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Yesterday was an angry emotional day, for no meaningful reason. I boiled it down to biology coupled with the phases of the moon. My mind was leaden with feelings of isolation and invisibility, leading to an irritating quietude when in the company of others. I felt all the worse about it since it was the Vigorous Prancer's birthday, but, as he hates his birthday, since his birthday in particular inexplicably reminds him of not his mortality, but everyone else's, he was also cranky.

Some observations about our lives, as discussed in the wee dark hours:

• We watch too much television. Both of us. We both like to lazily tune out the rest of the world. It is something easy that we can do together, at home, but we've grown too addicted. Instead of reading a book, we turn on the tv, because it's easier, and takes a lot less brain power. We subconsciously hate ourselves for lazily allowing such daily brain suckage, but at the same time, we feel powerless to stop it.
  

• We both feel isolated here. The Prancer because most of his good friends live on either end of the country while we're stuck in the middle, and me for much of the same reasons. 
• On the subject of friends: why is proximity such an important part of maintaining friendships, in this day and age, with the advent of email, mobile phones, blogging, etc. We really have no excuse not to maintain friendships, and yet so many fall by the wayside. I am just as guilty as anyone, but I also often feel that I am the one that makes much of the effort, and then just let it go, when it's not reciprocated, as often feels to be the case.
  
• Neither of us currently has a job we enjoy. Both of us need different jobs, stat. I need one because I am making by far the least money I've ever made since graduating from college; he needs one because he lives in constant fear of his job disappearing into the graveyards of the globe's current economic downturn and because he absolutely hates what he does and needs a job that has some meaningful, redeeming qualities. Because we lack both jobs we like AND jobs that pay enough, we are eternally frustrated. I feel somewhat ashamed, and am often angry with myself.

• Speaking for myself, I have been wasting much of my time. I have no excuse not to be meditating daily, especially while I lack a full time job. I have no excuse not to go to the gym regularly, or to send out at least five job applications a week. And yet, I sit on my arse. I also have no excuse not to be tearing through books that I want to read. But I'm so easily distractable. I struggle with finding a solution.
  

Since moving here just under a year ago, really, since leaving New York, I have been feeling asea. Finding a solid relationship with the Prancer has been wonderful, delightful -- necessary. And yet I've lost sight of much of myself, of my goals and desires. We've built ourselves a little cocoon in this house, rarely leaving it. We're each other's safety zone, and neither of us wants to face the rest of the gloomy world. I find it very hard to keep up my mediation without the support of anyone around here. I miss my classes in New York, desperately. It's not the same to hear them from my computer or ipod; I like the visceral support I need from a community of like-minded, gentle people. There is no center here, and I don't know how to find others to connect with. The Prancer is not entirely interested, but seeks some kind of religion from which to find meaning.

And in this house, little evidence of me is here. It is full of the Prancer's things, nick-nacks, keep-sakes, books, etc. I have most of my stuff squirreled away in Portland, but I've been too broke to retrieve it. Oh, universe, how I am exhausted of being broke... I can't do much about this until my finances are in better order... 

I suppose awareness of these problems is half the solution... and yet, action is urgently required... movement. Some movement, in any direction, even if not exactly the 'right' direction. Any direction is better than stagnation.