september 23, 2000. It doesn't seem like this month is going as quickly as it should. Funny - I almost never quarrel with snaily time; I'm too busy fretting about accelerating days, time that makes me a procrastinator and a bad person. Still. Hasn't it been September forever? I have the sniffles still. I think it's the increased pollen count of the Valley, but I have no real scientific thesis to account for it. The campus med faculties are only open during my class times, and the days I have free haven't worked out for various reasons. So I sit & walk & lie, the tickle in my nose advancing & retreating for reasons I have yet to determine. It's a lonely, snotty existence, and it does nothing for my flagging spirits. Not to mention that I'm constantly touching my face, which is becoming annoying. My hands smell like onions & fish, which is perfectly reasonable. Dinner was cod fillets baked with margarine, orange juice concentrate & onions, a recipe from a cookbook my mother gave me at one of my three showers. I had to use a regular onion instead of a green onion, but I don't think that's why the finished product tasted so bad. The Boy loved it, though, which is gratifying. That's the problem of cooking for one: if you don't like it, then there's nothing to salvage the damn experience. At least you can play the Angel of the House if your partner finds it good, and you can pretend that you meant it that way all along. It was the kind of meal that made me wish I smoked, if that makes any sense to you. I needed something to do with my hands while the Boy ate his fish and I waited to give him my portion. Okay, I was a little depressed: although I was certain I'd put the fillets in the fridge to defrost, I hadn't, which made me feel like I was losing my mind and put back dinner an hour. Then I seriously fucked up the rice, and we had to start over again with a new pot. By the time we were ready to eat, I'd lost interest in the whole project. Like I said: I wished for a cigarette to fiddle around with, to hide my lack of interest in the meal we'd made. But. Everything ends, and I was able to transfer my bad mood to something other than food. I've been depressed today, y'see. I woke late, full of half-recognized fears & slowly seething discontents that I could not name. That kinda set the tone for the day: after thinking seriously about doing work & rejecting that proposal as too focused, I gave up on the day, took an antihistamine & snuggled down on the couch with Venus Plus X. I'm homesick a bit, but I know me well enough to realize that if I was in Toronto, I'd still have spent the day lying down, reading a book for pleasure & feeling sorry for myself. Having social possibilities about probably wouldn't have changed things. Still, I'd have more to talk about when I got to this stage in the day, now wouldn't I? It's not like I've changed the scenery for my life and I just exercise the same demons over a different stretch of ground. Getting married seems to have really been the end of childhood for me, and it's frightening. Being a kid is not just what I'm best at, it's all I know what to do. Suddenly I'm living a life as tenant, wife & student; I have to worry about rent & food & nurturing my marriage so it doesn't die of boredom. I have to tidy up a suite of rooms just so that I can think straight or get anything done; I have to feed myself repeatedly over the day, not just let my parents decide or subcontract the problem out to a restaurant. I have to be responsible with money, not spend my earnings or savings on the latest frivolousness that catches my eye. And I have to do it all without a social network, without even a familiarity of shops & services that make things easier. It's All Happening At Once, and it scares the life out of me. What if I just can't do it? Worse: what if I can and this flat isolated serious half-life is all that's allotted to me for the rest of my days on earth? It took me 16 years to figure out how to have fun. Now that my tools are hundreds of miles away, will I ever regain my confidence & happiness? It's like a story problem from hell, isn't it?