October 26, 2003
The Great War
I'm sitting here in front of my computer, trying rather desperately to focus on my blasted conference paper, and it isn't working. My mind is somewhere else entirely. I'm not quite sure what sent me off this time . . . No, that's a lie. I know exactly what sent me off, but if I told you, then I'd have to kill you (or something like that). Anyway, I'm not even going to tell you where my mind is wandering, but I will say this: I have come to the realization that I am a sentimentalist on a somewhat massive order of magnitude. Again. Still. It keeps coming back. Won't be suppressed, won't be ignored, won't be buried, or killed, or even thoroughly despised. I've tried that before . . . How long have I known this, anyway? Forever. Since five minutes ago. It doesn't matter.
I just hope I'm not headed into another one of those phases . . . *shudder* . . . I don't know that anyone has ever noticed when I'm in one of them. Minor ones happen on a fairly regular basis. The last really major one lasted almost a month and a half, off and on. I'm not even going to say what set it off, but it was quite ridiculous. The outward signs are hardly noticeable, I guess. They're limited mainly to a starry-eyed, blank stare from time to time when I'm by myself, perhaps finding some particularly sappy book or movie or song that will feed it. If it's really bad, there might be a sighing session. *shudder again* It's a deplorable waste of time, but unless I catch it early, there's not a whole lot that can be done.
The thing is, I must be a frustrated sentimentalist at best, because I'm still a raging (raging in a mostly silent way, of course) cynic. The two should be fundamentally incompatible, how do they exist side-by-side? Do they temper each other? I doubt it. Only the cynicism is consistently dominant . . . but I must be proud of the sentiment, somewhere, or why would I be writing about it? *sigh* *stifles sigh* Well, writing this outrageous post has served its purpose, at any rate. I feel . . . hungry, but that's irrelevant. Hmmm . . . maybe I haven't achieved any extra focus (re-read the post if you don't believe me) but I think I can ignore sentiment and just work again. I guess there's no real reason to actually post this, but I might as well. I haven't posted in a week or so, and I took all the trouble to type this up . . .