The Scourge of Fatigue

Forgive the blog hiatus, but my life has been rather oppressive lately. Time and energy have been at a premium. I flew home a couple weekends ago to see my daughter and help my mother with my grandfather's estate. It is difficult to go through 86 years worth of accumulation in a household. There was a strange paradox in being in a house so full of material things, yet still feeling an inherent emptiness of the house that had so many memories for me. It affected me a bit more than I expected, but I was glad iwas there for my mother. My 7 sets of aunts and uncles went through most of the stuff and took many personal things for themselves, but I was very grateful to be able to get some very personal items for myself that were related to some significant memories and experiences I had with my grandparents - including a hunting knife my father had purchased for my grandfather's birthday in the 1960's. I was also able to have a good weekend with Madaline, but due to a combination of exhaustion/stress/food poisoning/fatigue or something my body shut down when I got back and I had to miss my brutal Polybius seminar in greek translation. I'm still trying to catch up and I have to start putting together my paper on the archaeology surrounding the gladiatorial barracks at Pompeii - which I will see in person in a couple of months. I need to get to Italy to reenergize myself, the next few weeks will be grueling until it happens. I'm still getting limited sleep and my sinus doctors ran a CT scan and are sending me to a sleep study center when the paperwork is completed. I'm hoping they can improve my sleep and oxygen intake. Maybe I can gain a few IQ points and energy with more oxygen to my brain. My brain feels slow right now, and my body is deteriorating under the grad school lifestyle. I'm forcing some changes. I did go to a few Gradbar get togethers for free food and drinks, and decided to summon up from the depths elements of my old romance skills from the days when I actually gave a damn. I masked my emotional vacuousness behind a moderate veil of player smoothness to achieve a fairly surprising level of success with a plethora of lovely ladies. I now have to try to reshuffle my schedule to allow for that most difficult and delicate of all romantic endeavors: multiple person dating. I haven't had to date juggle in over 15 years and my disposition toward this is much different at age 36 than it was at age 22, but for now it is better to explore my range of options without getting entangled in an emotionally invested situation that requires a higher level of maintenance. At present, I just don't have the time or patience to be too emotionally invested in anyone other than my daughter. Disclaimer: Before anyone takes umbrage toward my strategy in this matter, know at this point in my life the situation has been fully disclosed to all parties involved as I've never been one to operate in a sleazy manner, even when I was 22. Hopefully, this strategic casual dating will provide some needed distraction from the oppressive nature of my academic schedule, but finding the time will be difficult. It should go well, as long as i can remain immune to the scourge of any semblance of deep emotion. Drinks, dinners, movies of a casual nature are much needed for me at this point. Be well!
P.S. I was almost mobbed by a swarm of screaming females a few minutes ago. I started to feel even better about myself until I realized Ashton Kutcher was behind me premiering his new movie with Cameron Diaz. Then I was almost crushed by the crazy paparazzi. That life has it's advantages, but I think at some point I would snap and descend into a berserker Conan rage that would leave the world light quite a few photogs. Sorry for the length of this diatribe, but I thought I would make up for the past couple of weeks. I'll try to maintain future brevity and consistency until I go to Italy.