Writer's Block? Just Click the Julie Icon on the Toolbar (12/31/08 Wednesday)

Avoidance is easier, by far, than engagement. Since it is, essentially, the state of things before I began earnestly seeking Julie's attention, it can't be as much of an artifice as Nicey-Nicey Smiley Face. But only absence will make my heart grow less fond. Avoidance of Julie will spread to include everyone, eventually. I feel alone enough now. I don't want to collapse into myself entirely.

But it's not Julie I'm clinging to so much as what she's meant to this project (endeavor? what? I still don't know what to call this teetering stack of words)--and I've hardly begun to define that. She's more of an icon than human--or, rather, there's Julie the icon of inspiration and there's Julie the person I work with. Or is this a strategem to detach my feelings from her? Which way is the real way and which way is the rationalization?

Not a good day at work. My sleep habits have altered. Since the Christmas week, if not before, I fall asleep as early as before eight-thirty. Rarely have I made it past ten. But no matter how long I've slept up to four a.m., that's when I wake up--on the ginn plane. But I'm not awake; I'm just a little bit closer to awakening than to falling into a true sleep. I think I'm awake until the alarm rings--at six on most weekdays--at which point the line between wakefulness and sleep is revealed as dark and wide. I have my tea in the morning, but lately that's barely propping me up. My caffeine tolerance has risen with a few coffees over the past week, so the tea doesn't preclude the headache. I felt slightly jittery all day today, as if in low-level withdrawal. After lunch Thomas saw me leaving the breakroom. I've been fairly dramatic this month, not hiding my discomfort, playing the martyr, but today I was just, plain dragging. "Man, you haven't been right for a long time," was Thomas' greeting. "What's up?" "I'm trying to get out of here," I said, forgetting that I was in a kind of acoustical sweet spot, at the juncture of perpendicular hallways just outside the breakroom, where was sitting Nikki, Greta and Julie at the nearest table. I hadn't modulated my voice, and Thomas was at least eight feet away, by the back door. Immediately, I hoped that he interpreted it lightly, as a joke that referred to the workday, not the building, workplace and coworkers. But Thomas didn't take it lightly, didn't accommodate me with a joke for cover. He knew I really wanted out, and now three more people knew. I closed ranks with Thomas and explained very generally what I wanted to do, giving as a reason only, "There are just some people here I can't work with any longer." He didn't pry, and I didn't offer.