Got Me Under Pressure

April 29, 2003 - 10:11 p.m.

Last Five Entries:
The Party's Over
July 11, 2004
The Next Day
2004-03-31
My Nervous Breakdown
2004-03-30
True Confessions: My Life as a Female Impersonator
March 15, 2004
Bite Me
February 29, 2004

Contact:

I'm making it brief today because I don't have lots of time.

I'm under pressure. I have work (two trials over the next week, one for Omega House and one for Hoover's Delta House), plus meeting yet another of Hoover's clients this week. And then I have a class presentation tomorrow which I've only halfway prepared (and have no time to prepare tomorrow- trial in the morning), plus three papers due within a week, none of which I have started and all of which require research.

This is what one might call pressure.

And here's what you don't do to someone who's under pressure.

During the break in my class tonight, I was outside in the hallway pacing and worrying about everything I have to do in the next week. Because that's what I do when I'm thinking, I pace.

One of my classmates- we'll call her Wendy Testaburger- passed by me on her way somewhere while I paced. As we passed by each other, we had this conversation:

Wendy: You'd better smile.

Me: Why?

Wendy: Because I never see you smile.

Me: I need something to smile about.

Wendy: There's a sun outside.

At that point, we passed by each other. I mumbled something about the sun burning the Earth. I don't know if that was a prediction, or a wish.

And I thought, No one is too pretty to be strangled. That would be lookism, and lookism is wrong.

Of course, I'm a pacifist, so the only thing I could actually do about her utter insensitivity to my internal situation was to pace more forcefully.

By the way, I have this recurring fantasy. In this fantasy, I am walking across the street, and a speeding car hits me. And I have to spend months in the hospital recovering. And while I'm in the hospital recovering, I don't have to attend to any of my responsibilities, because I have an excuse.