i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

This is kind of stupid, but

I'm watching a movie with James Macavoy

and getting super nostalgic about, like, early xmfc fandom and all the feels and stuff

and, like, I can't get back to that -- for one thing the follow up movies, half of which I haven't even seen, changed the landscape of the fandom; for another, there isn't the same enthusiasm that there was; for a third I can't fucking write any more -- and it just

I can't tell how much of my heartache right now is because of the Doomed Romance Of Charles And Erik (and how very pretty James looks when his character is Having Feelings) and how much is because I used to be so much better

Today has been seriously crazy. (Sundays are always busy, what with church and with an afternoon group that I co-lead. Third Sundays of the month are worse, because I have another group that meets between previously mentioned events. Today happened to also coincide with the ministry meeting, which meets before church on varying Sundays. So, basically, I was at church from 9:30 to 5. With one chance to pee.) It has taken me two hours, and several very nice cups of decent-quality Assam tea, to decompress from all that.

... unfortunately, my current normal is not a very good place to be. I'm not getting things done that I need to get done; I'm not doing any writing; I have not been responding to emails; and I kind of am sliding into one of those moods where I feel like a clay jar that has been cracked into a bunch of pieces, badly put back together with scotch tape, pretending to be whole but always on the verge of just crumpling into collapse.

My dreams have not been helping. One where the door got left unlocked and both my computer and backup/media drive got stolen? One where I am in the middle of a crisis and am texting someone and get interrupted by a text from my dad saying my grandfather died? (I was disturbed enough after that one to half wake up and note the time /just in case/ because I'm paranoid that way.) One where I go to my HS class reunion (15th this year, oy) and am not at all disabled but nevertheless have no answer to "so what have you been up to"? Yeah. Thanks, brain.

(side note: I have a "take notes on dreams to report on later" text file on my phone, and there is one entry that I /do not remember/ at all, but apparently involved "sentient tarantulas little green head-butting". don't ask, because I don't have a clue. I think the head-butting might have been a communication thing?)

#

There is a part of me that wants to take classes again. Partly because I like learning stuff, partly because it's not like I can get a job anyway, partly because it gives me a socially acceptable answer to the what-are-you-doing-now question, partly because both my roommates are doing it, and partly because did I mention the liking-learning thing?

The pessimism-disguised-as-logic part of me points out, in response, that I really don't like school/work/ or essays or exams, and that I haven't been to school in forever and all my skills are rusty and anyway I sucked which is why I didn't get the master's degree and didn't really deserve the bachelor's degree. And also that I have no clue what I want to study* and I am likely to give up very quickly because that is what my track record is. And also there's the money thing.

[*this is not quite true. I know what I would like to try, if playing with different vocations were an option -- namely, either translating fiction (particularly sff) between languages, or doing some sort of one-on-one tutoring of some sort -- but I don't really know how to get there, and it's not like there are How To Become A $SPECIALIZATION classes available.]

The ... perfectionist, for lack of a better word, but that's not really what it is; snobbish, perhaps ... part of me points out that my options are severly limited because of physical access, and most of the available options (local community colleges and online stuff) is /not good enough/, and would in fact be kind of ridiculous. Never mind that I don't really feel like I deserve the degree I got from Stanford, and am stupidly embarrassed about having even gone, which is why I rarely talk about it; even with all that, there's still a voice that says /you went to Stanford, you can't then go to a lesser place/.

And I am left flailing and yet still left with the desire that I have no clue how to fulfill at all, let alone satisfactorily.