This might be the last chance to write for awhile. I’m up late and half the day is gone; half the work has to be be postponed. Oh well. Like I mind; like some part of me didn’t wish for this to happen.

Nobody ever writes to ask about the inverse content: "So, what isn't said?" It's funny, isn't it, that what we write reveals little of our evolution. We fixate on the same comfortable topics, leaving out how love evolves or dies, or writing only about that or some similar such. Whatever it is, none of us is unique in our neurotic stagnation; the topic centers on and returns to the same idea/person/emotion/crisis again and again. But when I’m reading, I often want to know what the other 23 hours are like—’cause you know I know you’re more than that. You just exclude the diversity of your experience for narcissistic pursuits; or worse, you fail to experience your own diversity.

I am the same.

This is the Monday before Thanksgiving, and today I was supposed to wake up at 7am to begin studying for the GRE by 8am. Of course, I was at Andrew’s until 2am working on two letters of recommendation I have to write about myself. I slept until 10am.

I have not had a freelance project since before vacation in October. I will make $500 this month. $700, if I can extract payment due from one occasional employer. Last week I opened a claim for unemployment again, which I could do, apparently—I wasn’t sure. However, because my previous claim had expired, I am eligible for half the benefit amount of the previous year and am ineligible for extended benefits. Had I not done the American thing and tried to get off unemployment by picking up freelance gigs, I would be receiving $400 a week on extended benefits.

October and November have been about applying for things. Applying for freelance and salaried employment, and applying to graduate school.

I studied much but not enough, apparently, for the GRE. I took it and fired a blank shot which I canceled without knowing the score so that it would not appear on my transcript. And then, in a moment of panic, outside, in the car, I was certain I'd made a mistake and I thought I was going to have to call someone to come get me. But I came to my senses, my lovely empirical piece of mind stepped in and reminded me of the evidence: Ten points off for each unanswered question, and there were several in that math section unanswered. For whatever reason, nerves probably. I have not studied for two weeks and enjoyed a brief period of lightness. The GRE, my nemesis. I have always hated standardized tests; I am prone to anxiety; I think I’m going to fail. Easy as that.

(One of the proctors was a transvestite.)

Kate says I should try beta-blockers. Pam says at conferences the doctors hand them out like candy. One person gets a prescription and distributes them. She said the best description she had heard of how it works is that it takes the butterflies in your stomach and makes them fly in formation.

I’m not sure anxiety is all of it for me. Part of it is apathy. I know the GRE is not relevant to the work I have to do, and I resent having to jump through this gratuitous hoop. But that’s what graduate school is, isn’t it? A series of hoops? I have to get over this hoop thing. This same sentiment inspired much shoplifting as a youth and that didn’t improve my social position at all.

But anxiety is most of it. I had not been studying the verbal section because I already know most of the words on the GRE vocabulary "hit parade" and was scoring in the 700s on the verbal taking the test in cafes. The math required some relearning and so I focused exclusively on that section. The writing section is also a breeze and my favorite part of the test: an hour and a half of fun, fun, fun. But that damn math. . . . I don’t know. On later practice tests my verbal scores fell until both the quant and verbal were painfully average.

Anyway, I’m the taking the test again.

The way I deal with anxiety is to run from the problem, so it’s no mystery how I sabotage myself. What I wouldn’t give to be, for just a couple of weeks, one of those super anxious obsessive types that copes through conquer.

I’m not one of those and so my new study plan is to treat the test like a marathon and to put my faith in desensitization.

OK—that's not everything. I got a freelance gig. It arrived on Friday; it’s due 12/16. This household is solvent for December.

And one Friday ago I had a job interview that went well but not so well that I will get the job. It wasn’t the right fit, I suppose. Part of that unfit feeling is on my end: I wasn’t that excited about the position and it was obvious. I did learn, however, that all this writing and editing experience is a liability when applying for admin positions at medical institutions. This was the second time someone asked me if I wouldn’t be happier writing. I can address that question, but I’d rather not have the interviewer think I prefer writing. So, with that bit of information, I’ve changed my approach.

I’m looking for work at a research institution so that I can get back into academic thinking before going back to school.

If I get in this year, and even if I don't.

I might not get in. They take about six people out of 250 applicants annually.

If I don’t get in, I’ll try again next year. No big deal. (Yeah, right.)

But I’d rather get in this year, obviously. Whether or not I do depends in some part, at least, on that damn GRE. The other components of the application look pretty good—although, at that level of competition, all the applications look good and the decisions come down to, you guessed it, fit. Does that professor want to work with so-and-so?

I am meeting with my target professor’s grad students shortly; I have a friend working for said professor who will put in a good word for me. I have just written two multi-page letters of recommendation for myself which will be signed by well-recognized PhDs. Yeah. So, after the friggin test, it’s only the statement of purpose. That’s 500 words. That’s one day of writing and another day to edit. No problem.

I figure that by Christmas, with the test in the past and the application submitted, and the check from the latest project in my checking account, I will feel a whole lot better.

Other things:

Just the commitment to study Chado has encouraged all kinds of tea-making. This week I am making tea for Tim sensai and Bonnie sensai at my house. (What was I thinking?) I’m also making tea for people because I don’t have money to go out.

I make it to yoga once a week and it keeps me tall. The physical therapist has corrected the way I ride a bike and tells me that she’ll have me doing an Olympic-length triathlon by summer, if that is what I want—if I can get a new pair of running shoes. What I want to do is one triathlon, one century, and one climb next year. Those are reasonable goals. I have been going to the gym regularly and watching the neglected muscles grow. My knee and hip fare better with the strength. The workout is about half the length of the one I used to do. This is so that it doesn’t take too much of my day. I’m gone for one hour and a half; I remember when the workout itself took that long.

I think of gma several times a day and think that I will call her. Then I remember that I can’t. I notice, though, that those moments are already occurring farther apart.

Andrew is close to getting a job. Yesterday we passed the day moving between apartments, with most of the day spent in his. I don’t know what made him do it, but he finally finished moving into his apartment and now it’s well-organized and tidy. I love hanging out there. I work better there, away from the distractions of my house. So, yesterday, he sat at his desk studying what was left of Perl he didn’t already know, and I sat on the couch writing. Halfway through, we walked out to Broadway for phood.

He said if he had a line of tea clothing, he would call it pu-wear.

Sunday is a year and half for us. A year-and-a-half of things are largely unmentioned. But lately, a luscious comfort has taken hold. And, while it surprises me, I see that only from this saturation comes new possibilites. It’s strange but wonderful; I have not experienced this before and it causes me to reflect again on past relationships and the mechanism of their stagnation, their recession.

We move between households as effortlessly as we do between our bodies, and we like it like that.

Tomorrow I will be up at 7am.