What the Hell am I Doing?

I've been feeling lately like I don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life, nor do I feel like I really know what I want to do with it. And the few things I think I might be interested in doing - writing, drawing - I feel woefully unprepared to pursue to a serious degree. I'm stuck in a rut and I don't really know how to get out.

A big part of the problem is that I'm having a hard time figuring out what I want to do with my time. Some of this is the whole "I hate hanging around my apartment/I don't want to leave the cats along all the time" conflict. But I'm also feeling uninspired to read, not competent enough to write or draw, tired of spending so much time on the Internet, kind of saturated with movies and games, and... well, that covers a huge chunk of what I do in my life. I look at all this stuff (or any of this stuff) and wonder, "Where is this getting me? Where should it be getting me? Should I be getting anywhere?"

I'm also starting to feel that I've been stuck in this rut for a while - since before coming to California. Moving here has introduced some new problems, but hasn't introduced most of these.

I spent a chunk of time today feeling like a big hypocrite, too. I often lament that I rarely get phone calls, and yet Trish calls me every so often and I'm lousy about returning her calls. I dropped Michael Walsh (whom I met at Jen's party last month) e-mail to see if he wanted to get together. He suggested I could join him and a friend from out of town in going to Cirque du Soleil tomorrow, but I didn't feel like it was something I was into going to, not this week. (I tried to talk myself into it, I did. Maybe I felt uncomfortable getting to know new people and going to a Big Event like that all at once. I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just a jerk.)

And I keep vacillating between feeling defeated, and feeling like I can pretty much do anything I want to if I just apply myself. But whenever I need to or have the opportunity to apply myself, I can't bring myself to do it. I'm stuck. I'm frustrated. I'm trying to get everything just perfect, which of course it can't be, and I'm not sure I'd be satisfied if I could get it that way anyway.

Fundamentally, I don't feel happy. I feel transitorially happy at various intervals during a given day, but overall I feel pretty empty. I talked about this with Tom today during our coffee break, but I don't think he grasped what I mean. Perhaps I don't know how to explain it properly.

I often feel like I've lost touch with whatever it was that gave me long-term feelings of happiness in my life. I mean, overall I liked being a kid more than I like being an adult, but even as an adult I've had long stretches of being happy and comfortable with myself. But lately I feel disturbed that I'm not good at understanding things anymore, that I'm incapable of really explaining points I'm able to make, that my thinking is all confused and not very useful. I sometimes feel like I'm not very good company, and that I don't have much of a sense of humor. I feel like I spend all of my energy defending where I am, what I've got in my life so far, and have none left over to get anywhere else, or figure out where I want to go.

Which is all very metaphorical, but I'm not sure how else to describe it.

All of which, I think, leaves me not a very entertaining journaller lately, since I'm not doing a whole lot and don't have a whole lot to write about. I often lack energy at the end of the day to write an entry. I actually thought for a while earlier today about giving up the journal thing, since right now it feels like one more thing in my life which isn't really serving a purpose.

I dunno. I don't think I will give it up, but I don't see myself writing more frequent entries in the near future.

My poor little forum seems to have died from neglect. Well, maybe it's for the best. This has always been a relatively low-feedback journal, which, in a way, is maybe what journals are supposed to be.

I've spent most of my evenings this week watching television. For instance, I finally saw the Homicide episode with the shootout in the squad room - it was intense! Good stuff. I miss that show.

But the show I'm really into lately is The West Wing, which airs Wednesday evenings during prime time. It's an Aaron Sorkin show (the guy who created Sports Night) about the staff of a Democratic President of the United States. While President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen) resembles Bill Clinton in some superficial respects, he's by no means a clone, and the show doesn't feel bound to follow actual events of recent history. (For instance, Bartlet nominates a Hispanic man to the Supreme Court.)

The show makes me laugh, and at times cry. It's terribly well researched (or at least seems that way) in its portrayal of the White House and the workings thereof. There's the constant tension with how to present things, versus the straightforward attitude that many of the principals have in private on various matters. It's also a refreshingly liberal show, making no bones about the main characters (Democrats, remember) being the "good guys", and noting that sitting in neutral trying not to offend anyone is a great way to make the American public hate you.

The thing that really makes the show is the acting. Sheen always steals whatever scene he's in, partly because of his wry delivery, and partly because, well, he's a President, dammit, and everyone else defers to him. Richard Shiff's Communications Directory Toby Ziegler is constantly deadpan, which works both for humor and for drama. (This past week's scenes with Toby and his Congresswoman ex-wife are excellent.) John Spencer's Chief of Staff Leo McGarry adeptly walks the line between the President above him and the people below him. Rob Lowe delivers an energetic performance as Deputy Communications Director Sam Seaborn (what a great name!). Alison Janney and Timothy Busfield crackle when their characters - Press Secretary CJ Cregg and reporter Danny Concannon - are on screen together.

Possibly the actor who makes the show is Bradley Whitford as Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman. An Ivy League graduate, Josh is still rather young in some ways, prone to bouts of irresponsibility. He gets some of the best lines, and his complex character can bounce from being humorous to being self-effacing to being insecure in the space of an episode. His assistant, Donna Moss (Janel Moloney), is perfectly cast as an eccentric and extremely competent young woman who seems to have unrequited feelings for Josh. (Josh's love life is a recurring theme on the show.) I was a little turned off by some of the broader humor involving Josh in the first few episodes I saw, but he's really grown on me

Each episode is expertly written around a particular theme (usually encapsulated in the episode's title), and certain story threads weave in and out of various episodes. It's easy to jump in in the middle of the series, as the lead-in flashbacks sum up most of what you need to know.

It's strange to think just how much I can enjoy a TV show (!), but this one really has been helping keep me afloat recently. It's terrific. Every episode has something I just love, and many have scenes I rewind and watch again. Check it out, if you haven't already.