I caved in over the weekend and agreed to see K, who pestered me with phone calls and pitiful tones. We made an effort, and it was somewhat pleasant to hang out with him. But ultimately not. There is no passion, no chemistry. This is an odd thing, since he is ruggedly handsome, tall, muscular, blond, blue-eyed. But he has absolutely no interest in me, there's no heat under his skin. Kissing him is like kissing a doll.
We went out for beer yesterday afternoon and got rather drunk. I passed out in the car on the way back. When we got home, we got into an argument. He accuses me of deliberately blackening his name, which is complete nonsense. I had only repeated to him what one of our mutual friends had told me--gossip about how he came on to another woman while still dating the woman he was cheating on his wife with. In other words, I called him on the fact that he was a three-timing bastard at one time in his life. I was hoping that he'd tell me it wasn't true. Instead of denying or admitting it, he turned on me. So we argued and he left and I called up S, who came round and took me out for another short one. I asked him to spend the night with me. He didn't. Just as well.
The real issue, of course, is the book that I'm thinking of abandoning. This project that has chained me to my desk for the last ten years, this leg-iron, this albatross, this dead animal. I don't know what to do about it. Do I walk away? What then? What kind of job will I look for? What do I want to do with the rest of my life? What matters to me, about what am I passionate?
I don't know how to answer these questions.
I don't even know how to talk about it right now. I just ran into an acquaintance in a coffee shop, who asked me a lot of very direct and personal questions. I ended up telling her straight out that I'm not going to get tenure because the book is not done. She commented that I seem surprisingly calm about it.
I suppose I am, but I think the calm comes more from shock than equanimity. I've spent the last ten years of my life feeling burdened by this book, attached to this book, to this career, and the last seven years at this institution. Even though I've been ambivalent about the work and have been talking about leaving academia for years, I haven't actually had to face the prospect head-on before. It's a good thing, I suppose, but it's a difficult thing. We get so attached to the paths we're on, and the hedges on either side grow so high, that we can't see anything but the path, however dull and parched the ground is, however acutely we understand that we need to find more fertile ground and a broader view
Monday, April 7, 2008
The Apostate's Diary, Feb 27, contin.
February 27, 2005
I did end up speaking to B, but by the time I got through to him I had become very sleepy. He sounded, as he so often does, somewhat depressed and bored. Whenever I ask him what he is doing the answer is always “sitting around.” He was particularly upset this time because he had had some sort of fight with his friends. He wouldn’t talk to me about it, though, and I had to drop it. I think most of his distant manner on the phone comes from a natural and lifelong discomfort with the telephone and his age, the studied indifference to parents in particular that appears to be necessary to teenagers. I don’t really know. If I lived with him, it might not be any easier to speak to him. I would at least have a greater sense of doing good in the world in general, because I would be doing him good. I would do good by taking care of his clothes, cooking dinner, shopping, keeping the house somewhat neat, and by asking him to help me with these chores. I would have more to do but would be much happier because I would at least have some direct influence in his life. Perhaps I overestimate the ameliorative effect that actively parenting him would have on me. Perhaps I would become more irritable, more uptight, less patient. I don’t think so. It is at any rate a great sadness for me to been unable to do these things for him. I don’t know what could possibly console me for the loss, probably nothing, although I sometimes think that having another child would help a great deal.
I spoke to M this morning and briefly told him about the decision to go to LA with C. He had almost no time at all to discuss it with me, so we didn’t really. We’ll talk at length tomorrow at lunch. I am relieved to have a way out of the position of mistress—to have my own relationship to settle. It is so uncomfortable to be the unmarried one, the supplicating one who has loads of time for the other, who is almost always occupied with domestic or business affairs. To have only a few hours a week together—this is not much, not enough for me. The dream of course is to live in house with M, B, and Mia, here in London. I have this dream. I don’t know for sure that M has it. It feels wrong to go to California with C while knowing that this is my dream. It feels dishonest. I feel once again very depressed about everything and without much hope. But if M is not going to leave his wife, then I feel I have no other option. That is of course not true. I could break things off with C and live alone, very poorly, and wait for M. But I might wait my whole life for him. He offers almost no encouragement. I don’t believe he will leave her.
A lot of this boils down to money. I have so little of it—even without paying rent in London, I can barely afford to eat.
I splurged a little at the market over the weekend—spending $60 on bread, fruit, cheese, chicken, beans, milk, yogurt, and two non-essential items: a bag of candy and packet of pakoras. When I am ill I feel weak and want to eat a lot to build up my strength. I usually gain weight. I feel guilty for having bought this food, and sat today, like a beggar, in Starbucks without buying anything just to get out of the cold. Since I was near the door, though, and right in the draft of the cold air, I started to cough.
I don’t know how I’ll afford the summer if I don’t live with C. It will be so much cheaper to live with him, and to go every day to the Clark in his MG, and to take occasional trips up to SB to see my father, and most of all to be near the ocean and in the sunlight in my favorite city in the world, all of this will be very good for me. But I am so poor, and so terribly in debt, and see little end to this poverty and dependency.
As I lectured M this morning, we are the masters of our fates. So I will now try to recover some of the energy and optimism of my youth and try to pour it into my book. It is very hard. I feel quite low, quite depressed, quite lost.
At the end of the day. I worked until the very last minute at the library. I made good progress on the chapter on usury, and basically tried to draft the whole thing in one day. Tomorrow I shift to Jane Lead, and want to have a draft of that chapter, no matter how terrible, how crappy, by the time I leave for York.
Had tea with D again, as usual. I really like him. Love talking to him, and find that we talk about everything, feelings, work, Protestantism, history, science fiction, alcohol, AA, the craziness of Pat Parker, you name it, so easily. He’s also really cute. Too bad that he isn’t in a place to get involved with anyone. Just broke it off with his girlfriend. I think he’s attracted to me, as I am to him. But I sure as hell don’t feel like I can make a move. Plus my love life is way too complicated. Working at the library has gotten a lot more fun since I met him, and that work in general has been going better, too. I really look forward to seeing him…. but he’s so out of my reach. But god I want to sleep with him.
I really can’t see him bringing me and certainly not B into his life. I have so much growing up to do.
I am not depressed, however.
But I sure as hell miss my kid, and wish I had had a different path to follow with him. Every time I see a kid depicted on tv. or run across boys about B’s age on the street, my heart falls.
I did end up speaking to B, but by the time I got through to him I had become very sleepy. He sounded, as he so often does, somewhat depressed and bored. Whenever I ask him what he is doing the answer is always “sitting around.” He was particularly upset this time because he had had some sort of fight with his friends. He wouldn’t talk to me about it, though, and I had to drop it. I think most of his distant manner on the phone comes from a natural and lifelong discomfort with the telephone and his age, the studied indifference to parents in particular that appears to be necessary to teenagers. I don’t really know. If I lived with him, it might not be any easier to speak to him. I would at least have a greater sense of doing good in the world in general, because I would be doing him good. I would do good by taking care of his clothes, cooking dinner, shopping, keeping the house somewhat neat, and by asking him to help me with these chores. I would have more to do but would be much happier because I would at least have some direct influence in his life. Perhaps I overestimate the ameliorative effect that actively parenting him would have on me. Perhaps I would become more irritable, more uptight, less patient. I don’t think so. It is at any rate a great sadness for me to been unable to do these things for him. I don’t know what could possibly console me for the loss, probably nothing, although I sometimes think that having another child would help a great deal.
I spoke to M this morning and briefly told him about the decision to go to LA with C. He had almost no time at all to discuss it with me, so we didn’t really. We’ll talk at length tomorrow at lunch. I am relieved to have a way out of the position of mistress—to have my own relationship to settle. It is so uncomfortable to be the unmarried one, the supplicating one who has loads of time for the other, who is almost always occupied with domestic or business affairs. To have only a few hours a week together—this is not much, not enough for me. The dream of course is to live in house with M, B, and Mia, here in London. I have this dream. I don’t know for sure that M has it. It feels wrong to go to California with C while knowing that this is my dream. It feels dishonest. I feel once again very depressed about everything and without much hope. But if M is not going to leave his wife, then I feel I have no other option. That is of course not true. I could break things off with C and live alone, very poorly, and wait for M. But I might wait my whole life for him. He offers almost no encouragement. I don’t believe he will leave her.
A lot of this boils down to money. I have so little of it—even without paying rent in London, I can barely afford to eat.
I splurged a little at the market over the weekend—spending $60 on bread, fruit, cheese, chicken, beans, milk, yogurt, and two non-essential items: a bag of candy and packet of pakoras. When I am ill I feel weak and want to eat a lot to build up my strength. I usually gain weight. I feel guilty for having bought this food, and sat today, like a beggar, in Starbucks without buying anything just to get out of the cold. Since I was near the door, though, and right in the draft of the cold air, I started to cough.
I don’t know how I’ll afford the summer if I don’t live with C. It will be so much cheaper to live with him, and to go every day to the Clark in his MG, and to take occasional trips up to SB to see my father, and most of all to be near the ocean and in the sunlight in my favorite city in the world, all of this will be very good for me. But I am so poor, and so terribly in debt, and see little end to this poverty and dependency.
As I lectured M this morning, we are the masters of our fates. So I will now try to recover some of the energy and optimism of my youth and try to pour it into my book. It is very hard. I feel quite low, quite depressed, quite lost.
At the end of the day. I worked until the very last minute at the library. I made good progress on the chapter on usury, and basically tried to draft the whole thing in one day. Tomorrow I shift to Jane Lead, and want to have a draft of that chapter, no matter how terrible, how crappy, by the time I leave for York.
Had tea with D again, as usual. I really like him. Love talking to him, and find that we talk about everything, feelings, work, Protestantism, history, science fiction, alcohol, AA, the craziness of Pat Parker, you name it, so easily. He’s also really cute. Too bad that he isn’t in a place to get involved with anyone. Just broke it off with his girlfriend. I think he’s attracted to me, as I am to him. But I sure as hell don’t feel like I can make a move. Plus my love life is way too complicated. Working at the library has gotten a lot more fun since I met him, and that work in general has been going better, too. I really look forward to seeing him…. but he’s so out of my reach. But god I want to sleep with him.
I really can’t see him bringing me and certainly not B into his life. I have so much growing up to do.
I am not depressed, however.
But I sure as hell miss my kid, and wish I had had a different path to follow with him. Every time I see a kid depicted on tv. or run across boys about B’s age on the street, my heart falls.
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