What the hell is my problem? I'm reacting to typography precisely the same way I always used to react to drawing: fear, hate, panic, and a deep conviction that I cannot do this thing. It's more or less the same thing as writer's block, where you stare at the blank piece of paper until your forehead bleeds, and the more you think about it the ( Read more... )

I cannot make my brain connect. I keep turning up to class with things unfinished, printout borders untrimmed, everything half-assed and incompetent. I haven't done any of the reading for art history, because the book I found online was Volume I and I need Volume II. (I've ordered Volume II now, but who knows how long it will take to get here ( Read more... )

Today: art history, boredom in the writing center, walking home through freezing pouring rain to make an appointment with the dentist. Spattering my hands and arms with ink, making a crude mock-up of a map. What am I mapping? Salad. Don't ask me to explain that one, at least not yet. Twisting light metals into delicate barbed wire: nickel ( Read more... )

Symptoms of post-traumatic stress may include:

• Persistent and painful reexperiencing of the event through dreams (nightmares) or while awake (flashbacks).
• An inability to feel or express emotions toward family, friends, and loved ones (emotional numbness).
• Avoiding any reminders of the event.
• Being easily angered or aroused, on edge, or easily ( Read more... )

The sun came out today. That helped, some.

I still don't know what to do about the problem of being absolutely convinced that doing graphic design is an utterly worthless pursuit. ( Why don't you stop doing it, you dope? )

Observation ( Read more... )

oh god

it never gets any better
it just never gets any better

all those months I told myself it would get better in the spring
I was lying
I was wrong

it only gets worse and worse and worse

and

worse

Well, the semester is all properly underway now. I certainly hope that means I'll be able to settle my brain and be less jangly. Bah, instead of being tense from anticipatory dread, I can be tense from assignment deadlines ( Read more... )

It's a bit late for this, since we're halfway through January already. And this isn't a resolution, exactly. But I've been thinking over the last year or two, and how much time I've spent fighting depression and exhaustion, and how it has all been pretty relentless for such a long time. 2005 had its good bits here and there, but was mostly just ( Read more... )

Well, at least after tomorrow, some of the horrible suspense will go away.