ouchy 8.03.04

oof. ok, I do a fair bit of self-monitoring over here and I am (even if you are not) well aware that I have been crowing a bit too loudly about strange feelings of superiority stemming from even stranger sources (self-pity?) that have served to buoy up my otherwise sagging spirits. Consider the saggy spirits fully deflated. Recently, I had a bit of a wonky evening sitting on a patio with people who could quite handily kick my ass in the �living up to my full potential� event. I sat back and listened to tales of foreign language courses abroad, summer institutes at various highbrow universities, professional success, personal happiness, insert over-achievement here, and I must admit this: I seethed. I quietly sat seething although my brain was inwardly intermittently wailing �Whaaa?� I had forgotten about all this sort of activity, this bustle to improve oneself, this drive to do more, learn more, and yes, be more. Urk. It is all too tempting to brush all that kind of talk off as pretentious grandstanding, but there is just that narrow sliver of redeeming value that keeps it from being pushed into the ash-heap of the affected. (haha, speaking of�)

I am going to go on a long bike ride now and sweat out all this seething.