Am I Unhappy Or Just Hungover?

I feel like I’ve been running for the last week or so. I moved into my new apartment, in Friendship, which is a cozy/tiny efficiency in a basement, and I quite like it. The moving process was a fucking ordeal, but it’s over now. All that’s left is for me to actually unpack and make the place livable. I also need to buy a shower curtain. That’s very important.

I do somewhat feel like I’m falling apart, at least physically and probably mentally as well. I still have some leftover bruises from Deep Creek — the one on my arm is a lovely shade of yellow — and bugs seem to have decided this is the month they eat me. There’s a giant kingbitch of a bite on my hip, and every time I stand up or sit down by jeans rub against and it just keeps growing. I haven’t slept well in probably five days, and the bags under my eyes reflect this. My back — jesus I hate my back sometimes — is incredibly painful some days. The two long muscles than run down either side of my spine are like fucking cords, in a sore and stressed way, not muscular. I think I had a muscle once, that was fun.

When it comes to the mental crash and burn I do legitimately feel like my attention span is even shorter than usual. The really irritating part of it is that I can see it but am not having much luck forcing focus. I know it’s the goddamn Internet doing it to me, and that the whole generation’s gonna have the same problem, but I still see it as a flaw.

Am I unhappy or just hungover?

Covered in Bruises

Know how I know I had a good weekend in Deep Creek? My body hurts and I’ve covered in bruises. I feel like you haven’t really rung out all the fun you can have in nature if you’re not at least a little sore afterwards. On Sunday, the group decamped to the boat to drink and shoot the shit. After a fashion, not drunk but not completely sober, Harrison and I decided it was time to break out the tube and let out the choke on the engine. It was, to put it briefly, a fucking blast. Nothing like being dragged around a lake on a rubber bladder. A good grip is required, and still today I have aches in each individual muscle in my upper arms.

Later that afternoon we went to Swallow Falls State Park and spent four hours wandering up and down the creek bed barefoot, jumping off of rocks into pools, and letting the stream take us down over softs but fun rapids. Consider the Youghiogheny River highly recommended.

Monday was slower. The sky was spitting all day, and the two of us decided to pass the inclement weather by seeing Captain America. And I liked it. Luckily by Happy Hour the sky had cleared and we got to go to the local bar, called, believe it or not, the Honi-Honi. Apparently it means hugs and kisses in a language that I cannot remember.

Then we came home. That was it. And it was wonderful.

Iron Man in Deep Creek

I’m headed to Deep Creek Maryland in a couple hours. There are a few things I like about this. First, I don’t know where Deep Creek is; my very good friend Harrison is driving us there and there’s something very great about not knowing where one is. Or, rather, it is good not to need to know where one is. I’m hardly working this summer, what with my internship being only two days a week at the office and a couple out at events, but I’m still getting the burnt-out sensation that takes me every time I do something I don’t want to do for longer than a couple months.

That’s the other sensation I’m struggling with right now. I legitimately do not like my internship at the City Paper. When I’m in the office, my job is essentially transferring information from 200-word press releases to 100-word “Come see this!” listings. Out of the office, I have to go to events that I have very little interest in, and then interview people who have very little interest in me. It’s something I’m not sure my editors understand, that after events (concerts, shows, receptions, etc.) people who are just spectators don’t really want to talk to reporters for more than thirty seconds, and I have to get at least three minutes from them.

So the best conclusion I can come to is that journalism is really my bag. And that’s fine. I don’t need to be a journalist to be a writer, and I certainly do plan on continuing to write. I’ve been working on fiction this summer and I feel like the no-deadline, low-stress writing I do when I don’t need it to be seen anywhere is probably my best. That’s good enough for me, for now.

Now I’m going to go back to watching Robert Downey Jr. build the Iron Man suit in a cave!… from a bunch of scraps!