Ponderings.

I left my journal downstairs and am too lazy to get it. Oh, summer, what have you done to me? Just like how I drove around the parking lot today to find a better spot at the gym: inefficient energy conservation tactics.

Have been thinking lately about:

Death: how it happens, that it happens. A close friend's cousin died over the summer. Another close friend's dog just died (not the same, I know, but). My mother keeps talking about a friend who has an inoperable brain tumor. I watched The Fountain last night, completely unprepared for the questions it asks. I keep thinking about how I'm not ready for anyone I know to die. I keep realizing that this makes me naive and -- in an important way -- completely immature. Somewhere buried and psychological, I'm living a delusion where no one is mortal. I'm ignoring the end of the story. It's a morbid preoccupation, I know, but I used to think about death so much as a kid (a habit that seems to be genetic? my third-grade brother keeps mentioning his "fear of death" -- what a weird sibling similarity). And now I'm puzzled by my attitude toward it, or rather . . . my non-attitude.

Kids: I used to hate it when my parents told me that I'd understand something when I got older. I never believed them, always thought that people could mature in different ways, so why would I necessarily mature their way? But now I keep wanting to use that line on my brother. "You'll understand when you get older." It's just giving up, really. A cop-out when words don't do justice to the wisdom you want to impart. I really want to explain what I mean to him, to somehow find a way to use his language to express exactly what I mean. It should be possible, right? I think it should, it should, but then I see his eyes glaze over, and I know the game's up.

Baggage: How I Met Your Mother did this great episode about emotional baggage, complete with real suitcases that appeared whenever a character revealed his hang-ups. I can't stop thinking about it. I don't know why. I think it's because I keep trying to diagnose everyone I know, and part of me realizes how blind and/or arrogant I am to assume that I could know what makes even my closest friends tick.

Other disjointed thoughts -- not yet developed into anything substantive. The dregs of my attention-deficient mind. I should turn my laptop off, curl up with Mrs. Dalloway, and call it a night, but I feel oddly pensive. And kind of anxious. Not sure why.

[Edit @ 2:15 a.m.

Understand the weird fluttery feeling now. It's actually because of Mrs. Dalloway. I picked the book up and instantly felt like I was about to collapse of self-doubt. Oh, Clarissa. Oh, Peter Walsh.]