I think I had what amounts to a minor panic attack today.

The good news is that mid-attack I managed to finalize a contract with someone, which speaks volumes about my command and control personal presentation styles.

Unfortunately, I also left work early and kinda downlplayed the real reasons. It just didn't seem wise to say; I am freaked out and sad about the amount of work I have to do and for some reason, it's making me feel teary and feeling teary spells "go home early" to me.

So I just said I was too cold. (old building = poor heat = goosebumps) Luckily, self-care being what it is, now that I am here and listening to the pets do pet-things around the house, and wearing my jogging pants a sweater and thick socks, I no longer feel quite so overwhelmed by the whole welschmertz of my life. I am not schmertzed, I will overcome, fuck yeah.

I'll admit on the walk home I really wanted to curl up under a pile of leaves but I didn't do the procrastishop thing, so I am proud of that at least. I don't think this particular entry is procrastinating, it's just a little mental housecleaning.

What am I specifically worried about;

#1/ A lack of clarity and focus in my work with the library. I need to work on my baby steps capacities. Lately I am caught up in trying to produce verbiage about the project to get what we are trying to make happen down on paper, I feel like once that is clearly elaborated it will be easier to see a path from idea to execution, but then another part of me is convinced that verbiage is often a substitute for action, and that the best activities and projects in this city usually succeed despite the lack of a clear-cut set of strategic choices. To get things done you need to take concrete steps, not parse words about the intended audiance.

Sometimes I am convinced that I am doing pretty much nothing to get things started, even though that isn't close to true. Just sometimes the sheer amount of stuff I have to (try) to do, relationships I have to (try) to build, meetings and workshops I have to (try) to organize communications channels I have to (try) to build and maintain scares the crap out of me, like now.

Hence pyjama time, and this semi-ranty little entry just to get it out, because I skipped yoga twice in a row, and clearly that's a bad thing.

Just in case you are wondering the project is actually progressing really well I am just being a giant tissue box of suck.

It has been suggested that I start a blog about the process but since I am already not updating here, and worreid about over-writing anyways, I doubt that'll happen.

So far though, I've had meetings with the staff at a couple of community orgs in the little brugundy and NDG neighbourhoods. They have been super-supportive of the idea of running a small program this year with the idea of developing something sustainable for next. Beyond that it's been incredibly fun to meet the people who are movers and shakers in the youth support community of montreal.

I had a great meeting with the advisory committee and that gave me some serious match-under-ass energy for a while, and even more excitingly I went and talked to three highschool classes last wednesday and despite the eye-rolling and the fact that I was clearly a spazz cuz I didn't know what piczo was, many of them signed up to get more information from the community liason. You know once I have more information, which I don't yet.. un-oh don't panic.

So anyways, I just need to settle down and get what has to be done done, in a certain order which isn't quite clear yet.

In other news;

I took on my entire coms theory class yesterday and tried to convince them that in fact guns don't kill people - people kill people, I think the general fervor in academia is to say that technology is not neutral it is part of an enframing (thanks hei-dizzle) cultural systemic and has ideological power. Which I think is kind of, sort of, like a thin slice of swiss.

I am not sure if trying to debate the general academic fervor is ever smart but I am a Jew first and foremost, and we love to argue. I lost of course, and the dude with the dry-erase marker and the salary got the last word, and I looked like a bit of an idiot, and then on the way home I was listening to "We Are So Fragile" by Gary Numan and it occurred to me that both the lyrics and the melody made my point much better than I had made it. You'll notice the word technology isn't in the song at all. I think it's actually a song about goths, or new-wave kids but ever since I first heard it I have imagined it was Numan singing as say a depressed cyborg.

Also I was thinking what happens if you turn that famous Goebbels quote around. "When I hear the word culture I reach for my gun" what if it were; "When I hear the word gun I reach for my culture" that appears to be the arguement people are making nowadays and I can't say I love it.