gorillas, I can watch other people and reproduce their behavior, but no matter how good I get, it's ultimately a foreign construct. It's like knowing all the steps to a dance, but not fully understanding why you're dancing in the first place. Or like those preschool Suzuki violin prodigies who can play every note of a difficult piece perfectly, but their performance lacks any emotion: it's just one note after another, not rich, full, nuanced music. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, be happy; Suzuki Method preschool violinists can be unsettling. With rare exception, they can't interpret music much past what's written on a page or what their teacher's tell them to do... but can you really expect four-year-olds to be able to do much more than that? If I haven't ranted about it already, I'll do so in the future.)
I quit my job almost a month ago; since then, I've barely left my apartment and haven't spoken to anyone outside my immediate family. Honestly though, I'm content, happier than I've been in a long time. I just wish I could stay this way: hidden in an attic, watching people on the sidewalk three storeys below. (Actually, I rarely even look out the windows anymore. It's mostly reading, writing, and surfing the web for neuroscience lectures.) But it has to end, and soon. School starts Monday, although I haven't registered for classes. (In my defense, that's partially because I can't afford to until my financial aid disburses, which it mysteriously hasn't.) My savings are running low, and I had always intended to use them for a real emergency, not self-imposed social exile. Besides, I can't expect my boyfriend to be the sole provider for our household; it's just not fair to burden him like that.
Y'know, I think my disconnect is responsible for both my modest success in the service industry and the screaming that fills my head sometimes whenever I tie on an apron or work a cash register. I've gotten pretty good at reading people and tailoring my personality to their expectations and needs. I can sell frivolous, expensive unnecessaries to almost anyone and have them feel good about the purchase. And yet, I sometimes get this depressing twinge when I see customers come through the door... it's not quite depression or fear or anxiety... maybe a combination of alll of them, or maybe something completely different. How pitiful.
All I know is that it's getting harder and harder to wake up every day, and that I'm more and more disappointed when I do. I wish I were a fern.
** Originally I opened up Vox to write about a new font I ran across... so why this?
