heh -- one of those late night rants of mine. katya was the victim of this one. once in a while i just remember what it was that made me go into biology and medicine in the first place. it's not that i want to understand and take apart and know everything about the human body, really. it's not even that i want to fix all the wrongs. i mean, i know my profession is to fix wrongs, but what REALLY took me into biology in the first place, the real reason behind all this, is because i can't possibly understand everything. i can't possibly fix everything. it's so complex, so intricate, and yet so elegant and so perfect that all i can do, sometimes, is be awed by what little i do see and understand.
so, yeah, this rant is about just a FRACTION of the 31847698769 amazing things going on in your body right this moment.
Damon: actually, heh.
Damon: that's one thing about medicine?
Damon: i mean, you see so much UGLY because people come when they're sick?
Damon: but you also get SUCH an appreciation for how beautiful human bodies are.
Damon: not just -- on the superficial level, either
Damon: in how everything just FITS
Damon: it's like...dude, seriously.
Damon: there is NOTHING like the human body and its mechanisms
Damon: i could name so many things that are just mindblowing.
Katya: yeah well. ayup.
Damon: like -- okay. in metabolism?
Damon: you have the kreb cycle and the urea cycle
Katya: oh. you ARE going to name them.
Katya: ...
Damon: one's for producing energy
Katya: and in words i don't know too.
Damon: one's for getting rid of wastes
Damon: but they just INTERTWINE
Katya: urea!
Katya: i picked it!
Damon: like the "waste" products of one?
Damon: shunts into the other and becomes useful.
Katya: hmm.
Damon: and it's just this incredibly intricate, yet simple and elegant, cycling system that's miraculously evolved by PURE CHANCE
Katya: ....
Damon: it's like MUCH more intricate than any machine we can possibly build.
Katya: people would dispute that.
Damon: yeah, i know.
Katya: see .. thats when pure chance doesn't seem so.. right.
Damon: heh. sometimes i wonder too.
Damon: it's SO complex.
Damon: and SO perfect.
Damon: there's just no waste to it.
Katya: well. you don't have to believe in.. *muse* any religion's god. it sufficient just to believe in something, methinks.
Damon: i mean... the best engine we have, manmade?
Damon: is like... i think about 20-30% efficient
Damon: meaning of all the potential energy you put in, in the form of fuel
Damon: only 20% of that comes out as useable energy
Katya: maybe aliens landed on earth and designed us.
Damon: the body? is like 50-60% efficient.
Damon: and more than that, it's organic.
Damon: it adapts.
Katya: but we churn it all?
Damon: it self-tunes.
Damon: *amazed*
Damon: okay, here's another thing:
Damon: DNA replication
Katya: 50-60% doesn't sound so good.
Katya: ooh ooh!
Damon: at any given moment, i'd guess about 10% of your cells are actively dividing.
Damon: there are TRILLIONS of cells in your body
Damon: so at any INSTANT
Katya: its... C and T and N and..... dammit i forget the letters. :( i'm totally wrong. i remember nothing of biology.
Damon: there are BILLIONS of dividing cells.
Damon: (CGAT)
Katya: ..... how many trillians?
Katya: ooh thanks
Damon: i can't remember *LOL8
Katya: but i can spell it!
Damon: but -- you know the basics, right?
Katya: deoxyribonucleic acid!
Katya: ... i think.
Katya: maybe i spelled wrong.
Katya: yeah.
Damon: DNA is a chain molecule, with a sugar-phosphate backbone and bases (the CGATs) that are attached?
Katya: i remember.. i think.
Damon: so -- the polymerase that goes through and replicates DNA
Damon: has an error rate on the range of 10^-7 or something like that.
Damon: 0.0000001% error
Damon: ...god, i can't even remember the numbers
Damon: *goes look it up*
Katya: *peer*
Katya: i think i'm in awe of you when you go on about things well beyond my understanding.
Katya: *muse* of course, it makes me feel dumb too? but.. I think thats because i'm incapable of retaining information.
Damon: okay
Damon: i'm back
Damon: *LOL*
Damon: looked it up
Damon: i messed up: it's even lower than that
Damon: the machinery messes up once every 10^9 times
Katya: 0.000000000000001%?
Damon: ONCE
Damon: in 10^9
Katya: *blank look*
Damon: 1 in 1000000000 times.
Katya: i don't even know wha... oh
Damon: for every 1000000000 bases it adds one
Damon: on*
Damon: it messes up ONCE, overall.
Katya: you should put commas in.
Damon: 100,000,000
Katya: oh. 100 mil
Damon: 1 mistake per 100 million bases
Damon: ONE, KATYA.
Damon: if you were copying
Katya: *laugh*
Damon: by hand
Damon: CGATATGCGTATCGT.... 100 million times
Damon: you would not make only one mistake.
Damon: and actually -- the thing is, it makes more mistakes than that? more like one in every ten to a hundred thousand? (which is still MIND BOGGLING)
Damon: but it's got a built-in proofreading mechanism
Damon: where if it makes a mistake, it'll REALIZE it
Damon: STOP
Damon: GO BACK
Damon: FIX IT
Damon: and go on again.
Damon: and here's the really amazing thing:
Damon: so think of if you were doing this by hand, like i said?
Damon: the human genome is... *thinks*
Katya: *peek*
Damon: had to go look *LOL*
Damon: the human genome is 3x10^9 base pairs long, roughly
Damon: (so all our DNA is 3x10^9)
Damon: which is... 3,000,000,000 bp's
Damon: 3 billion
Katya: .... mmm.
Katya: *nod*
Damon: so
Damon: imagine if you had to copy all this
Damon: CAGATTGATGA...blahblahblah, 3billion of 'em
Katya: well. i wouldn't, for starters. :P
Damon: i know, but like! just imagine how LONG that would take
Katya: yeah. well. *laugh*
Damon: not even ASSEMBLING it? like if you imagine it as legos, snapping it on?
Damon: not even that
Damon: just... writing it
Damon: or TYPING it
Damon: think of how LONG that would take
Katya: you're in a cesspit of awe, aren't you?
Damon: think of how many mistakes you'd make
Katya: *grins*
Damon: but right now
Damon: i mean. RIGHT. NOW.
Damon: in your body, there are a billion cells doing just that
Damon: and it's doing it so that in all 3 billion base pairs
Damon: it makes 30 mistakes.
Damon: THIRTY.
Damon: and it does all this in 8 hours.
Katya: are they the 'mutations' ?
Damon: 3 billion base pairs copied, with 30 mistakes, in 8 hrs, in a billion different places IN YOUR BODY, right this second.
yeah, the mistakes are mutations.
Damon: but 99% of them are totally harmless
Damon: and the other 1%, 99.9999.....9% of that will just be destroyed by cells watching for it.
Damon: now in the VERY slight chance that one cell gets away with it, and starts replicating wildly?
Damon: that's when you get cancer.
Katya: *hms* see my mind has trouble grapping with... so much acti.. ok i sound stupid. *shuts up*
Damon: *laughs*
Damon: bah!
Damon: well!
Damon: doesn't it amaze you just a LITTLE bit?
Damon: put another way:
Katya: it amazes me!
Katya: but.. i don't understand it like you do.
Katya: and.. it just reminds me of sermons in church. *grins*
Damon: the replication speed of this enzyme that does it, called a polymerase, is 1000 base pairs PER SECOND.
Katya: well not quite. but the allusion to how amazing the human body is, does.
Damon: heh -- i mean, can you visualize this?
Katya: not... your raving.
Damon: you've got one strand feeding into this enzyme, which is shaped like a big ring
Damon: and out the other end comes two strands, perfectly matched except for one mistake every 100 million base pairs.
Katya: mmm. you're almost making me miss my biology classes.
Damon: you've got free base pairs floating around in the cytosol, getting sucked in and slapped on
Damon: little bursts of energy every time one gets fused to the backbone
Damon: and this ring is racing along at 1,000 base pairs in a single second.
Damon: i can just see it, you know? *laughs*
Damon: (this is why i went into biology, heh)
Damon: i mean, honestly, THIS is why i do what i do. because it's just stunning, how it all works.
Katya: i did biology as my token science glass in high school, and did well at it! but... i forget everything.
Damon: *laughs* oh well.
Damon: you go learn your doctrines of human law *grins*
Katya: .. class.
Katya: bleh.
Katya: i find it just as fascinating as you!
Damon: i'll stick with my divine truths of human biology.
Katya: but i guess a little overwhelming?
Damon: it IS overwhelming
Damon: that's the point.
Katya: because i don't know it as well as you do.
Damon: it's like... unimaginable, how fast it all is
Damon: and how perfect!
Katya: well. even the words are overwhelming!!!
Damon: gahh!
Damon: katya, to be totally honest
Damon: (and i'm gonna say something corny here)
Katya: *laugh*
Damon: if ever i believed in... i dunno
Damon: not god? not the way christians believe?
Damon: but if ever i believed in some greater pattern
Damon: something greater than ourselves, that we can't ever understand, but can sometimes see or feel or touch?
Damon: it's when i think about stuff like this.
Katya: yeah well. *grins* sounds like something said by a creation scientist.
Katya: except they know who to attribute it too. *muse*
Damon: it's like when i really think about it, or visualize it, it's like i'm seeing a tiny fragment of something incomprehensibly larger than myself.
Damon: and i know in every discipline out there, there are moments like that.
Katya: *nod* *sighs* yeah it all is. I think thats why I don't think about it.
Katya: like i can admire, and be fascinated and awed and all that.. but don't think too hard about it.
Damon: i mean, astronomers look into deep space and see things that make them feel like they're touching god, or creation, or whatever, just for a second. i just find it within, instead.
*laughs* why not?
Damon: (ok, i'm not getting up in the morning *laughs*)
Katya: because.. i don't think my mind is capable of dealing. :P
Katya: (no shit)
Katya: (i still wanna watch my movie. *sighs* damn you! *shakes fist*)
Damon: (that's why i'm talking to you now!)
aww. talk a little longer? then i'll sleep.
Damon: and heh. katya, my mind is not capable of dealing either.
Damon: i get boggled by it.
Damon: i'm like, moved by it
Katya: and i think a lot of people feel like you do. *muse* well. a lot. no small amount.
Katya: yeah but i'm not capable of dealing with the implications, i guess.
Katya: *grins*
Damon: i swear to god, i think about it enough and i get all MOVED *LOL*
Damon: it doesn't matter to me what's behind it?
Damon: like if it's god or evolution or creation or aliens or whatever you wanna attribute it to.
Katya: happy without your meanings? *smiles*
Damon: it's just that feeling you get that for a second there, the fabric of the world as we know it kinda rolls back and you see something MORE than yourself, or anything you could possibly understand.
Damon: gah! i have a hard time putting it into words.
[end rant]
--Turns out I screwed up my math. heh. it makes one mistake in 10^9 base pairs, so that's one in a billion.
ONCE in a BILLION. 3 times in your whole genome, when it replicates.
i really -- have a hard time putting down exactly why this amazes me. i think the bottom line is because it's right there, inside you. it's easy to be amazed by deep space and particle physics, and things so obscure it takes a lifetime to even begin to understand it. but what most people don't realize is inside their bodies, right now, right this second, any given second of any given day, there's a billion tiny miracles happening.
i mean -- right now, just look down at your arm. look at your skin. right there, what i ranted about is happening. it's in you. it IS you.
you don't need to look at the stars to go beyond the human experience and see something divine. you don't need to witness stigmata and miracles of the church. it's right there inside you, all the time. the very act of being alive is a collection of a hundred trillion miracles every second of the day. and that's what amazes me.
i know my party line about being in medicine is to help people, blahblahblah. but really, it's more selfish than that. it's because if i go into this profession, i work with this stuff every single day. and yeah, most times all i think about is -- how much of this drug to give, what procedure to do, what tests to administer, patients and diagnoses, problems and solutions.
but as long as i'm exposed to this stuff, sooner or later, once in a while, i'll be able look beyond the details and see the whole of it. i'll be able to sit back and look at it and realize, if only for an hour on a monday night at 4:35am, the utter beauty of it all.
and when i do see that, it gives me an utter certainty, somehow, that there's something amazing out there, and in here, and everywhere. this whole secret life of the universe just under the skin of everyday existence, never far away, always within reach, if only i stop to remember it.
if i just stop and consider it, i'll remember, if only for a second, how i felt sitting in a lecture hall learning this for the first time. i'll be able to reach beyond the mundane existence and touch something that proves to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's a pattern to everything. i don't understand it, and i won't understand it, and i wouldn't ever want to understand it and take it apart to its fundamentals. because all i need to know is that it's there, and that it's not out beyond the stars. it's not out of reach. it's right there, inside me, if i just stop for a second and remember.
gah. i sound so pompous when i go on like this. i can't help it -- it's because i'm trying to put this down in words, but the words just don't ever come out right, and instead it turns into a bloody church sermon.
ARGH!
it's so frustrating. i just -- can't find the words to explain it. i try and it comes out all wrong.
okay, anyway, i'm gonna stop trying to add to it. heh. maybe i'll try again some other night.
Showing posts with label biomed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biomed. Show all posts
man. so, recently: stress galore, bad mood galore. i'm having one of those periods of extreme stress at work, where i start self-doubting just a little bit.
i mean, it's impossible not to. when you choose the path of medicine, you choose it early. while your friends are off smoking pot behind the high school, you're joining clubs and doing sports to show the colleges you're a well-rounded person. while your friends are changing their majors 17 times and taking human sexuality, you're taking molecular biology and human physiology and immunology and endocrinology to prep you for med school. there's no real room or time for exploration - you better crank the fuck down and get shit done, or you get left behind.
what ends up happening, though, is while the fact that you're SURE you love this shit, you're POSITIVE you wanna follow this path, is the only way you'll even survive all the rigors of taking it - you always, always retain this little seed of self-doubt. cuz i've never had a chance to really explore. i never took human sexuality or intro to astronomy. i never took any of the hundreds of cool, random classes in college that my friends did because i was always, always, running with my nose to the ground and my eyes on the prize.
so now that i've almost got the prize, now that i'm locked into this very last phase of getting the prize, i have these moments when it's just fucking overwhelming (like it's supposed to be, heh), and...
shit. see, i even reason it out to myself when i'm ranting. this is why sometimes i wonder if maybe i DIDN'T pick the right path. if maybe - just maybe - out of the hundreds of other paths i could've taken but never even tried - one of them was the "right" one. because i never LET myself wonder. not aloud, at least. not on paper, either. all the doubts are in my mind, and as soon as i start going into doubt, i talk myself out of it.
i'm having trouble expressing this, i think.
the bottom line is, i'm afraid, sometimes, that i've made the wrong choice. the idea terrifies me because i'm so way, way, way beyond the point of no return. but i never even looked to both sides before crossing the point, so there's no way, really, for me to know. i've always just forced my gaze back on center whenever i've tried to look, and i do that even now, when i try to look backwards.
seems like cheesy metaphor's the only way i can say this. heh.
i am fucking plagued by doubt right now. just ... haunted by it. i don't know why. not really. i'm stressed, yeah, but i'm not that stressed. but i look around at all the bright-eyed faces of the 3rd-year med students just starting their rotations and i wonder how they can be so certain of themselves. i look around and wonder how they can be so absolutely sure their path is the right one, and how i could've, once upon a time, been so blindly sure, as well.
i'm still convinced it is the right one. hell, if it wasn't, i think i would've realized it and bailed by now. but still.
still. the fucking doubt, you know?
i just need some way to be certain. absolutely certain. but i think that's one of those things where i'd be looking for an answer that might not even exist.
and of course, there's also the fear that this ISN'T right for me. i'm cut out for it but it's not cut out for me. does that make any sense? that idea terrifies me. that i could've worked so hard, 28 years of my life, one third of my FUCKING LIFE, to come to this point, and maybe - just maybe - be wrong.
==
this is why i've been so fucking on-edge lately. the slightest things set me off. the slightest, tiniest things make me go off. my stress at work feeds into my doubt feeds into my stress feeds into my doubt, and i haven't had a real break since.. hell, since i can't even remember. it's been just one thing after another for so long. grant applications. papers. patients. new wards. new shit to learn. new shit to practice. and then my dad, and his fucking company - he's been starting one for the last 3 years or so - he didn't have any employees for a long time so i was basically doing his shit as well. and there's just been no respite for...jesus, to be honest, i think for about 2 years. the last time i really had no stress was a week-long break i took in the summer of 2001.
i need a fucking break. this winter, i'm taking a fucking break. 3 weeks, and i'm not going to do shit. i'm not coming online, i'm not going to work. i'm going to fucking europe or something and i'm going to wander in the shadow of the wonders of the world and not think about conferences, meetings, the real world.
look at me, spewing my troubles across the page. i hate doing this. i fucking hate unloading.
==
i'm dividing this up into chunks because my thoughts are in disconnected chunks. heh.
==
so anyway. tonight. random bad mood again. god knows what set me off. the smallest things make me go off these days. i think maybe it was because another friend of mine was grumpy, and it just kinda... i don't know. infected me. that has a way of happening.
heh. so yeah. my bad mood just exploded on me like a fucking thunderstorm out of the blue. i always feel bad when that happens, because someone's gonna take the brunt of it sooner or later, and usually they don't deserve it because when i'm in a bad mood, most often it's something that has NOTHING to do with anyone but me.
so then i went offline. went for a joyride. was just gonna go for an hour but it kinda went long. i drove up to marin county past the golden gate bridge and i came back; i was still kinda revved up somehow, and i kept having this urge to just floor the pedal and go faster and faster, which i recognized as a pretty fucking dangerous urge.
it's like i felt like maybe if i just drove fast enough i could outrun the sense of doors closing on me.
that's what i feel like sometimes lately. that doors are closing on me. like everyone around me is so fucking placid, so fucking happy in their place, and somehow i'm still searching. it's like their fucking lives are already over. they're just settling down to go through the motions now, and me, fuck, i feel like my life is still just getting started. or it should be. i feel like i should still have unlimited possibilities in front of me.
but then i'm afraid i don't.
hell, i know i don't.
and this feeling of closed doors - coupled with this feeling of doubt - it's tearing me apart. i can't, i don't know how to deal with it.
wtf happened to college? heh. wtf happened to 18 years old?
uurgh.
==
you know, i wrote this up meaning to tell this little story about my joyride, not spill my tortured guts. heh. so yeah: story.
so i kept driving right past my place. went from the 101 to the 280. southbound. drove past the bend of the mountains and the city (god it's still so fucking beautiful...at least there's still that) vanished behind me, and all there was was the night, the highway, the few cars still there.
i went all the way down to san jose where 280 hit 101 again. then i came back up.
so i'm driving north. and then i'm like, outta fucking gas suddenly. i passed this sign saying next gas 18 miles and i was SURE, dead SURE, that i'd be able to get all the way home. well, at 18 miles sign i had 1/5th of a tank. by the end of the 18 miles, i was down to 1/16th. so i'm like shit, i better fuel up, right?
so i pull off the freeway.
guess what.
NO FUCKING GAS. CLOSED.
shit! go back on the freeway. go another 5 miles. pull off at another sign. go like 2 miles out.
NO FUCKING GAS. CLOSED.
by now i'm in the red, the light's on, i'm really worried. and i was only 5 miles from home by then, so i was like fuckit and i pushed it. i was coasting on neutral whenever i went downhill, man, and finally i got to a shell that was open, like 2 blocks from my place.
0.7 gallons left.
sheeeeeeesh.
now that would have and did get me home. but i just kept thinking what if i'd dawdled a bit more? taken one more exit to come down from up north? or two, or three? hell, i coulda run out in the 18-mile stretch. had to sit there and call my gf to come rescue me, and shit.
anyway, heh. sheer terror kinda blew all the doubts out of my mind, so i guess the joyride did some good. 'course, now that i'm home, trying to record the incident, i ended up recording my mood instead, and dredged them all up again.
fuck.
==
so remember what i said, when i said i didn't want to go home yet when i was coming back down from the north? i felt like i still needed a few miles to work some shit out. it's like running, almost - you keep doing it and after a while you get past the agony of exhaustion and your limbs somehow unkink and you can just run forever.
that's how i felt. i felt like driving forever. i went south all way down until 280 merged back with 101, and then i had a choice: 101 north: SAN FRANCISCO; 101 south: LOS ANGELES.
you have no idea how close i was to taking los angeles. i'm sure i wouldn't have gone all the way. but i don't know where i would've stopped. i didn't want to come back. i wanted to keep on driving until the sun rose, see where i was then. shed my skin and start anew, or some poetic BULLSHIT like that.
but, yeah. i came back. fuck. i think i'll always come back, and that's why i have these doubts. because i'm not placid enough to never leave at all, but i'm not brave enough to keep on going.
metaphors again. heh.
i mean, it's impossible not to. when you choose the path of medicine, you choose it early. while your friends are off smoking pot behind the high school, you're joining clubs and doing sports to show the colleges you're a well-rounded person. while your friends are changing their majors 17 times and taking human sexuality, you're taking molecular biology and human physiology and immunology and endocrinology to prep you for med school. there's no real room or time for exploration - you better crank the fuck down and get shit done, or you get left behind.
what ends up happening, though, is while the fact that you're SURE you love this shit, you're POSITIVE you wanna follow this path, is the only way you'll even survive all the rigors of taking it - you always, always retain this little seed of self-doubt. cuz i've never had a chance to really explore. i never took human sexuality or intro to astronomy. i never took any of the hundreds of cool, random classes in college that my friends did because i was always, always, running with my nose to the ground and my eyes on the prize.
so now that i've almost got the prize, now that i'm locked into this very last phase of getting the prize, i have these moments when it's just fucking overwhelming (like it's supposed to be, heh), and...
shit. see, i even reason it out to myself when i'm ranting. this is why sometimes i wonder if maybe i DIDN'T pick the right path. if maybe - just maybe - out of the hundreds of other paths i could've taken but never even tried - one of them was the "right" one. because i never LET myself wonder. not aloud, at least. not on paper, either. all the doubts are in my mind, and as soon as i start going into doubt, i talk myself out of it.
i'm having trouble expressing this, i think.
the bottom line is, i'm afraid, sometimes, that i've made the wrong choice. the idea terrifies me because i'm so way, way, way beyond the point of no return. but i never even looked to both sides before crossing the point, so there's no way, really, for me to know. i've always just forced my gaze back on center whenever i've tried to look, and i do that even now, when i try to look backwards.
seems like cheesy metaphor's the only way i can say this. heh.
i am fucking plagued by doubt right now. just ... haunted by it. i don't know why. not really. i'm stressed, yeah, but i'm not that stressed. but i look around at all the bright-eyed faces of the 3rd-year med students just starting their rotations and i wonder how they can be so certain of themselves. i look around and wonder how they can be so absolutely sure their path is the right one, and how i could've, once upon a time, been so blindly sure, as well.
i'm still convinced it is the right one. hell, if it wasn't, i think i would've realized it and bailed by now. but still.
still. the fucking doubt, you know?
i just need some way to be certain. absolutely certain. but i think that's one of those things where i'd be looking for an answer that might not even exist.
and of course, there's also the fear that this ISN'T right for me. i'm cut out for it but it's not cut out for me. does that make any sense? that idea terrifies me. that i could've worked so hard, 28 years of my life, one third of my FUCKING LIFE, to come to this point, and maybe - just maybe - be wrong.
==
this is why i've been so fucking on-edge lately. the slightest things set me off. the slightest, tiniest things make me go off. my stress at work feeds into my doubt feeds into my stress feeds into my doubt, and i haven't had a real break since.. hell, since i can't even remember. it's been just one thing after another for so long. grant applications. papers. patients. new wards. new shit to learn. new shit to practice. and then my dad, and his fucking company - he's been starting one for the last 3 years or so - he didn't have any employees for a long time so i was basically doing his shit as well. and there's just been no respite for...jesus, to be honest, i think for about 2 years. the last time i really had no stress was a week-long break i took in the summer of 2001.
i need a fucking break. this winter, i'm taking a fucking break. 3 weeks, and i'm not going to do shit. i'm not coming online, i'm not going to work. i'm going to fucking europe or something and i'm going to wander in the shadow of the wonders of the world and not think about conferences, meetings, the real world.
look at me, spewing my troubles across the page. i hate doing this. i fucking hate unloading.
==
i'm dividing this up into chunks because my thoughts are in disconnected chunks. heh.
==
so anyway. tonight. random bad mood again. god knows what set me off. the smallest things make me go off these days. i think maybe it was because another friend of mine was grumpy, and it just kinda... i don't know. infected me. that has a way of happening.
heh. so yeah. my bad mood just exploded on me like a fucking thunderstorm out of the blue. i always feel bad when that happens, because someone's gonna take the brunt of it sooner or later, and usually they don't deserve it because when i'm in a bad mood, most often it's something that has NOTHING to do with anyone but me.
so then i went offline. went for a joyride. was just gonna go for an hour but it kinda went long. i drove up to marin county past the golden gate bridge and i came back; i was still kinda revved up somehow, and i kept having this urge to just floor the pedal and go faster and faster, which i recognized as a pretty fucking dangerous urge.
it's like i felt like maybe if i just drove fast enough i could outrun the sense of doors closing on me.
that's what i feel like sometimes lately. that doors are closing on me. like everyone around me is so fucking placid, so fucking happy in their place, and somehow i'm still searching. it's like their fucking lives are already over. they're just settling down to go through the motions now, and me, fuck, i feel like my life is still just getting started. or it should be. i feel like i should still have unlimited possibilities in front of me.
but then i'm afraid i don't.
hell, i know i don't.
and this feeling of closed doors - coupled with this feeling of doubt - it's tearing me apart. i can't, i don't know how to deal with it.
wtf happened to college? heh. wtf happened to 18 years old?
uurgh.
==
you know, i wrote this up meaning to tell this little story about my joyride, not spill my tortured guts. heh. so yeah: story.
so i kept driving right past my place. went from the 101 to the 280. southbound. drove past the bend of the mountains and the city (god it's still so fucking beautiful...at least there's still that) vanished behind me, and all there was was the night, the highway, the few cars still there.
i went all the way down to san jose where 280 hit 101 again. then i came back up.
so i'm driving north. and then i'm like, outta fucking gas suddenly. i passed this sign saying next gas 18 miles and i was SURE, dead SURE, that i'd be able to get all the way home. well, at 18 miles sign i had 1/5th of a tank. by the end of the 18 miles, i was down to 1/16th. so i'm like shit, i better fuel up, right?
so i pull off the freeway.
guess what.
NO FUCKING GAS. CLOSED.
shit! go back on the freeway. go another 5 miles. pull off at another sign. go like 2 miles out.
NO FUCKING GAS. CLOSED.
by now i'm in the red, the light's on, i'm really worried. and i was only 5 miles from home by then, so i was like fuckit and i pushed it. i was coasting on neutral whenever i went downhill, man, and finally i got to a shell that was open, like 2 blocks from my place.
0.7 gallons left.
sheeeeeeesh.
now that would have and did get me home. but i just kept thinking what if i'd dawdled a bit more? taken one more exit to come down from up north? or two, or three? hell, i coulda run out in the 18-mile stretch. had to sit there and call my gf to come rescue me, and shit.
anyway, heh. sheer terror kinda blew all the doubts out of my mind, so i guess the joyride did some good. 'course, now that i'm home, trying to record the incident, i ended up recording my mood instead, and dredged them all up again.
fuck.
==
so remember what i said, when i said i didn't want to go home yet when i was coming back down from the north? i felt like i still needed a few miles to work some shit out. it's like running, almost - you keep doing it and after a while you get past the agony of exhaustion and your limbs somehow unkink and you can just run forever.
that's how i felt. i felt like driving forever. i went south all way down until 280 merged back with 101, and then i had a choice: 101 north: SAN FRANCISCO; 101 south: LOS ANGELES.
you have no idea how close i was to taking los angeles. i'm sure i wouldn't have gone all the way. but i don't know where i would've stopped. i didn't want to come back. i wanted to keep on driving until the sun rose, see where i was then. shed my skin and start anew, or some poetic BULLSHIT like that.
but, yeah. i came back. fuck. i think i'll always come back, and that's why i have these doubts. because i'm not placid enough to never leave at all, but i'm not brave enough to keep on going.
metaphors again. heh.
well, okay. first off, this isn't another hyperdisgruntled post.
this is...well, i guess this is as closed to depressed you'll ever see me. i wouldn't call it depressed. i'm just a bit - melancholy.
which is strange, because i just finished watching LotR, which usually puts me into a great mood because i love the movie. plus i was just ranting about it a bit ago. but, yeah. melancholy. despite the sunshine outside and the fact that it's the most beautiful day here in weeks and weeks.
i'm awfully stressed these days. wreaks havoc on my mood. this is one of those days i wish it was all already done with, or that i still had maybe another 3 months or so to prepare. heh.
i could, of course, be studying right now, but i can't bring myself to get up and do it. anyway, i have an appointment in 15 minutes, so i suppose there's no point now.
urgh.
one of those days i just feel a bit disconnected and solitary, even though i'm surrounded by people i know, and even more people are just a phone call away.
heh. anyway.
this is...well, i guess this is as closed to depressed you'll ever see me. i wouldn't call it depressed. i'm just a bit - melancholy.
which is strange, because i just finished watching LotR, which usually puts me into a great mood because i love the movie. plus i was just ranting about it a bit ago. but, yeah. melancholy. despite the sunshine outside and the fact that it's the most beautiful day here in weeks and weeks.
i'm awfully stressed these days. wreaks havoc on my mood. this is one of those days i wish it was all already done with, or that i still had maybe another 3 months or so to prepare. heh.
i could, of course, be studying right now, but i can't bring myself to get up and do it. anyway, i have an appointment in 15 minutes, so i suppose there's no point now.
urgh.
one of those days i just feel a bit disconnected and solitary, even though i'm surrounded by people i know, and even more people are just a phone call away.
heh. anyway.
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