"i don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation"

i don't do well in winter.

in winter, laziness takes ahold of me. the sight of the grey skies, the frosty, frozen tips of the trees and vegetation outside, the thick muddy pools of water hardening where they sit in the niches of pavement and dirt -- all of it makes me retreat to the indoors. i barely show my face in the out-of-doors anymore. in the mornings, when i leave for work, i hunker my head down further into the scarf wrapped around my neck so that no bit of cold seeps down into my coat. when i check in at the office, i don't emerge until 9 or 10 hours later, when i'm ready to go home. as i drive home, i am in a numb, irritated state, obnoxiously and yet not dangerously tailgating the slow idiot cars in front of me who clog up the fast lane rather than the slower lane. i enter my home the same way i exited it earlier that morning, head hunkered down and with fast steps; and upon entering, i turn on my little space heater to get the place warmed up again and try to rest for the next day.

every day is and has been the same every day. it's rather become ritualistic. i am in the rat race. i am one of the many rats.

seasonal blues aside -- life just goes on, huh? during the past number of months, i think i've begun learning how to live one raggedy day by one raggedy day. some days are better than others. a lot of the worse days have passed me by, and i haven't had as many bad days lately as i used to. i'm fine with that. viewing the world through these disdainful, unsurprised, cautious eyes, i'm fine with being free from uncontrolled chaos.

i've started to wryly joke a lot that i'm married to my job now. i have to make that kind of crack because, otherwise, i field a lot of questions about who i am seeing or why i haven't married yet or am not in a serious relationship with a guy. it's easier to be wryly dismissive than to say the honest truth.

i'm just not there yet. some days, though, i do want to just freely talk, say, with my mom and make gay jokes and talk about that last relationship i was in. i don't, though, because i'm wary and frightened. will i carry on like this forever? i really don't know. . . .

a man from work, one of my bosses, has also begun trying to cajole me into taking the bar exam again. how long has it been since i last took it -- a year? maybe more? time flies. . . . i don't want to take it again. i'm really done with it. but he still keeps cajoling. . . .

speaking of work, i think i am moving up. my pay and my status are still the same -- but i think i'm earning a lot more in terms of reputation, credibility, likability, trust. i'm ambitious enough to have that curiosity as to how far i can take this boon without losing my sense of integrity. life is quite a game, isn't it? i actually think about that quite a bit -- life, all the illusions that coalesce together to form what we believe to be reality. i often feel that i'm the only one around who notices the artificiality of it all even as i find myself still playing the game. it's fascinating to me. i sit back and observe the mechanisms of this society even as i participate in them and do my part.

is this what it feels like to not be co-dependent? i've never really not been co-dependent before. i'm still fighting those urges to care passionately about what other people think and feel about me. but every day, i feel like i do care a little bit less.

in any case, it's just so interesting for me to finally do this check-in with myself to see where i currently am and compare it to how i was before. i feel like . . . i really don't know where i'm at anymore. but i really don't care that i don't know. if that makes sense.

:-T

but i do know that i'm not quite there yet. and this time of year is enabling me to continue to kind of remain hidden and not engage too much with the outside world. maybe when spring comes back, i'll start re-emersing myself in the world, society, life again. but not until this frigid weather goes away; it's really doing a number on my desire to throw myself back out there and start having mindless fun.

all right. enough with this nonsense. now it's time for an up-beat song.