A dim bulb...

"I used to know a little square

So long ago, when I was small

All summer long it had a fair

Wonderful fair with swings and all

I used to love my little fair"

This line from Jeff Buckley's take on Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin came lamenting (this is so not the right word, but what does Jeff Buckley do? It's not singing, it's like emotion turned directly into sound waves) out of my iPod last night while I was walking home from the metro, hidden under an umbrella, weighted down by my backpack-work bag-buttoned up coat-racing mind. I'd been in Chicago, just for a day, but it was my first work trip at the new job, and we were there for a conference on communicating environmental messages. Sounds really mundane, but watching people work and process all the information we presented... I felt ridiculously useless.

I know I made the data into something useful, and I wrote an analysis that made a lot of sense, which is cool, but I also feel like i'm hitting a wall. It's like I have to teach myself how to think all over again, and it kills me, and I don't know what it is. There's a part of me, the generally cocky part, that thinks I've got some variation on imposter syndrome. Sort of twisted that that's cocky, but I don't know what else to call it, optimistic? That's worse. There's also part of me that just thinks I've reached my limit or forgotten how to make my mind go somewhere original or creative, and I'm never going to make it to the next level. They say that people only make it to the level above the one for which they're actually qualified, and since this is the first time I'm really in a position that's not wholly upward looking, I'm worried. I don't even feel creative in my personal life! Exhibit A 'your mom' and exhibit B 'whatever.'

So all of this was bouncing around my head when Jeff Buckley started singing. His square became my mind, and I want the fair to come back.