I am feeling numb and tired today. Perhaps it�s the gloomy weather, but I feel like I need a day where I just don�t have to think. It�s a day for paring back, for minimalist music and soothing colors. In an attempt at shaking myself out of my funk (which is, I might add, the result of moodiness and my general tendency to stress myself out by attempting to deal with too many things simultaneously; it�s not like I have a real reason to be feeling low), I�m wearing my favorite sky blue T-shirt and the only pair of pants that I currently own that I cannot take off without undoing the zipper. Note to self: buy new pants.

I tend to be scale-phobic, but if this morning�s venture onto that particular appliance is to be believed, I�ve managed to lose an even twenty pounds over the past 5 months or so. Huh. I guess there�s something to this diet and exercise thing after all. You�d think I�d be happy about it, but instead I find myself without a wardrobe or the time and money to acquire one. The suit I was planning to wear for my paper delivery next month is positively swimming on me. I�m not quite sure what I�m going to do about all this. At the moment, I�m looking rather like an overgrown orphan, which seems to suit my current dour mood.

Part of the reason for feeling like this is a general lack of sleep. Although I am generally a pretty optimistic and forward-looking person, I�ve been haunted for the last week by dreams of lives past. I think it all started with a notification of an upcoming reunion for one of my high schools (see my 100 things if you need an explanation of that). Suddenly people I hadn�t thought of in years were wandering through my dreams. I still haven�t figured out what they are all doing there.

Life is feeling too noisy, but there�s nowhere to pull back, no room to lock myself in until I can think things through. That�s a part of being an adult that I still struggle with � the inextricability, the complication.

I�ve been listening to Philip Glass� Glassworks, Marin Marais� �Sonnerie de Ste. Genevi�ve du Mont-de-Paris� and Sloan�s �The Life of a Working Girl� on auto-repeat this morning, strangely compatible and soothing. I know I�ve written of this before here, but I find myself returning to repetitive works in times of strain. I used to think that it was a way of calming myself down, controlling my emotions. But I�ve come to believe that it�s actually a way of allowing for passion, of giving it structure and making it less overwhelming. It slows it down long enough to think about, like watching images on a kinetoscope.

I seem to be writing a lot about control lately. But it is the chaos on which I thrive. Ultimately, though, its margins are depressing.

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