TITHONUS' DIARY!!
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arrogant ramblings I want to stop having feelings. I want to live somewhere else. Drugs will make me happy. I'm better than everyone. Worse. Milk makes you unhealthy. I like milk. - The way that my mother puts away cutlery in the next room... I can hear the disapproval of my existence in the way that she does it. She is sending me coded messages about what she thinks of me in the way that she puts away the cutlery. I'm mad. - PhD student seminar today. I think... I have become insufferably arrogant, but I seriously think that... oh god, it's too painful to say it. I actually can't make myself write it. I go through these spasms, these little momentary jolts of thinking, "christ, what are you doing here, idiot?" - See, that makes me really arrogant, doesn't it? It's not about everyone. Just some people. Some people with their bland standard-issue generalisations, their total lack of humour, their condescending tone as they make the most banal remarks... argh. I'm going to end up like the crazy guy, the fellow who won the honours prize and then spent the next ten years or whatever dithering around with his PhD... going crazy. - I was just reading this thing by lia where she talks about how much "at home" she feels in her honours-stream English tutorials... and it brought back strong memories for me, of how much I enjoyed some of my tutes, back when I had tutes to go to... in fact, partly it reminded me of how much I'm missing teaching this session. In a way being the teacher is not hugely different to being a student, except of course for the fact that there isn't a teacher there to rescue you if you derail things... and you have to do the fucking marking at the end of session. Anyway. I feel... I don't know, sad I guess, that I don't really communicate with those other PhD students the way I did with other undergrads when I was an undergrad. You know, everyone a lot more precious and defensive... or trying to be considerate of each other's feelings or something. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it all feels a bit bloodless somehow. My internal dialogue is always a lot nastier than anything I say out loud. Internal monologue, I mean, monologue, ha ha ha. - I'm not sure... if I should be fighting to keep my spirits up or letting myself sink into whatever it is that I keep feeling I want to sink into. Maybe... the problem I'm having with connecting with other people is that I'm not being honest with myself. You know, I really feel like something is wrong somehow... I don't like being around my parents. They really bother me a lot. Especially my father. You know, no matter what happens to me, I don't care, but don't let me end up like him. Let me be a crazy old man muttering to himself about alien mind control lasers in the street and drinking from a dirty brown paper bag, just don't let me end up like my father. My father. The poor bastard, I feel so sorry for him but at the same time I don't want to feel sorry for him because... I don't know, I guess it makes me feel obligated to him. I think... one of the few things that makes him genuinely happy is talking with me. He likes feeling proud of his clever, successful son. He's got... a sharp mind that's devoted most of the last 50 years to solving problems, solving hard engineering problems, and now he's... at a loose end. Farming. I think it's what he's always thought he wanted but... he's there alone a lot of the time. I don't think he imagined himself out there alone. He must be so fucking lonely. I can make him happy. But I'm busy. I have my own problems. I'm selfish and I... I don't know, I feel like I'm betraying something in myself making him happy, because he wasn't the father I wanted or needed when I was little. Why should I make him happy? When he was strong and I was weak, he wasn't moved by pity to give me what I wanted. Why should I be moved by what I see in him now? - Of course it doesn't work like that, though. It's not so simple... because, really, I think what he's suffering from is exactly his own... failure to respond to what moves him. He doesn't know... what music he likes, what books he likes. He doesn't know. He disapproves of things that we do, his children, but he doesn't know why and he can't say it and so he... does the same thing as my mother, only worse. He makes these terrible, humourless jokes, these awful, painful, cringe-inducing jokes to try to get his feelings out. The poor bastard. He doesn't even know he's doing it because he doesn't even know they're there. He doesn't know that he disapproves of us, of my little brother especially. He doesn't know how he feels. It's my problem, my own problem, but he has it at some infinitely greater magnitude than I do. Me, at least I have this diary, at least I write something vague and incomprehensible, "I'm feeling..." and with those elipses there, I'm somehow letting something leak out. I listen to music, play the guitar, sing out my little heart. I don't know what my feelings are, maybe, but I've got some intuition that they're there, under the surface, living in the still-living corners of my heart. I search around for them, I run back and forth... sometimes I find a way in and a few tears will come. Ha, I started this entry by saying "I want to stop having feelings", but really, honestly, thank God my wishes don't come true. Maybe without my feelings it would be easier to do all the things I'm supposed to do, expected to do, but what would the point be? - "Monday morning, monday morning Closing in on me" - Richard Thompson |
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