Ruminations

I've been thinking a lot about love lately.  Normally when I get this way I turn into a somewhat removed theorist--waxing hypotheses in a detached, pragmatic way.  Love is such and such, to love is to dot dot dot.  Now I have no theories, no definitions or philosophies or even concrete ideas.  My mind has simply wrapped itself around a short refrain that repeats itself over and over in my head: 

Risk it!  Risk everything!

A little stream of consciousness

I'm getting tired of writing about the things I'm doing here--the parties and the sightseeing, the classes and the papers, what have you.  All these external things--even the extraordinary place where I live--all of these refuse to penetrate at the moment, and I'm left walking around inside my own head.  Not walking.  More like treading water.

I am not unhappy.  I am not even panicky or anxious.  I am just confused.

We only get one life, you see.  We either use it to seek truth, or we give up and start to collect things.  I want to be good, I want to be kind, I want to be pure of heart, but I don't know if I want to look for truth anymore.  Suddenly it seems very, very silly, like investing in something that will never yield any actual result, that will never make any visible impact, that will merely serve as some sort of spiritual pacifier that calms me but doesn't nourish me, eases everything but changes nothing.  I don't want to cling to something because it makes life more bearable or makes me feel like a part of something or gives me a sense of identity.  I want to believe in something because it's true, not just for me but for everybody, and this, this I suspect may not exist at all.

Hanukkah

This has been a rough week.  I'm battling a shapeless little loneliness here, and it's tiring.  I'm having another of those disconnected days--I want to plug myself in somewhere, lean on something for balance, only there's no place, really, for me to go.

It's been a rough week

I went to a party last Thursday night.  It was fun, I suppose, but not terribly.  Anyway, the point is, apparently someone stole my bank card right out of my purse that night.  I had it in a small pocket--I'd left my wallet at home--along with some cash.  The next day the cash was still there, but the card was gone.  At first I figured that I must've taken it out and lost it or something, so I wasn't too worried.  But then last night I checked out my account information online and there were $250 worth of charges that I didn't make.  I spent the better part of the evening on the telephone to USbank cancelling the card.  So I'll get a new one within a week or two, but meanwhile I have no access to cash.  Blech.  Who would steal a bank card from someone's purse at a party?  Am unhappy about the whole affair.

I am not really here right now

I've mostly been back in Cleveland the past few days since I heard that a friend's stepfather, who I've known for years, passed away.  I've been in this kind of surreal stupor, trying not to think too much about what happened or worry about Sangeeta, trying to concentrate on my work and on my friends here, but I find myself dialing her number quite a bit and she's never home.  I wonder if she would rather people not call for a while, if she would rather be left alone.

No news is good news

I've been going through a bit of a clumsy spell.  Yesterday I knocked over a chair in the cafeteria, and then later, as I was trying to sneak out of class early, I managed to spill the entire contents of my backpack onto the floor with a remarkable clatter.  These things happen to me sometimes.

Am in the middle of midterms, three down and two to go.  I have no idea how I did on the papers, but I think I did okay on the Arabic test, in spite of all my fears.  Maybe I am learning something after all.

I haven't been up to that much lately.  Went out to dinner the other night, had a few drinks with some friends last night, the usual passing of the days.  But I feel satisfied and full, as if I've lived here a long time; my life has taken on an easy rhythm.  I am happy, I guess.

Israel has also been pretty quiet.  Kati wants me to write more about what's going on here, but the truth is I rarely know.  I read somewhere that attacks on Israelis have gone down 70% since Arafat died, but that strikes me as an odd statistic.  Everything else--moving along, hunkering down for winter, settling.