My Theory of the Brontosaurus

I'm back

Dad is good, or back to where he was prior to surgery. There is a spot on his lung, but onocologist is not recommending chemo yet. I think he was sad when I left, and I was sad to leave, ie guilty. But even if I moved back I wouldnt be moving back to the beach. And no way in hell I'm moving to the suburbs. So lots of unresolved tension, but much unspoken love too. I spent yesterday typing up the tons of notes I wrote to myself over the two weeks, about hegel, shakespeare, art, the holocaust and communism (I was reading Judt's Postwar). I also read Keay's short history of India, but that didnt inspire alot of notes, tho very interesting. I'd go there if there werent so many people. Same with China.

step away from the abyss

I'm going to fill in one of my pits. I have all the poetry stuff in a knapsack, but I'm not bringing it with me, thereby lessening the this is life changing moment anxiety. This is just a trip, like any other. Bringing some books and a change of clothes; it will have a limited duration. My fear of unlimited duration, of change, of death I guess, is why I like repetition and ritual. I don't like change. But I don't have any deep roots that would preclude change: that is also my doing. I panic at small things because I have not big things. A few friends I could have as much contact with were I to live in Boston as I do living here. Another aspect of this is being fat: therefore undesirable, therefore no one gets close (literally). It might seem like an anchoring, but its the opposite. So nothing to panic about, just a vaca, even I dont have a job I have to get back to.

The an atman has no desire. The passive aggressive neurotic is only desire. The desire not to die. Which is a silly thing to desire. Any loss of control--and any exercise of control is a potential loss of control--is a symptom of the big loss.

on looking into the abyss

I had been thinking that if I had to spend time with my Dad while he recovers I could use it to read the notes I've been writing since I stopped drinking (5 years?), which I don't keep so much anymore since I write them directly here. There should be some scraps of poetry there, and thus I could trick myself back into that. Since my sister has now asked me to come up that is one pit I'm staring into. There is also the pit of my Dad asking me to move back home; and the pit of his death (not imminent, but never far away from thought, and his blackmail strength), and the pit of not becoming a poet and thereby justifying my existence to him before he dies (thank God abortion was illegal in the 60s?). That's four pits.

In this world, where decisions are a way of life, I defer and manoeuver out of them. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers, or of friends and family, isn't everyone ultimately deep down a stranger to everyone else? A therapist once told me I had issues over a lack of agency. I hope the undertow takes me someplace nice.

if I can make it there

I think I live in NY because it is a four hour busride from home. As if the distance alone were an act, would make me different (from what I was, or wasn't?), would be my self creation (and who else can create me?). But then everyone who comes to NY comes to not be at home. A city of adult children, then?

The blog is a making public, as if that were saying anything, doing anything.

I also have dreams about not being able to put on or take off clothes

being stuck in the process.

And snakes, knowing they are there but not being able to see them. Don't like snakes.

in dreams begin responsibilities

I sometimes dream about losing my books, which is about losing my place: I have been away so long that the landlord takes over my apartment; I may not even remember where it is.

Going home always includes this anxiety, of not coming back.

I keep thinking of Thoreau on how our posessions control us. If I did have no possessions I could do lots of thing. What I possess are books.

There is nothing holding me to my place; my place was not chosen, deliberately enough: another happenstance. Is there a difference between making decisions and having options? And I don't take my few friends seriously enough: the thought of moving back, home, isn't affected by them. As if I really have no reason to be here, as opposed to there.

My dad wants me to move back. He asks if I've thought about it.

He had surgery yesterday, to remove a tumor from his colon. Supposedly went well; he'll be in the hospital for a week, and then in a rehab facility for another week or two before he can go home to his apartment.

I have a fear that my dad will die before I accomplish anything, ie publish a book. This is not about him, but me: the need to be distinguished, or not to exist. About avoiding the normal connections of life.

Why do we deny love: what purpose could it serve? I should reread Cavell on Lear, but that becomes an argument about skepticism and finitude. There is something (more) fundamental about this. Or maybe not.