Escape

Many meetings. Much boredom. There were useful things today but it’s hard to feel like it was a good use of my time. Or the like $2k it cost for me to be here (not my money but still a waste). It’s nothing I couldn’t have gotten just by reading from my couch, and if I did it at my couch I could have had a weekend and a more routine week.

I’m doing okay not running away. It’s only 2:30 though, so there’s still time. I didn’t bring a jacket, which I think helps avoid the homelessness vibe – helps me prefer being inside and makes me feel less prepared. I think that’s one of the reasons I had trouble getting a coat in general – wearing one puts me one step closer to never coming back. Running away seems insane when I think about it but the feeling is real nonetheless. And there are moments when the impulse feels not only attractive but urgent. Like it’s the path that will finally make me safe and I must go now or risk not ever having it. It would work, in a way, if I let it. It wouldn’t be better – I couldn’t be me – but it would work. Has worked when I tried, when the cost wasn’t so high. It’s been the plan since I was 4 – to leave once I was strong enough, so that I stop hurting the people around me. It’s hard to convince my feels that I don’t need that plan anymore. Or at least don’t want it.

I’m feeling behind at work, which is hard on a Monday that’s already the second day of my work week. I still intend to not do much work this week but I’ll have to find a way to feel better about it, so I can actually relax at some point. Right now I’m still sort of busy through 11 AM on Tuesday; I get a rest period in there but probably not more than 6 hours. And I have to be on-site for a meeting on Wednesday too. Plus an old SR, a couple of release checklists, and chasing down whatever is wrong with the build for the branch I submitted to last week. That’s already a lot for the 8 hours of work time I have allocated for Tuesday-Friday, not counting any reactive work that comes in. But now that I’ve got it written down I can prioritize and stop worrying about it until I can actually do it. Throwing things out will happen automatically when I run out of time, as long as I let it.

The hotel for this conference (Westin St. Francis) is really proud of its “great men” history. More pictures of the Reagans than you can shake a racist old man’s finger at. And General MacArthur, returned from his successful colonialist campaign ¹Not that there weren’t many motivations for the Pacific campaign, but taking control of strategically useful bits of the world using violence to displace both the inhabitants and other colonial powers on behalf of already rich white dudes was definitely one of the goals. And in the context of the other stories they tell on the walls here it’s … Continue reading. Plus some old stuff directly exploiting young people and other disadvantaged groups that you’re supposed to read as cute or nostalgicly attractive. It’s a beautiful old building (in the street side; the new tower where most rooms are is pretty bland) and could be full of cool stuff but instead its full of 1984 Democratic National Convention marketing materials and empty high-end retail kisoks.

One of the reasons I find myself floating free when I travel alone is that I can spend consecutive days away from my home and in public but never interacting in person with a human (outside of transactions with agents for corporations). It’s not so much a direct trigger as a slow reversion to a life I used to have. One where it didn’t matter if I went “home” and where it wasn’t necessarily better than other options. That remembered state of mind definitely makes it easy to imagine it’s still true.

And there’s the conflict between the way I want to deal with the stress of travel by detaching. That makes me less like to have interactions even remotely (though I did medium with that yesterday) and makes it easier to be alone in my head, where those flashback feels hold more sway than they would with more external perspective.

I got a prepaid foreign PO box a couple of years ago, as a lifeline in case I do check out sometime. I’m not comfortable publishing the address – that would mean I have to abandon it when I flee – but if you ask before I disappear I’d share it.

I’m trying to take advantage of the present nature of these feels, to try to work through them. And to write to you to feel connected. But I also just got off the train 2 stops from the airport, at an almost empty station, and sitting here in the cool abandoned dark feels pretty good. So maybe I should go for a little distraction until I’m through airport security and more invested in getting home.

Okay. Crisis averted. On the plane [fig 1]. Even upgraded my seat, which should help mood. As will a drink – self-medication FTW. Now it’s just a train ride and a bus and a few blocks downhill before bed. All of which feels much more solid again. I have to be up for a morning meeting tomorrow but hopefully that and my most urgent checklist items can all be done before noon. And I think I can find a minute to breathe before then if I try.

It’s day 2 of sculpture behind glass [fig 2,3]: Mujer Pegada No. 4 (Manuel Neri). I have less to say about this one. It feels more human than the wooden facets from yesterday even though the form is less complete. Or like it would be more human once it escapes. And I like that it’s presented as only a rear quarter.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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