i have got to get to knitting tomorrow, i am falling down the well of loneliness and self-pity again.  i need to be around people, to give me some kind of sense that there’s some way to find anybody who cares whether i exist or not.  i still tell myself that this will all change again when i start teaching, that that will make me connected to the world again, but it seems so hard and so far away.  i called finally, overcame my shyness and called my new tutee to try and set up some sort of appointment, since no other parts of my schedule seem to be resolving themselves any to provide any clarity in that situation.  no one was home, of course, so i left a message, and that will help to connect me.  and when i do get the substituting processed at last, i will get more than i can handle, everyone assures me.  and somehow, someway eventually i will find a way to teach art, i know that, and then a routine will be back and i will develop a life again.  but just now it’s very hard, it feels desolate like it used to feel 20 years ago in new york, that new york kind of desolation when you don’t know what to do or where on earth you’ll be able to do it.  prehaps it’s listening to american gods on the ipod this afternoon for four hours, as i was at the studio all alone again with nothing to do.  and it’s really quite depressing, i find.  perhaps it’s the over-surfing i was doing last night, poking into areas that always tend to depress me.  i know i’m going to find something. i know i just have to hold on.  there’s no other alternative, after all.

that hollow, lost, bottom kind of feeling, that particular one i haven’t felt in years, and which, i suppose, is associated with total existential uncertainty.  as awful as other things can be, boredom, stultification, that awful lost feeling is a thing in itself and instantly recognizable once it’s present.  it’s been awhile, is all.  alone. alone. alone.  can i be here, please?