buzzing

some days it feels like my head is full of bees, thousands of them swarming all at once and humming and heating, and none of them coming through loud and clear on their own, but all of them making my head feel full and loud. Only the bees are thoughts all at once.

There's so much swirling in there, things I am considering--love, and relationships, and sexuality and gender and attraction, and how all those things interact, and then overlapping with that is the knowledge that social construction informs and shapes much of all those things, and that social construction is steeped in, based on bias that reinforces things like racism and sexism and all sorts of isms. And then with that, there's the knowledge of my own lack of experience (I have not done much dating), and how that is informed by my life history which is its own complicated soup of emotions and learning to deal with the family that I have and what each of its members means. This makes it a bit difficult to not answer, but even ask questions like, "do I like him?" or her or whatever, because I'm not sure it's even the right question.

And that's only one small fragment of what I am thinking about all at once, because there is also work, which means research, which is 3-5 projects at any given time and each of them is an intricate list of details of things I've done or need to do, people I really should have contacted a long while ago, and a load of guilt for not having done anything particularly sooner--and the understanding that the guilt is not only something that everyone feels, but that it is also socially constructed, and that it reveals flaws in the very fabric of scientific training and the whole system of science, and that it is compounded by my gender and race and socioeconomic status. (and now as well the fact that my socioeconomic class is changing, and I am blending in with a system where I don't fit or belong because I am not from any similar background either, but I blend in nonetheless....) All of that comes along with just thinking about work, so not only am I stressed about not working enough, I am stressed by the fact that this problematic system exists and is not only still in use but very rarely questioned, and that there is very very very little I can do to change that, especially at this stage in my career.

Then the need to work is compounded by my own concerns about my health--I think I may have ADD and that that is feeding the merciless cycle of procrastination, work overload, and easy distraction that have led to me having FIVE projects going on at once; and also I know for my own sake I need to remain grounded in real life and have things like decent amounts of sleep, regular food and exercise, and a bit of alternative mental stimulation--and then that brings crashing down on me the social problems with being a fat woman, and the health problems I wish to addrss, and all the social influences that contribute to my desire to lose weight, and the eternal debate between "becoming healthy" and "fitting a societal norm of beauty" that has been going on for more years than I can recall.

Meanwhile, in all the nooks and crannies, my brain continues crafting--thinking about yarn and projects I can make, learning new techniques in knitting, becoming interested in art and architecture and photography at least as a spectator, and always always poking and prodding away at a vast collection of stories and poetry and constructions of words and phrases that pour my ideas out into the world.

And then I think about my friends, and how long it has been since I have contacted some of them, and what sorts of responsibilities I have and have been shirking with regards to them (here's a hint--lots. I have been lucky enough to acquire a large number of friends in a variety of places and I miss them all and they are dreadfully neglected when I am not immediately near them)... and this makes me want to knit for them, and do some scheduling and traveling and setting up times to see them all. And usually I am questioning the last time I spoke to them, how I may have snubbed or insulted them, how I can have discussions with them without pouring all this out at them, without becoming that freak that just talks about herself all the time and gets really easily distracted midsentence and keeps blathering about yarn, and THEN I begin questioning the fact that I'm questioning myself, because my friends have told me very clearly that it's more annoying than anything I might've possibly done to annoy them originally.

There's more, too--because there is the internet to provide me with new mental inspiration, and memories to revive of old thoughts and paths of thinking, and also I am still growing and evolving and learning what it means to live in this world (and perhaps how even if everything is going so terribly wrong with society that I'm not sure how it is possible to have hope for the future, that maybe it's just that the world keeps going anyway, despite all injustices and stupidities), and on top of all that I am planning, planning, making lists and schedules for myself, thinking about when I will sit down and do certain things, thinking about what I need to do and think and accomplish and what goals I need to aim for, planning the types of projects I want to knit and what I want to do with each individual skein of yarn, and dreaming the next or the best scenes in my current story, and thinking about which poets I should read to get back into poetry and planning another book of poetry based on Issac Newton's Celestial Mechanics book, and figuring out ways to work science and language and transition and doorways all together...

it just gets... sort of overwhelming at times. it's hard to explain to people what is going on in my head. No one asks, but that's hardly the point. The point is, sometimes I sit down and have discussions with friends, and it's hard to explain to them why I am disagreeing with them, why I jump among topics, why I follow a thread from the beginning of a conversation and end way out in the middle of nowhere. That's how I think. Things flash up and connect in my head and they're all related and I am thinking all of them all the time. but I am just as likely to forget instantly all the important things we were just discussing. I am dreadful at names, for example, because I am so concentrated on how I should respond that I don't pay attention as the name is given, usually. I forget details because my brain is flashing onwards, a new bee staggering to the surface for a moment with a new thought, before slipping down back into the great whirling abyss of it all. In some ways this is probably helpful for me--for research, for writing, for friendship--my ability to have flashes of thoughts occur to me, triggered by an unlikely or sparse prompt, and as for friendship, my tendency to voice those thoughts.

but I also keep interrupting peoplke, and I keep forgetting. I do not know if I like being overwhelmed. it feels all fuzzy and out of control sometimes. Bit off more than I can chew.