between the rock and the cold, cold sea

"I never have an honour-prize equal to yours, whenever the Achaeans
sack an abundant Trojan citadel,
but the greater part of furious battle
my hands conduct: nevertheless when division of the spoils comes about,
to you is the much greater honour-prize, and with a small and dear prize
I come to the ships, when I work waging war.
Now I'm for Phthia, since it's much better
to go homeward with crook-beaked ships, than to remain
here enduring dishonour in order to draw up abundance and wealth for you."

He answered him then in turn, Agamemnon lord of men,
"Run far away, if you set your heart on it: I'm not going to
beg you to stay on my account. With me others, too,
they will honour me, especially wise-counselling Zeus...."

---

I have shopped. Now I am poor again, but I have a year's supply of trousers (2), shirts (3), t-shirts (3) and new runners.

I made dubious face in the lingerie section, though - who the hell thinks padded pushup sports bras are a good idea? To the extent that there is one tiny hanger of non-underwired non-pushup sports bras? People! Some of us are only looking for very basic functionality, you know!

Shopping is an odd form of torture. I'm a goal-oriented shopper, and I've worked out a system based on a least-time course. Men's section of M&S! Find t-shirts, shirts, and trousers! Try the trousers on! Rejoice to find that once again, men's trousers actually fit in both thigh and waist! Lingerie section! Find - after many travails - last non-padded non-wired non-pushup bra in size! Run to Pay Here counter! Flee the building!

Dodging along the way people who appear to finding rack-browsing entertaining, little old nuns in habits, lost children, and cashiers who give you the evil eye for shopping in the men's section.

Still. I would not have found Blue Harbour chinos that fit so well if I hadn't gone into the actual shop, so this is a small point in favour of the experience. On the whole, though?

I'm more tired than if I'd spent two hours this afternoon leading overhangs, not walking around on level ground.

*flop*

I am sick and hateful, behind on everything - or so it feels - and wish to hide for a week.

If my brain grows back, though, I may talk about books soon.

The creation of writtenkitten has been very helpful for my word-related endeavours.

Well, that, and sitting my arse in my chair and working. Today, for example, I worked through three pots of tea (mint gunpowder green, Margaret's Hope Darjeeling, and finally a rooibos called Mélange du Cap) and approximately ten hours of arse-in-chair time, leaving me with one point five completed reviews (for around about a thousand words) and five hundred (500) new words of thesis. The assistance of Youtube was also invaluable.

The thesis, of course, despite being a miserly amount of words, took by far the bulk of the time.

Lucky for me jujutsu was cancelled and I got to stay home. I wouldn't have managed half this amount of work if I'd gone for a commute.

Er. I think I had something interesting to say? But I've forgotten what it was. So. What's up?

I did not sleep last night.

Lying awake, fretful, resentful, disappointed and self-loathing, is not a fruitful use of one's time. One has all kinds of disordered thoughts in the small hours, and there is no escape from the inside of one's own head.

At five a.m., gritty-eyed, pissed off, and unreasonably full of despair, I got up and went for a run, in the hope that sweat would wake me up - and burn off the brain-poison - enough to function for the class I was supposed to attend today.

Five a.m. is a peculiar, deserted time to go running. All the way along to the beach in the half-dimness that's not true darkness and isn't yet the twilight of before-dawn, I saw shadows in hedgerows, half-glimpsed brain-phantoms. Away from daylight and the glare of artificial light, it's easy to understand how people believe in spirits; in the silence of the surf and the wind, everything seems louder, more significant.

I hit my stride. I ran well - I surprised myself, actually - without the distraction of traffic or any sound other than the noise of the sea and the voice of the river and the rush of water hurdling under manholes in the deserted street. If I had a destination, I thought to myself, I could pace myself and run forever in this silence.

Which is a foolish thought. But I think I realised something, perhaps. This week is a nexus of stressful events, compounded by provoking news: a coaching course, a colloquium, a day school, a dan grading, classes. Pressure, and the dark end of the year. It's not surprising that it destabilises me, pushes me off-kilter. It's not surprising, particularly when I don't remember that I'm human, and need to pace myself. I cannot work for an athlete's capacity in three seperate physical activities - running, martial arts, climbing - while also learning two languages and writing a thesis. I cannot do these things and hope to have much of a social life.

Something falls away. It must not be either the languages or the thesis. So far it has been the climbing, which I regret with vicious grief - but I can't kick myself for not having the time or the endurance to push on harder, attempt to do all the things and keep what I have in the way of freelance work. I have to find my stride, find the sweet spot of rhythm and balance where the pain drops away to a thing that can be harnessed instead of merely endured.

I'm not, after all, living my life for someone else. If I fall, I need to take care of myself until I can get going again. There's little point in beleaguering myself for needing time, or space, or comfort. I won't go into a dojo when I'm full of rage or despair, because without mental focus, it does no one any good. Why should I think a classroom, or a thesis, ought to be different?

In a dojo, the possibility is that you will cause someone to damage you. Or worse, damage someone else. In a classroom, the only one taking damage is you. It doesn't have to be physical to hurt.

---

After my run, I came home, showered, and drank a pot of strong black tea. Then, after staring at the walls for a while, I wrote my excuses to the people I was supposed to see today, and went to bed for six hours.

I don't like being a jerk and giving little notice. And I don't like being a boiling pot of rage and despair and unexpected fragility. But it is what it is. I can either work around it, or, driving onward through it, compound it.

You will be fascinated to hear, no doubt, that I ran 2.5 miles in 27:30 tonight (for certain values of running, at least) and then proceeded to jujutsu, where I acquired many, many bruises.

Not fascinated? Oh, well. Neither am I, really. I'm much more fascinated by the prospect of actually finishing Lysias On the Murder of Eratosthenes, which I might manage in another two days work or so. I mean, my translation is far from perfect? But it is occasionally comprehensible, and with frequent recourse to the dictionary, I can figure out what the hell is going on here.

One of the things that's interesting to me is how Euphilites, the speaker - or rather, Lysias, writing for Euphilites, the defendant - picks and chooses from the law. The law permits the killing of an adulterer; Lysias wants to imply that it commands so.

The other thing which is rather fascinating is the focus and assumptions of Athenian law. A man who, entering another man's house, commits adultery by persuasion, is guilty of a greater crime - or so says Lysias - than one who commits adultery by forcible rape. Persuasion, it seems, constitutes a greater threat to the integrity of the oikos - and so to male-lineage inheritance, the right to citizenship, deme and phratry membership etc - than force. The Athenian concern with inheritance and citizenship is also in evidence in Demosthenes' Against Neaira, among other places. It's a reminder that completely assumptions may apply in a different time and place.

By modern lights, it's seriously screwed up. Women! Not really people!

...No, wait. "Women are people too" is still a radical position to take, in many quarters.

---

Wrote some fiction today. Not very good fiction, but hey. I have to fit it in around Ancient and Modern Greek. Don't talk to me about my thesis. I'm hoping it'll write itself while I'm not looking. Please let it write itself?

They tell me that taking a couple of days off is occasionally healthy, so I'm trying that. For certain values of off that include Greek, and fretting.

It's that time again. Time to wail, and to gnash teeth.

So, self! You spent a whole day trying to write a paragraph of a)thesis and b)thesis. How did that work out for you?

It didn't? That's terrible. And then you tried to write a whole paragraph of fiction? And that didn't work either?

O waily waily, etc.

[Exit, pursued by a thesis.]

The sensei suggested to me this afternoon that a)there might be an Introduction to Coaching course coming up, and oh, by the way, since one needs to be a black belt to do said course, b)he'll probably be holding a grading in a few weeks in which I should expect to test up.

Considering that way back when I stopped training regularly, I was only 3rd kyu, this would be kind of... unexpected.

But I have the kihon and the kumite. All I need to do is blow the rust off my heian kata - and, of course, teki shodan. If I have a few weeks and go train with the karate club in college two or three days a week, this should be plenty feasible. (I do not want to be an embarrassment at my dan grading. That would be bad.)

On the other hand, it's not something I imagined doing. I hadn't expected to grade again soon - or, really, at all: I'm training once a week if that, and while karate makes me happy, I don't exactly practise outside of that once-a-week training. (I much prefer jujutsu. Or climbing.)

If I go for my dan grade... well. The kyu-dan system might be a relatively modern invention, but it deserves my respect. And reaching shodan signifies a basic understanding of and commitment to the discipline of Shotokan. It's supposed to signify a new beginning in learning: Hey, look! You have the basics, now we can learn the tricky stuff.

Which means, damnit, I ought to commit a little more time to being a good karateka.

(At least if I have a basic coaching qual, I won't feel quite so bad about not being able to pay for the training. Sensei is a good bloke, is all I can say.)

Last night, very little sleep. Therefore today, rather than gymming and training (and trying to make up for last week's lost ground), going home to sleep early.

Will attempt sense-making when pronouns return.

Books 2011: 151-154


151-154. Barbara Hambly, The Ladies of Mandrigyn, The Witches of Wenshar, The Dark Hand of Magic and Stranger at the Wedding.

Ebooks. Recommended. Should be turning up eventually at Tor.com, so I'll linky when it happens.

---

October is a busy month. I always forget this.

To-do:

Contact Pricewaterhouse Coopers re: ITIN
Contact Dept. of Ed. re: Greek exchange scholarships
Read and review four books, two before 27 Oct., two before 2 Nov.
Write 7K on the thesis by 2 Nov.
Collect more seaweed and driftwood for firewood
Pick a novel and get it 12.5% finished by 8 Nov.
Email the people to remain in reasonable social contact.
Write another letter to J.
Figure out how to earn a tiny little bit of money that does not require me to do anything either illegal or unethical. (Anybody spotted a great blue whale job lately? I hear they're an endangered species?)

I have achieved a revelation.

If I were to read a book a day for the next five years, I would not have read (or re-read) all the books which I possess.

...It's a bloody good thing I'm a fast reader.