Reasons

Well, Steve proved that it is possible to have a worse weekend than I did. A friend of his found out that his very-recently-ex-girlfriend is getting married to a guy that she has worked with for years. That can't be fun. The night we spent in Albany, Steve spent driving his friend from bar to bar self medicating.

There are other reasons not to feel sorry for myself too. Here's one:

I am torn now between doing the work I should be doing for tomorrow and starting right away to find new (and better of course) prospects for grad school.

The backlash did come by the way, at least a little bit, last night when I was trying to distract myself by reading other people's blogs. It turned out to be even more depressing than the actual rejection letter. There are so many writers, all of us struggling in one way or another, all of us trying to stay positive in the face of overwhelming odds. It was humbling.

The problem is that I can almost always think of reasons not to be doing the things that I should be doing. I am very good at reasons. I have a lot of them. They hang out together in this little bundle and every now and then I pull one out, or a forgotten one sticks it's head out and bites me on the ankle.

This morning I went for a long walk - one of those things I have been thinking about and not doing for a while now - and thought about stuff, none of which I remember. I keep trying to pull my focus back to what I should be doing, and I keep failing. I keep reminding myself that this disorientation is temporary, and then I forget.