Life is a bitch with a sense of humor

Two days ago, I was screaming down the phone: "Pick yourself up, for God's sake. It is how it is, why do you cry about it all.the.time. You're sad. ALL. THE. TIME."

I have been screaming some variation of this, often, since approximately age 9.

Today, I caught a glimpse of reflection in my office window, crying. Again. Alongside all the beauty and joy, I too am sad. ALL. THE. TIME.

Some weeks (or months) it is closer to the surface. Other weeks, I am joyfully climbing the cliff I am shortly going to jump from.

And the only person who'd really understand this,

The person who has put pensiveness in my bloody cells,

Hung up on me two days ago (unsurprisingly) and hasn't rung me back.

So I texted today, and said sorry, Ma.

Something I wonder about a lot these days:

I've lost people slowly and fast, and cried my heart out for them. I've walked away from places and felt my insides creak and slowly fracture from the pain of knowing that I am leaving, and will probably never go back. I've lived under the shadow of loss, with my father's illness, from age 6 to the present. That's long enough to know and navigate every corner of that hollow, crushing space inside of me.

But none of these things has felt as devastating as the passing of a cat I knew and loved. Sometimes I wonder, wiping tears that flow of their own accord every.time.I'm.alone - How can this feel like this?! After thinking that I knew, for so long, what grief is, I suddenly realise - this is the first time I've really felt It.

People, you 'can' cry for, and there will always be arms to hold you as you sob for a grandmother, or a boyfriend (who didn't deserve a single teardrop), or a beloved first home. Even years after the event, people will nod knowingly, and say they understand, that it might never heal, but that it will get better. A cat, with whom you spent countless hours simply giving and receiving love, using no words, you cannot mourn for with others. How to describe to someone the loss of a world only you knew, the loss of a friend no one ever saw the way you did.

Word(s) of the day

Lost to the English language, I believe, but fondly catalogued at The Phrontistery
Beat a path to it!
***************************
aeipathy n : continued passion; an unyielding disease.
filicology n : study of ferns.
inocciduous adj : of a star, never setting.
isangelous adj : equal to the angels.
igniparous adj : bringing forth fire.
ficulnean adj: of fig tree wood; worthless.

Uh Oh.

'Soon, Govinda, your friend will leave the path of the Samanas along which he has travelled with you for so long. I suffer thirst, Govinda, and on this long Samana path my thirst has not grown less. I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions. Year after year I have questioned the Brahmins, year after year I have questioned the holy Vedas. Perhaps, Govinda, it would have been equally good, equally clever and holy, if I had questioned the rhinocerous or the chimpanzee. I have spent a long time and have not yet finished, in order to learn this, Govinda: that one can learn nothing. There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge - that is everywhere, that is Atman, that is in me and you and in every creature, and I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning.'

Siddhartha,

Hermann Hesse

...
and yet, foolish enough is she to sit, at 23:11 with wiki open, trying to understand, trying to stay awake, trying to make him proud.
sad little clever girl, all he will say next week is uh huh

God. The power of that uh huh.

Teachers' Pet?

So. Yesterday, I listed, pruned, crafted and drafted way into the night. Tappity-tapped my way to a comprehensive list of to-dos, did-dos, should-dos and can't-dos for The Shark (whose tan is faded, upon closer inspection. Poor dear. He was the object of my insanely poisonous envy until this morning.) The Shark raised an eyebrow one sentence in and pointed out that:
a.) He was pioneering the use of a new statistical technique and I would be his - gulp - co-pioneer.
b.) A paper is to be produced by this time next year (gulp) using this new technique.
c.) Of course I would be applying for a post-doc, on the strength of this (highly potential) publication.

This entire plan rests on an intricate web of potentialities flimsier than a lace doily.
I am scared of the words mean, median and mode.
What the fuck good is it to tell me of an advanced statistical technique that originated in computer science and with the good will in the world, I firmly believe should have stayed there.

On the one hand, I am most amazed he thinks I can grasp the stuff. On the other, am most annoyed that I should be steamrolled into this. The approach is interesting, and the thinking behind it does excite me, but I resent it being plopped into my lap and I resent being the pawn in the great war on Methods: all three supervisors have strong (divergent) opinions, and in every meeting, I am convinced by one of them that this is the best way to go!
Thanks man, but I'd like to decide it from now on.
Still, flattered you asked.