I am a little frightened. today I must get back to work but the idea scares me. I have to get my reader together and a clean copy turned in to the art institute by the end of the day so perhaps I should ease my way back into working by messing with that first.

I still am not sure why writing the dissertation freaks me out whereas writing just about anything else is fun and good times. I mean yeah my whole ten-year career in grad school is coming down to this one production and with it I will get a degree that not many have but the actual writing has not been that difficult.

I find that I still get anxious about all those times when I would read in the living room and then walk to my room and sit down to write and nothing would happen. I mean I have a million things going on in my head now, neurons firing that were dead asleep then but I still fear the total blank when I open the file in Word.

that and there is always a chance that I will stumble upon something in my reading or my thinking that will stir up troublesome voices although as the years pass that happens less and less it still sometimes happens. these days they never stay long and are usually easily persuaded into silence but still I fear the mere possibility that I will hit upon the one thing that they can use to trump everything I might say back to them. at this point it seems that won't happen but I can never be sure.

and I've addressed these fears again and again and they don't go away. this is one reason why klonopin sometimes helps me to calm down enough to write. but I think today I will concentrate on teaching stuff and then tomorrow slide back into the dissertation.

I've also got to do some work for my other paying jobs who are probably wondering where I've been.

the first thing we do is sit. that's easy, relatively, although watching my mind bounce around from one thing to the next while I try to just sit can be exasperating. but that's what it's all about.