I have an attitude problem. Existential ennui has me in the grips. My health has improved almost to the point of full recovery, but the general droopiness of spirit doggedly remains.

I was trying to write it out in my paper journal the other day. My angst seems to be very much rooted in what people call the quarter life crisis. It also has to do with my pessimistic assessment of the institutional foundations for contemporary life. To put it simply, I don't see any ladders worth climbing out there.

The obvious alternative is to engage my creative and enterprising nature and begin the development of some new venture, life-project or institution around which my future can revolve. The trouble with this is I'm very much aware of my limited capacity to fulfill responsibilities, and I worry that I lack the clarity and commitment to actual break ground on something that big.

In thinking these directional questions over, a perennial favorite is to go back to school. A masters degree wouldn't hurt my future life chances, and it would be pleasant to have structure and mentorship again. If I decide to get any more serious about this after The Road, one of the first orders of business will be to begin researching programs and opportunities which might address at least a plurality of my interests.

I'm also bedeviled by the knowledge that if I wanted to I could find gainful, even prosperous, employment with the kind of ease that amounts to a supreme privilege in this modern world. I worry about descending into some kind of pomo quasi-yuppie hell, shopping at banana republic, getting caught up in the kind of consumer lifestyle that seems so popular these days. I want to work and make money and have health insurance, but I also want to retain my self-respect. On the other hand, as a prosperously employed friend of mine noted today, "self respect is a luxury." What with the debts pressing down and my recent experiences outside the health-care umbrella, maybe it's time to consider sucking it up for a change. I'm just not sure.

On top of the life-direction worries, I also have a lack of harmony in my personal life. I think about enormous and abstract things too much (e.g. the impending thermodynamic doom of the American Empire) and have far too little room in my life for the kinds of human-level interactions that, when you get right down to it, make life worth living. I find conversation difficult, and idea of Love impossible.

There's the great hope that going on the road this summer will shake things loose, provide a frame-breaking experience to help resolve these nagging questions and open up my personality. I'm skeptical. I worry that it will be boring, that there's nothing out there, that nothing will happen.

As I said, I have an attitude problem. Being in motion helps, but I wonder if (like being "busy") that's just another tactic of avoidance. I wonder if my pessimistic outlook on our modern world is really a reflection on my own self-image, that I have unresolved feelings of failure after going 0 for 3 in politics (stopping the war, Dean, stopping Bush) and cutting myself loose from MFA. I wonder what it will take to turn this around, to get me juicing, high on myself again. I don't really know. I can only hope that time and experience will bring a resolution to all this uncertainty. On the plus side, they usually do.

I have an attitude problem. Existential ennui has me in the grips. My health has improved almost to the point of full recovery, but the general droopiness of spirit doggedly remains.

I was trying to write it out in my paper journal the other day. My angst seems to be very much rooted in what people call the quarter life crisis. It also has to do with my pessimistic assessment of the institutional foundations for contemporary life. To put it simply, I don't see any ladders worth climbing out there.

The obvious alternative is to engage my creative and enterprising nature and begin the development of some new venture, life-project or institution around which my future can revolve. The trouble with this is I'm very much aware of my limited capacity to fulfill responsibilities, and I worry that I lack the clarity and commitment to actual break ground on something that big.

In thinking these directional questions over, a perennial favorite is to go back to school. A masters degree wouldn't hurt my future life chances, and it would be pleasant to have structure and mentorship again. If I decide to get any more serious about this after The Road, one of the first orders of business will be to begin researching programs and opportunities which might address at least a plurality of my interests.

I'm also bedeviled by the knowledge that if I wanted to I could find gainful, even prosperous, employment with the kind of ease that amounts to a supreme privilege in this modern world. I worry about descending into some kind of pomo quasi-yuppie hell, shopping at banana republic, getting caught up in the kind of consumer lifestyle that seems so popular these days. I want to work and make money and have health insurance, but I also want to retain my self-respect. On the other hand, as a prosperously employed friend of mine noted today, "self respect is a luxury." What with the debts pressing down and my recent experiences outside the health-care umbrella, maybe it's time to consider sucking it up for a change. I'm just not sure.

On top of the life-direction worries, I also have a lack of harmony in my personal life. I think about enormous and abstract things too much (e.g. the impending thermodynamic doom of the American Empire) and have far too little room in my life for the kinds of human-level interactions that, when you get right down to it, make life worth living. I find conversation difficult, and idea of Love impossible.

There's the great hope that going on the road this summer will shake things loose, provide a frame-breaking experience to help resolve these nagging questions and open up my personality. I'm skeptical. I worry that it will be boring, that there's nothing out there, that nothing will happen.

As I said, I have an attitude problem. Being in motion helps, but I wonder if (like being "busy") that's just another tactic of avoidance. I wonder if my pessimistic outlook on our modern world is really a reflection on my own self-image, that I have unresolved feelings of failure after going 0 for 3 in politics (stopping the war, Dean, stopping Bush) and cutting myself loose from MFA. I wonder what it will take to turn this around, to get me juicing, high on myself again. I don't really know. I can only hope that time and experience will bring a resolution to all this uncertainty. On the plus side, they usually do.

I wish I had something interesting to write. I'm still resting and taking penicilin. My throat and fever seem much better, but my lymph nodes are still slightly swollen and my gums are inflamed, especially back around my wisdom teech (ouch!). So I still feel kinda crappy and the pain from the gums puts me in an awful bad mood.

I talked with Luke and Mark briefly last night and it looks like I'll be heading up to get ready to go on the road in a week. Assuming I continue to recover my health, I'm looking very much forward to this.

Other than that I've been bored. I've been doing some work and will be doing a lot more over the next week, but mostly I'm just kind of frustrated and filled with ennui. I'm tired of looking at political web sites; it's no longer entertaining or really all that engaging. I think about vacation and that's tiring too. I don't want leasure, I want a new passion. I'm sure I could use some rest, but frankly I can't stand to lay about any more. Action! Adventure! Excitement!

Oh well. Maybe I'll walk to the bank.

Tuesday I took the bus to the San Francisco Free Clinic in the Haight. I tried some clinincs closer to home, but they don't like taking new patients if they can help it. It took a while, but I got some penicillin and it only cost me $3. Swelling in throat has gone down some, but I've still got a ways to go. Today I'm cleaning all my clothes, trying to un-sick my attitude.

Three dollars though. That's affordible health-care. I'll make a donation when I get back on the gravy train.

For those who don't follow the news like I do, the New York Times' outgoing Public Editor, a man named Daniel Okrent, left his post in a bit of an odd way. He fired off a big shot at my dawg Paul Krugman, accusing him of "shaping, slicing and selectively citing" statistics to serve his political agenda. The accusations listed no specifics, and it seems a troubling thing for the Public Editor -- a position created to facilitate self-examination and reader service at the Times in wake one the Jayson Blair scandal -- to level criticism at one of the paper's columnists only after leaving his post and not when his objections would have, say, had the better effect of correcting any misleading statements.

That is, assuming of course, that there was any substance to Okrent's charges. As the dialog has progressed on the new Public Editor's page, it has become apparent that there isn't.

If you want to read the back-and-forth, I recommend Brad Delong's annotated version of the exchange. Okrent does not come off looking good.

I'm trying to imagine how this happened. It would seem that Okrent sort of fell for a lot of right-wing hooey. The leading theory is that that this might have something to do with the purported 40,000 word correspondence with conservative activist Donald Luskin (not an economist) who writes at the National Review. Okrent seems to have absorbed not only the faulty substance of Luskin's critique, but also his poisonous style. He repeatedly caricatures Krugman as playing to his "acolytes" with his work, effectively striking out not only at Prof. Krugman, but anyone who would bother to support him.

My comment? It's a shame the Times hired such a fucking bitchy little lightweight. Sure he invented Rotisserie League Baseball, and that's cool and all, but his ability to wade in the waters of 21st Century Politics are clearly for shit.

It's effin' frustrating right now. The road trip is in flux because the truck continues to be a source of mechanical woe, putting serious strain on our finances. I've got money to make here in the Bay but I'm too sick to work and probably won't be any better for a couple days -- assuming I get antibiotics tomorrow and they kick in within 24 hours -- and in the mean time I'm sort of cluttering up my old roommates place. They're accomodating and all, but I know it's a drag to have some toxic dude convalescing in your living room.

Oh me oh my; being stuck in bed (ok, couch) for the weekend has given me pause and time to reflect though. I'm far from certain what will come next, but having space to ruminate is never a bad thing. I feel the need to reach back to old friends and family more, remembering good old times. I feel that I owe 100s of thank yous to people. I feel like it may be time to start something new.

Well tomorrow I'll seek antibiotics. This shit has gone on long enough, and it's probably strep throat so we'll need special pills to defeat it. Another adventure into the medical establishment for the uninsured!

I don't know if he's just kidding or he thinks he's being coy, but David Brook's Sunday column in the Times gave me the willies. Entitled, Karl's New Manifesto, he reacpitulates the language of Marx's communist manifesto, but with the glib Friedman-esque turn of updating it to "the information age" and identifying education as the new class signifier.

Undereducated workers of the world, unite! Let the ruling educated class tremble! You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win!

Clever. Except, you know, they actually tried that in China. It was called The Cultural Revolution and it didn't really work out all that well.

Maybe not clever though. I think Brooks is using his perch at the NYT to needle the readerbase, but this is how propaganda starts. Propaganda is something, by the way, Bush self-identifies as using (nice little video there). Just another one of those days, I guess.

I think it's the flu, but whatever it is I'm out of commission. I detest my weakness, even as I realize that the only thing to do is lie down and drink water for a day or three. I've been downloading and watching old Family Guy episodes to pass the time, and Nascera and her friend Amy(?) made me a healing elixer of ginger-licorice tea infused with a ton of garlic, hot pepper, lemon and honey. We'll see how it fairs tomorrow.

From, Jesus' General, who I turn to in times of trouble:

Brilliant.