Slinking Back

Hello....
So yeah I kind of went away there for a while. I wish I had some great excuse or story to explain my failure to keep this up but the truth is I don't. I wasn't busy, I mean I had a houseguest one weekend, an out of town wedding the next, and an out of town family birthday the weekend after that. HAPPY 65th DAD! since you are the only person I know of who has ever looked at this blog let's see if you ever see that... But none of that serves as an explanation at all as the weekends are the time when I was least likely to be keeping up with the posting anyway... I was going to tell this story about being depressed and not having motivation but I though that was bullshit until I realized that it was hitting closer to home than I had realized or was comfortable with and I'm not sure which I less want to do lie or admit the truth... Ultimately it was an extention of my typical shooting myself in the foot which has lead to being a dog walker with an unread philosophy blog rather than a philosophy professor with an unread philosophy manuscript... I would also like to claim that I have at least been keeping up and advancing the agenda of getting some necessary reading done but that has barely happened either. I started in on a new course of research The Cynics, which I think could be fruitful but it is just a toe in the water and is mostly at this point a distraction from finishing the other 10 books I have started. The real reason ultimately I think is that I remain conflicted about the purpose of the blog. I announced my intention to write something of substance and then I completely folded up, I did nothing on the paper about Schopenhaur's On Suicide, I spent a lot of time thinking about it and I have a clear idea what I would say but I never put fingers to keys to write any of it... mainly I think because I was not prepared to do an academically serious job of it and anything less seemed like a waste, so I did nothing which I think is probably the best example of what is wrong with me as a human being. Or maybe that is just and excuse, I like to claim that I am a secret perfectionist, that I don't do things unless I think I can do them perfectly but that is mostly an excuse not to do things, I am not a perfectionist I am lazy. In fact the biggest laugh I ever got out of a crowd was when I accepted my National Merrit Honorable Mention Award and attributed it to my tireless devotion to perfection, even my Grandmother laughed at that one. In truth most things come pretty easily to me and as a consequence when I see that I am going to have to put in that little extra bit of work to make it that little bit better I just decide that what it is is good enough...
So I have been gone for nearly a month and I see that I have 369 page views which is about 300 more than when I left and most of those were me, so now I feel that little extra pressure because apparently other people really are seeing this. How many other people I have no idea but maybe they saw that I had promised to post everyday and then disappeared so they assume I am dead and have moved on to other blogs so I don't have to worry about it. I can hope can't I?  Ok so for the time being no big projects just posts everyday, get the ideas down and don't make claims about coming back to fix them, Nietzschean Aphorisms... Also I am trying to get it up to apply to Grad programs again... but I feel even less qualified than in the past when I failed... I did a year at CUNY, and didn't really do all that well... I mean I did OK I guess but its not like I blew the doors off or distinguished myself at all, I don't have anyone there to write me a recommendation and I don't think I can reach back 8 years to NYU, or 4 to American and none of those people seem to have writing me very good recs anyway seeing as they only got me into American and CUNY out of the 30 some applications I submitted over all those tries... This blog actually was intended to serve as a way to get something to impress these schools, as was the idea of writing about Schopenhaur, I think that the disappearance was probably a reaction to the fact that the deadlines to get started working on those things was coming up and a way to self-sabotage those efforts. I know what I want but I don't think it is possible so its easier to shoot myself in the foot and ensure failure than to put myself out there and risk real failure in having actually tried... Ok so I have been pretty down on myself here as well as admitting some things about myself which I usually keep repressed, hopefully I have exorcised the darkness and can get my shit back together... Yesterday I was supposed to go to Zen meditation as that is something I have been telling myself I was going to start doing for years and I carried my comfy Zazen pants which I bought specifically for that purpose with me all day as well as my books and laptop to use in the time between ending my work which is essentially a part time job and going to a nice quiet place to meditate with me all day only to bail and go home to watch crappy tv on my computer... so thats gotta stop too. Last week I did see some really good movies thoughso thats a good thing, I should write about them here as that was one of my purposes for this blog and is a good excuse for using so many hours watching movies... so I will try to do that later... later later later.... as it stands I have a walk in 20 minutes which will pay me money I soarly need because I have an essentially part time job that doesn't pay well at all so I have no money... and what money I do have I spend watching movies... Ok so things I need to do... get my NY State ID. for which I need a copy of my lease which I got my room mate to email to me so I have to print it out and sing and all that crap... passport renewal... PhD program applications, I need to research faculties more extensively and write letters to people I might want to work with to see if there is any chance I can get a champion, but if I want to do that I need something to interest and impress them which I don't have and which was supposed to be what this was going to produce but that is the pressure which caused me to recoil from this etc etc etc. Ok also I need to stop being down on myself, or at the very least react more positively to my own negativity by proving myself wrong. also I have to end this so I can go walk a dog named Iggy Pop.