1.19.2005

not sure why my nyorker subscription notice is asking me what i've been doing this week to combat the despair of the nation and the world

i've been scurrying around trying to organize my head and my priorities by shuttling objects and bits of paper around my room. i feel inundated by Big Questions and i'm attempting to get a handle on them by controlling the messy little piles that consitute my life.

all i've really done is reconfigure the piles from my desk into slightly different piles on the ironing board, which is smelly and wasn't much help last night when i was facing off against two pairs of indefatigably wrinkly pants.

my pants are still wrinkled and i don't have any solutions.

i've determined that the world is both more and less arbitrary than i thought. more arbitrary because all of my striving produces nothing but sweat and illusions, and if it yields nothing, i'm more comfortable blaming my hair and not what's under it because i can change the former but not the latter. striving is more about self-esteem and getting through the day than willing into reality some idealized lamar who lives in the future. my thank-you note to the village voice will have no effect on the world or my place in it, and neither will the resume i just sent to newsweek....less arbitrary because there is logic to how things happen, it's just not always the logic i prefer.

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