Thursday, December 31, 2009

Upon Which the Author Meets With People





Expecting my ride to the grocery store in a moment so not a long post? My social week; yesterday a Friend came to visit and we went to Starbucks and the local junk/antique shop in which we were Horrified and Amused by frightening atrocities lurking in the murky depths. My favorite being (and I hope to God I get a picture of this) is the 1960's Christmas Macy's window display that looks like an acid trip gone bad (and by the way, I DID get a picture of it). There certainly is an endless fascination with junk/antique shops that I can never quite explain to other people. Its like a treasure hunt without knowing what exciting or awesome thing you'll come across. And I have to admit I have things that nobody else has; I'm unique that way. So day out with friend was success; got Starbucks coffee, went shopping and hung out and played Princess Maker having a fun time trying to corrupt my little girl into being an overlord of darkness. It was awesome.
The next day (yesterday?) brother and girlfriend came to visit and now I feel like a boob with all of my insecurities; she's pretty cool. So brother played X-Box while we talked, they brought over (haha) more Starbucks and had another nice social visit.
Saw awesome fireworks from my window, made rice balls and calzone, working on art things and over-all not a bad New Years.

Monday, December 28, 2009

End of the Road

Better than what I expected; being together with family on Christmas. For whatever reasons brother is marginally better behaved than last year. Somehow I haven't really felt Christmas for some time now; felt it in the world around me. Or maybe this is the passage of becoming an adult; when the holidays just become another day for those who are not fortunate to possess wealth and family. Just another day. Perhaps a symptom of our times. The weather this year is a great deal colder than it has been before, its finally acting like winter around here with actual snow storms. The next one on new years. Went out to see my grandfather and embarassed him with showers of presents and love. We're a lot alike, my grandpa and I; neither of us truly comfortable with the spotlight but I am so very happy that he's doing just fine out there. He's got a war of wills with the neighborhood ladies who have taken him up as their cause. In fact they called while we were all there and offered to bring him food and company but being he has family already that loves him and visits as often as he will let them he said no. He's also adopted (sort of) a cat one of the neighbors left behind that has turned half-feral and won't come near us and will only show up for food and shelter when it's too cold.
Back in my own home now for a while; brother's girlfriend is coming out tomorrow to stay for a while.
Mixed feelings about this. There isn't enough room for all of us so the only way I can stay at the parents house is if I'm willing to sleep on the floor. It's truly a strange thought; our family expanding and I don't think I am entirely comfortable with it. We're so closely knit, for all these years to add more seems like an intrusion. I don't want a sister-in-law, I don't want to be supplanted as daughter number one and as childish as it seems that's what it feels like, sort of. She emails my mother a lot but doesn't really make any contact with me. Not that I'm adverse to it; I just warm slowly to change. I'm perfectly content with the status quo as it is.
Seems like a busy week for me. I have a lot of ideas to put forth for the coming year. Wednesday friend is coming over to hang out and I'm planning on taking her to a local tea house then shop at a vintage boutique (and possibly expose her to the wonders of vintage computer games like Princess Maker). New Years, I'm not really sure what I'm doing. Possibly will ask other friend to hang out and eat take-out and play X-Box till the wee hours of the morning. Was I supposed to reflect on the last year? Maybe New Years Eve I will.
You know, if I were a different person; braver perhaps, not so flawed with neuroticisms I wanted to be one of those people who fly out to Times Square to bring in the New Year. I wish I new more people. I used to go to parties, way back when, for New Years. Now we're all scattered.
Well. That's the grand update for now.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Dashboard Confessions


Wow, up earlier than usual. Stupid snowstorms have ruined my hedge; had to hack it back almost to the roots because its DEAD and was blocking the driveway. Having a crafty weekend and getting lots of plushes churned out (I like the spotted octopus plush the best, hung one on my bookcase). Today is also the day brother comes to visit but won't get here until about five o' clock but I have no intention of going over to my parents house for a while. Planning to spend the day thus: vaccum rug, sew up plushies, devote many evening hours to Xbox. Oh, and make tortilla soup for dinner. and study japanese (meant to do that anyway)
Sometimes my imagination drives me crazy. Like at night when I dream about people I knew, people that have greatly let me down (and you DREAM about them? really, stupid mind?!) and it got me into a thinking mood this morning and couldn't go back to sleep.
Why's and how's of life. How did it shape you as a human being? How can human nature be so capricious and cruel? Is this another Emo moment? Am I acting like a teenage girl, moaning, 'why don't they like me?' ehhhhh, I hope not.
More like, most of us are incomplete at the age of 22 (seriously when I think back on it, what the hell did I know about life, or anything?) Like I know now I chose poorly suited people to be my friends. I didn't realize how very...different a person I was and how difficult it is for someone who doesn't fit in the crowd to be accepted. It's truly one of the hardest things I've come to learn; yea I've got imagination and arts up the wazoo and I might have a decently working brain but being that different isolates you. That's what I've learned the best from my twenties; being different isolates you.
As much as I would love to moan- er say 'they left ME, they spurned ME, they are the ones who are horrible' and for a long time I did think that but after living some more I also came to understand things are so rarely one-sided. I did plenty of pushing away and I'm thinking I didn't express myself properly as to what exactly being Agoraphobic/Panic ridden meant socially.
Someday I think one of the most important things I can do is to be heard. I want to give disorders a voice. Panic attacks are a joke; people who succumb are weak, foolish, not in control, anyone who has a panic attack and lets the fear overcome them don't deserve to be called an American (with a capital A). We don't need no weak crazy scum that like in our society; same goes for all the crazies.
Funny how most of these 'disorders' are social and are deemed 'disorder' when you can't be a loud, obnoxious, social lovin' Amercian. Because quiet people are weak.
I've gone my whole life being underestimated because I'm 'quiet'. Everytime I lash out and stand up for myself I shock people that I can be angry, that I speak up when necessary, like it's completely astounding that as a human being I can have emotions and express them.
But I'm getting away from the original thought I created (injustice always gets my goat. Another post another time perhaps on Perceptions and Assumptions on our fellow human beings)
Back to sorting my thoughts and dreams. Maybe putting it blunty without wandering will make this a shorter entry.
I think I'm fixated on thinking back on these particular 'friends' because it was a particular time in my life when everything was changing. These were high school friends (first big hint there). One had a crush on me (guy) the other was my best friend (girl). Didn't want to date him she wanted to date him, they eventually got together. Now with my great understanding I see how things went; everything was conspired against me and my position.

First: first year of college, moved to new city from small town, new house - huge change.
Second: personal - family lost everything, home, money (not to mention 9/11) -extremely uncertain times (didn't even know if we would have money for food)
Third: 'friends' not understanding. Thinking back on it, all the crap that went down pretty much put me on a seperate planet from them. I remember what it was like (God, it was horrible) trying to survive my first semester of college courses, trying to be social, trying to cope with a future that was uncertain and scary. We'd never been without money before. Friends on the other hand had no such troubles, in fact had a normal life without worries. For me it was like every time I left my house I was living in terror; like a iron grip of subtle fear was crushing my chest, like having my brain knifed with unending anxiety and was getting worse with every waking day. How do you explain something like that to someone who has no idea?
'what are you afraid of? nothings going to happen'
yea, no shit. did you miss the part where I said DISORDER - doesn't have to have reason or rhyme. The disorder works by expressing repressed emotions and wishes caused by upheavels in life that in waking life you are not addressing. You don't acknowledge what's going on it comes out as fear/anxiety and I was trying so desperately to be 'normal'.
Fourth: awkward alliances. I don't think he ever got over his crush on me and my best friend never forgot that I was the one he wanted originally and never forgave me for it. You want to know something truly pathetic? After about four years we tentively got into touch. I never expressed my hatred for what they did. I thought we could start over - we even went out to lunch and hung out then I didn't hear from them again for another three years which gave me greater perspective on what was going on. He was a friend from high school; we grew up with one another, we have more in common than she does with him. He sees no reason not to keep in touch with old friends and, I expect, will always hold a small place of crush-ness for me and she'll never forget or forgive me for that. She never, NEVER initiated contact with me, my best friend whom I loved. I pretty much get the feeling she hates me and sees me as a parasite on their relationship. I would have loved to see the arguments they got into because of me. What I love the most is the trust my best friend had in me as a person; that she thought so highly of my character that she cut off all contact and slashed me out of their lives even though it was pretty obvious I was in a hell of a lot of trouble with my life. Forgetting the fact that my parents raised me with respect and honor and as my honored friends there was no way in hell I would ever do anything to harm either of them; including their relationship. Instead of say, communicating her fears and working towards a solution for everyone, she says 'get out of my life, bitch'.
Which brings me to last nights dream- I dream about them occasionally; just silly dreams of old times when we hung out and had fun. Then I get all worked up over old wounds. Because whether I like it or not they were a big part of my life and not having them in my life made a big impact. To see what it's become today - that they are as distant to me as a star in the sky, still hurts. That I loathed myself because of them, that I had to face my trials alone, that a kind word, that their support would have made an incredible difference in my life, that their presence would have made that much of a difference in the worst time of my life and they chose not to be a part of it - still gets me today. People make a difference; funny the smallest things lead to larger things that makes a difference down the road. I still want them in my life. And I'll always hate them.

Friday, December 11, 2009

You Must Rescue Us All


Muse moment. I wonder if I should start these journals with, 'Dear Dairy' like I did in third grade (I wonder what ever happened to that diary...). Just having another, 'Oh God I'm Aging' moment; reading an online women's community blog one poster writes, 'I'm turning thirty in a week and wanted to know how you all celebrated/feel about leaving your twenties' in which most replied that they loved being in their thirties (which I felt was good and made me feel slightly better) but was balanced with, 'I celebrated turning thirty with my husband/soon to be husband and children/soon to be child/advancing my career'. Mmmm, yes. I am special. I'm like the freak 6% of society that doesn't interect with people therefore has no boyfriend or signifigant other and has no prospect of interacting with people because I can't get a job because there ARE NO JOBS therefore; no money to go out, no money for car insurance, no way to socially interact, life goes on in an unending circle of nothingness. Oh YES i rock.
Hadn't meant to start it like that. Let's try again;


Dear Diary,

I have been busy lately. I finally got Etsy started and sold something; so it's a start. I am making more things to sell and thinking how I can make my Etsy site more well known. I meant to write, dearest diary, more often than this but being the Holidays (ho ho ho) I got distracted with the scramble to find decent presents for my loved ones that are under the twenty dollar mark (most of which will be handmade but its okay because I rock at the handmade things)
The December Bookarts group rocked my world; I made some connections with other Etsy gals and have joined another crafting group. I have some people interested in looking at my portfolio and am in the process of making an anime portfolio for another company. I have tons of art ideas in the mill I'm getting to and feel like there isn't enough time in the day to get all of it done.
Met up with good friend to go to the local art museum that had an awesome exhibit and had a most amazingly awesome SOCIAL day and hopefully we will be getting together to go out for a Starbucks Christmas coffee/cocoa.
Brother is coming home on the 19th; am comencing in getting my guards up and steeling myself to not react to whatever asshattery he comes up with on his visit (relationship with brother being strange in that he's only civil to me when he's a thousand miles away and when in close proximity is complete and utter asshole. Example being last Christmas when I was moved to actual violence and came VERY close to clubbing him with a baseball bat, no I am serious, because he managed to throw poisonous darts of fucking viciousness every chance he got. My favorite being about the dog; MY dog whom I have had and taken care of like my own child for the last fifteen years was dying and when asshat brother wasn't chiding us for not putting him down said to me when I failed to foresee the dog crapping on the rug that, 'You must really not love that dog'. Same dog that I had to put down two months later and damned near broke my heart and still makes me cry even though it was eight months ago. I spent Christmas day locked in my room writing out all hatred and anger I was feeling and refused to come down to dinner to sit at the table with him. So yes, brother and I do not get along and the only way to make holidays bearable is to ignore him until he goes away)
Deep breaths. I don't know why people love the holidays so much; it's basically one stressfilled month and a half until idiot relations go away and you can get back to a routine. Not to mention the extreme pressure on all sides, you must be with someone, you must be happy, you must dress in red plaids (puke), have Christmas cheer, charity, happiness when seriously if you're not a child then its just another day. Nobody even acknowledges the real existance for Christmas is, HELLO, to celebrate the birth of our Savior. Dear God, try telling that to the modern age; 'your religious aren't you?'
What a sucky world we inhabit. I think this is becoming my rant and rage journal.

Monday, November 30, 2009

They Once Sounded Right and Rare

Once more back in my house brooding. Brooding isn't fun and it doesn't get you anywhere but its' hard when you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. Thanksgiving; my folks n' me and my grandfather. About all that's left of the family because everyone else is too busy with their new families and cheating spouses to bother to invite us. Couple of jobs listed at the U neither in my field; both asked for a major in English or Journalism in which I am wishing I had gone into instead of art. Who the hell wants an Art major? Trying to get together with a friend to go see an exhibit at the musuem except she's busy with work, haha. Both of graduated college and now I'm unemployeed and she's working at Payless Shoes. Fun world this is. Don't know how long of an entry this will be; no heat in the house except for the space heater and I am brooding. Which is no fun because I am swimming with loser vibes like, 'why aren't I a famous millionare yet?' and other realistic goals like, 'why haven't I published my One True Masterpiece yet?' and thus gaining famous millionare status. Maybe I should write about my dreams with sparkly blood suckers and become an instant success. Or maybe tap into the solid neurosis of the teenage girl mind and spit out plenty of angst/sexual themes and supernatural drama and BINGO! I, too, can be a writer.
What the hell, at least then I can avoid getting a job bagging groceries or ringing up customers and annoying the hell out of them with, 'have you signed up for our super-special discount customer service package? Do you want to? do you? do you? do you?'
While shopping, my mother was actually greeted at World Market with, "What's up". The hell? If I said that to a customer in my retail days my boss would have taken a chunk out of my hide and nailed it to the wall. There was strict protocol that included being neatly groomed, no visable tattoos, treating the customer with respect and manners. Of course this being ten years ago maybe things have changed drastically.
Could you imagine spending your eight hours asking over a hundred customers, 'do you want a membership' over and over and over when all you're doing is ANNOYING THEM?
All right. Angst rant is now over.

List for tomorrow:

-Mail in request for volunteering
-get Paypal squared
-walk to school, check boards for work
-write
-look for jobs again online

Friday, November 20, 2009

Sparkly Vampires and Flesh Wounds


Am reeling in abject horror at the cash cow that is Twilight. About two years ago I caught my fellow classmate reading Twilight in my Medieval Studies class and she described it as 'good' so naturally I read it. In all fairness the first Twilight book is entertaining. Long, drawn-out, filled with 'Edward is HAWT' and not much of a plot but entertaining. Then I learned there was more and more to be written. For the most part over the last two years I ignored the hype, hearing bits and pieces about it because frankly it gets shoved down your throat everytime you leave the house (and the Twihards who exist in droves don't help things). Then as the fanbase grew to terrifying proportions I reread Twilight (and New Moon AND Eclipse and because I didn't want to waste anymore money of this virulent CRAP I read a summary of Breaking Dawn)and began to pick up some really disturbing underlying messages; physical appearance trumps connection through shared experiences and any other normal, sane means of establishing a romantic stable relationship. How many times do we have to hear about Edwards physical 'perfection'? Even more disturbing are the nearly mysogynist aspects of Bella's character whom we are supposed to identify with. She is introduced as a mature, intelligent 17 year old girl and before I went through the series I thought, 'oh good, here is a story with the potential that this average, ordinary girl will overcome great hardships and grow as a human being to become a independent, strong, intelligent woman'.

Dear God, how wrong I was.

I slogged through Twilight and New Moon and Eclipse before I realized that no Bella would never grow as a human being, no Bella has no personality, NO Bella will never learn how self-destructive and damaging it is to pin your entire happiness completely and wholly on another person and finally NO this is not a good series and please don't call it literature.
What I did take away was; aging is bad, staying young forever, even at a horrible cost, is good, hotness is all that matters, learning independence puts the kibosh you winning a hot, white- knight guy, that men like it when you are helpless and stupid (are we stuck in the 50's or something?)that apparently the undead can impregnate a woman, suicide is emo and cool, vampires sparkle, aaaand getting pregnant is bad (like having the child eat it's way out of your uterus Alien-style bad).
As one critic said before it wouldn't be so bad if this book was marketed as just a plain-ol' adult book meant for idle entertainment like on the level of a Harlequin Romance but the fact that this book targets teenage girls is horrifying. The fact that some Twilight fans are so psychotic they commit physical VIOLENCE over this book is terrifying(type Twilight Violence into Google). That this makes a social comment on the culture of America is a sad, sad thing.

Which brings me to wonder how the HELL did Stephenie Meyer become an instant success that has pretty much set her for life for fame and fortune when people with actual talent can go a lifetime without ever getting published or recognized? This is what I absolutely HATE about the arts in general. Since the modernism of art nobody knows the difference between talent and shit that should be burned anymore. At the college a lot of the art shows include things that make me go, 'WTF is that?' why is sticking pubic hair on a computer mouse 'art' and why the fuck is this person getting thousands of dollars for it? (no, seriously that was an exibit) Why is standing on a block of ice while playing the violin make you famous for centuries to come because it's 'modernism'? Why is a sparkling vampire so damned popular when Anne Rice's Lestat kicks the crap out of Edward and his blah non-personality, non-fanged 'vegetarianism' and honestly I haven't been a Lestat fan since I was sixteen and went through a vampire phase in which now I look back and shake my head at my teenage girl silliness (and even in my most extreme obsession with popular culture I never beat somebody upside the head with a book because they didn't agree with me). There isn't much more to be said on the subject other than I shake my head at you America and all your silly ways.

On a more personal note/entry I am volunteering at one of the libraries in town because this doing nothing/not working is driving me towards madness and depression. Depression for sure because I think I crossed that madness line some years ago. Its hard to sleep at night when I close my eyes and all I can think is 'where the hell is my life going?' and 'I don't think I'm ever going to find a place to fit in'.
Also have been victim of stupid self injury( I'm BELLA, har har); dropped a plate and sliced my finger open while doing the dishes, got a wood sliver shoved into my pinky toe from my freak wooden flooring and now I will wear shoes in the house instead of socks and wore shoes that gave my heels big fat blisters when I walked to college and back yesterday.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Jitters


Been away for a while; close to a week. This is what I get for not reading labels; made calzone with store bought pizza dough and now I'm sitting here with a headache and anxiety - the pizza dough is made with sulfates which sets off the anxiety. and it occurs to me AFTER the fact that I could have made home-made bread and not get this reaction. Oh, stupid me. God, this sucks - the feeling like your teeth are set on edge for no particular reason. I guess I should drink some water or something.
But the calzone was freaking awesome.
Stayed for five days or so to take care of my mom, who after recovering from surgery is susceptible more than usual to colds and the like so she's sick. Kind of an interesting feeling taking care of cooking and cleaning for the old folks - guess I was spoiled as a kid. The good news is my cooking is picking up. I can do several dishes that taste pretty good and include some form of vegetable.
Staying at the parents house also means there isn't much to do so I spent most of the time hand stitching things and practicing sewing which is getting slowly better. Trying to get together a stock of plushies for Etsy. Not doing so well on the book/story. Eh, it comes and goes but I did discover old writing that I did some years ago about pirates that was hilarious. Maybe I'll post it here later ( I had no idea I was so funny)
Hoping that on Sunday I will be able to attend a D&D meeting at a friends house. Not that I have a great interest in it but it strikes me as something potentially entertaining in a mean sort of way (I never said I was nice). Observing other socially inept idjiots pretend to be something else for a few hours.
The job search....is rather nonexistent. The university is only hiring campus police right now (seriously, out of the ENTIRE campus with 17,000 plus students the ONLY opening is 'campus police')
Perhaps tomorrow I'll scan the online wanted ads again to see how nothing has changed since the last time I looked. This is it for now unless the anxiety doesn't lesson in which I will be back to whine more or possibly post pirate story.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

And Then There Are Some Days...



when I'm glad I am a social shut-in. There are a lot of misconceptions in the world that in the past years I've had to sort out; I can actually thank the media/Hollywood/the general tone of society for about 80% of my neuroticisms. I can thank them for my obsession with growing older, the solidified terror that I'm too old and when I hit 30 no one will want me and nothing will ever happen because all the cool things happen when you're 21. I can thank them for allowing myself to get groped by my long ago ex even though it hurt badly when he shoved his fingers up my vagina(I ended up bleeding, one time, I remember); I didn't have a right to say no (ah, stupid stupid youth) because I was his girl and I should please him. I can thank them for feeling like a freak for having solid morals, faith and spirituality, for expecting respect and equality. I can thank them for my fear of talking about mental disabilities because no one wants to talk about it, or understand it, or pretty much acknowledge its existance which led to a hell of a lot more pain than I had to withstand than if someone said to me, 'look, you have a problem its not a big deal but why don't you find a counselor?' rather than the, 'just get over it, I miss how you used to be, what's wrong with you? why can't you just get over it?' that I got instead which surprisingly did not help the situation.

If anything that I've taken away from my decade of being twenty-something is that I've spent nearly all of those ten years dismanteling all the shit the world feeds you and I'm lucky for it. Because no matter how bad it got, whatever happened to me, whatever someone said or did not say it is NOTHING in comparison to what other people have been through. I, at least, was fortunate to have the insight and intelligence to articulate something is wrong and how could I make it right? By actively seeking out knowledge about myself and world around me I think I am a better, more well-rounded, sane person for it. I think, ironically, that by spending my early twenties as a total shut-in it actually spared me some major grief that most people go through at that age.

Every time I think, oh crap look at the seven pounds of weight I've gained on my thighs, how disgusting - I can counter it with, would you be a better person with skinny thighs? would you be wiser, funnier, more popular, a more well-rounded person because your thighs are skinny? and some days it works and I believe there isn't anything wrong with my body and its just fine the way it is and some days a life-time of Barbie, Beer commercials and Hollywood Movies gets to me and I despair at my dimpled thighs (then think about how centuries ago being thin was a sign of illness and hey, the next famine we have I'll have a good chance of surviving)

Everytime I despair at the lack of social interaction that I'm supposed to be having (bars and parties and making out in an alley if television is anything to go by) I backtrack and think, what would you actually be doing if you went out to drink and hang out and party every other night? What conversations would you be having? Would it actually be fun to watch idiots get drunk and do stupid things on a weekly basis? Do you think you would you would discuss history and art and all the extraordinary things that make the world go round with people who devote their lives to being in a drunken stupor and having meaningless and often dangerous sexual relations? Is that was you really want? Or would it be better to cultivate the few relationships you have now and put more effort into people who actually exhibit self-awareness and care for themselves their bodies and the people around them? (which sadly they seem to be a very hard type o,f person to meet, at least in this city)

Some days I think I'm pretty well off if a little isolated and its just fine. Other days I keep myself up at night wondering what my life would have been if I'd done things differently. If I were more like my brother or my friends and charged the world like a bull and smoked pot and travled and gotten into stupid relationships and had sex with a bunch of different guys and done all the things that young women do today, who would I have been then? Would I be better off? Would it have been worse? Would I have been more successful? Would I be stuck in a loveless marriage with kids and a life that I hated but didn't know how to change? Would I have been famous? Happier? Crazier? Makes the theory of alternative worlds more interesting, who would you have been if circumstances had been just a little different.

Monday, November 2, 2009

I Wish Halloween Wasn't Over



Not that I did much; handed out candy to kids (yaaay...). This reinforced my idea that little children are something like little monsters. One got a handful of candy from me and then said , 'can I have more?'. One reached right over into my candy basket and helped himself. One asked for a piece of candy for his dad (which I gave him) then asked for one for his pet, his mother, his sister ect. ect.
amusing but at the same time, seriously little children? Five pounds of candy isn't enough for you?
What was weird was that there were a lot of 'grown up' kids. Like I open the door and there's this six foot guy with a scraggly beard, some sort of costume consisting of hobo clothes and blood and he sort of grunts, 'hey' at me.
I think today I'm just really tired of dealing with people. People who cut you off on the freeway so they can ...get to the grocery store with thirty seconds to spare? People who cut in line (seriously, three times today) and finally to my immense joy the rental next door got rented out to YAY college students who stand on the front porch, stare at me and smoke while I do yard work.
This is not a loving humanity sort of day.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Small Things




Muse has come out with The Resistance and I don't care what the reviews on Amazon say; I freakin' love it.

Monday it was seventy degrees. Yesterday it was forty degrees. Last night it snowed and by Halloween its going to be back up to seventy.

I have a morbid fear of trapping my fingers in the needle of my sewing machine and inexorably sewing my fingers together.

Why is it all the art/craft stores in town are located in terrifying neighborhoods? The sewing center I went to yesterday is on First Street; where all the meth addicts live. I overheard one customer ask the cashier if she was afraid of drive-by shootings.

I have a kick ass costume for halloween but I will more than likely be handing out candy to little kids rather going to any parties (most consist of alcohol and unimaginative 'sexy' costumes that are all the rage with women nowadays - sexy nurse,cat,nun,piratess,witch,enter feminine occupation here, freaking girl scout, strawberry shortcake. Can you tell this is a major source of aggravation for me? I feel a rant coming on)

I watched and read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The story by Washington Irving is, as always, a wonderful classic that makes me laugh everytime I read it (and gives me the desire to go to the east coast to see what Fall looks like over there) and the short film by Disney which I watched once when I was six. Fascinating what makes an impression on young minds; before watching it again my memory was of Ichabod's grapefruit cranium and the end of the film when the flaming pumpkin was thrown. What a great film.

Friday is an event I await for all year long - the county library book sale. A warehouse full of used and new books all super cheap. They give you shopping carts to fill up with books! I have found so many wonderful things in the eight years of going (and now have run out of room for all my books - someday I'll have money to buy more bookcases but for now my books will have to live in boxes). Some of my favorites are all the 'old' books (published 1950 or before; I found The Sheik dated 1922 (I think) for a quarter) with all the beautiful bindings, gold leafed pages and decorated spines. I need a whole bookcase dedicated to old books. I also love all the odd things you come across; the oversized book of MacDonald's Happy Meal Toys, craft projects from 1964, the book of superstitions, True or False; urban legends, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Hmm, I could go on for a long time. Anyway, looking forward to it.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Observations and encounters




You know what really scares me? When people tell me to be realistic. When the inevitable Small Talk comes up nowadays I get asked over and over again, 'what are you doing? What are you planning on doing?' and I say I Graduated College and a vague Looking For Work in which is me-speak for Beats the Hell Out of Me. Then I get well-intentioned Suggestions. Most often I get 'Why don't you be a teacher?'
The short answer is 'Because I don't want to BE a teacher'
The long, not so polite, answer is, 'Don't you know ANYTHING about me?! Do I look like a social person to you?! Do I look like someone who could put up idiotic comments and questions DAY after DAY, trying to beat knowledge into ungrateful, unteachable FOOLS who don't appreciate me or even WANT to be in my presence nor I theirs?!? Thanks for suggestioning a completely gender biased role for me, the female - why not suggest I be a NURSE or a FLIGHT ATTENDENT or some other acceptable feminine role!?'

Ahhheem. The sad part is these people (the majority male) don't really think about it like that; that the instant assumption is that because I have boobs and a vagina the most suitable role for me is a stereotypical one that society says is suitable for a woman; kindergarten teacher, (I would be forced to EAT THEM if I had to be a kindergarten teacher. IF I had to be a teacher I would teach art at the university, dammit) nurse, secretary, flight attendent ect. ect.
There isn't anything wrong with those professions but this leads back to my opening statement; these roles have never suited me. I would rather be a marine biologist, or work on Myth Busters, or design web pages - something that requires the use of my awesome intelligence. Nice to know sexism is good and alive in the world.

Going back to realism; I've had a lot (too much) of time to think over the last two months and I never was realistic about life. In High School I never had a Plan for my future even though my teachers tried to steer me towards one. I was sort of wishy washy about life; whatever happened, happened. I just wanted to play with my friends and draw pretty pictures. Then I went to community college and discovered what public education had been trying to deny me all those years; I had intelligence.

Like, real intelligence; I easily passed English and History and Biology. Something I had never really done in high school; I got straight A's. Over the last year and a half I found the strength to overcome my morbid fear of Math and passed Intermediate Algebra and College Mathmatics to graduate a university. With major, major help from my father, the engineer, I went from literally knowing only the very basic simple one-plus-one-equals-two math to probability and statistics. Can you guess where my fear of math came from? A lifetime of public schools/teachers telling me how stupid I was, that I would never learn math and putting me in remedial courses. I can tell you that created some serious resentment that I spent all of my life being the stereotypical female-BAD-at-math to learning - holy shit, I can actually do AND understand this.

So the more I thought about and have been thinking about it I realize I don't WANT to be realistic about life. I don't want ANY of the things society says you should have; a nine to five job filing folders, or customer service (oh God, spare me that) or sitting in a cubicle punching the keyboard for NINE HOURS. I don't want to spare time and energy raising little children to behave like decent human beings (not right now, anyway). I don't want to deal with the pressures of understanding, dealing with and putting up with another persons mile-long baggage and in return, trying to train him to understand and respect me. Plus, I haven't had great experience in the past with men (boys?) trying to jump my pants. Being groped isn't all that fun and to be perfectly honest I haven't met anyone so far that I want (being painfully shy doesn't help, does it?).

So I'm going to be perfectly unrealistic. I'm going to do ALL the things society says is bad. I'm not going to get married and join the cult of Motherhood. I'm not going to get a nice, normal job. I'm not going to actively prowl the bars for a man (not that I ever have). I'm going to wear weird clothes that belong in the fifties. I'm going to continue drawing and making things and putting them in local coffee houses. I'm going to make a business out of what I do best; I'm going to make handcrafted things and sell them (something that I have already done and done well in the past). I'm going to write. I'm going to send it to publishers. I'm going to continue being introverted and actively realize its not that bad of a thing. Still waters run deep and all that. I'm going to do this because I realized that if I went out to try and be what somone else thinks is acceptable I'll just end up truly miserable, waste potential and time and betray myself. I've already had experience trying to live up to someone elses expectations of what I should be and it was a messy, ugly business that when, in the end, I refused to conform to his idea that I should be 'normal' I ended up losing my friends.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

October Folly's


Spent a few days preparing for a garage sale. I've never done a garage sell before; my dad has this thing about people looking at our belongings, they'll get the overwhelming urge to rob the house....or something. So my mom and I managed to haggle him into it only on the account that one) we have all of items on the driveway, with the garage door closed and two) we keep it short - eight am to noon.
Turns out we overestimated it. My parents neighborhood consists mostly of school aged children and retired people and the things we were selling (girl things - bed sheets, planters, clothes, kitchenware, books, some of my leftover craft things) were exactly what people were NOT looking for. It was amazing; people would swarm by the dozens onto our driveway, LEAP out of the car only to do an about face and scramble back into their cars and drive away.
All in all I sold about twenty dollars worth of things and the same for mom (the crafts did surprisingly well and I sold two t-shirts). So about ten-thirty and after some guy slunk up to our driveway in his pick-up truck, peered out of the windshield, saw a distinct lack of tools and other manly objects he kicked his truck into reverse and went screaming down the street back into the wild blue yonder we took the hint and loaded things into my car and dropped them off at a thrift store.
Wrong kind of people to sell our artsy fartsy things to although I was surprised at the books, I thought people loved to browse through books (hell, I do) we sold ONE BOOK!
Been spending time reading every Barbara Michaels I can find at the local libraries, watching all three (and some of season four) seasons of Heroes (in consequence developing squealing fan girl crush on Zachary Quinto) aaaand came to several (exciting!) decisions;

1. I don't have a hope of finding a decent job at the moment
2. I have enough talent in making things that I can sell things on Etsy
3. I'm going to write a book (have joined the Nano movement for November)

The never ending exciting times of My Life. its raining.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Folly's of Biology


So I had my PMS moment which allows emotions that kind of run around your brain develop into screaming hissy fits as noted the previous entry.
I am better now.
Went to my craft group at the school and its really really nice to be back in the studio with people that I know, doing things that I love. I offered up free labor services out of love (and the fact I'm not doing anything else with my life) so there's some volunteer work for me. (that looks good on resumes right?)
I hate how everyone I know is more successful than I am. I get to hear who worked where with what big name, and who is having an art show and has a million dollar grant to some art school and who's kicking my ass in the rat race of life.
Didn't I say I wasn't going to wallow anymore? Oops.
Temperature has gone down only about forty degrees since Thursday. I love how it transitions gently into winter here, har har.

Friday, October 2, 2009

In need of ventilation


I know I posted, like, yesterday but I have all this crappy emotion churning inside me and maybe if I write it out it won't hurt so much. I am so pissed off. At my life, at the country at the people who I surrounded myself with who just completely blow me off. I ask a lot of why's in my life. Why is it that even though I do the right things, go on the right paths, be nice and I ,out of everyone I knew in my life, I'm the one getting screwed. When I was younger I never had these problems. It wasn't a problem attracting new friends and romantic interests; hell, I had to beat people off with a stick. I had friends I really loved in high school and they grew up to be self-destructive, neurotic, back-stabbing bitches who enjoyed tormenting me. and yet through vague contacts and the internet I find out they're all doing better than I am. One is a famous artist that works for FAMOUS animation company's who goes to comic cons and gets mobbed by adoring fans, one lives in L.A. and has mediocre fame as an artist and the other has a string of messed up relationships that resulted in a kid.
What the hell have I done with my life?
I attempted to go to school and everything went to shit and I couldn't cope. So I spent five years alternatively being depressed and being in therapy. So I get it together and go to school like all good boys and girls thinking that maybe THIS time something will come of it. God, anything, a relationship, getting into trouble, a man, a change in life SOMETHING but nothing ever happens.
this is why I'm bitching to cyberspace where no one AGAIN knows or cares about me and what's going on (or not) in my life. The last 'boyfriend' I had ended up stalking me. I attract all the freaking weirdos. You don't believe me? Every few months when I'm out in public some guy will come up to me out of nowhere and start spouting cosmic nonsense. The last guy claimed my magnetism and strong personality turned him right around and I was a 'classy lady'. Why the hell can't it ever be someone whom I can actually have a relationship with?
Two months out of school and I'm ripping my hair out. There's no job I want to work. I DON'T WANT to work some stupid crap job that I hate just for money and I DON'T WANT to sit around the house and depend on my parents either.
I feel like, for all intents and purposes, I'm cursed. Like seriously, there's something about my life where I just manage to attract the most absurdly stupid situations and I'm too dumb or inexperienced to figure out how to change it. How the hell am I supposed to get out and meet people when I don't have any friends to go out with?
My extraordinary life as a social pariah.
I thought things would have been different if I went to college and graduated but its not any different from when I first crashed mentally. I'm still stuck in exactly the same place as I was almost TEN YEARS ago. Nothing has changed!
Except now I'm a social pariah with a college degree that's worthless because there's nothing out there. If I moved to L.A. or New York maybe I'd have a chance but my life is here. The only people in the world who give a crap about me are here. and I feel like this whole place is rejecting me. I never fit in anywhere here, never found people to get along with.
I feel like I'm always going to be in the same place. I'm just going to keep getting older but nothing is going to change. I'm always going to watch it happen to other people. They're going to get married, move up in their careers, spit out kids, everything is going to happen to them and nothing, NOTHING is ever going to happen to me. Like life is just avoiding me. The only things that happen to me are the really crappy things. Like having my grandmother die three years ago then having to put my dog down in Febuary. Then graduating but no one in my family gives a crap about it.
I know its stupid but I always thought life was going to be like the movies or like all those stupid books I've read. Like how there is always someone else waiting for you, even if you break up with your current boyfriend/friends. The Land of Your True Love/Friendship awaits you over the horizon. and its such a horrible lie. Sometimes there isn't anyone at all and you have to go through it all alone. I'm tired of it and I don't know how to change it. I didn't want this life. I thought out of all of my friends in high school, since I was the sanest, the most even tempered, the most morally aware, the one with the good family that things would just happen naturally. I was supposed to go to school. and graduate when I was 22. I was supposed to work then find a good man and get married. I was going to move to California and be an artist. I was going to be so many things. and now out of all those people I'm the biggest loser. What the hell have I done that warrents respect in the eyes of society?
No one knows me, knows of me and I really, really want to be seen. I'm just turning in circles without the vaguest idea of how to make something, ANYTHING happen. I want to be on par with those idiots I knew, I want something to be proud of. and I don't know how to make it happen. I know I have potential but its like I can't harness it. I'm always going off in too many different directions.
See, this is what happens when you sit in a house alone all day.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

In Which there was Very Little Going On


A remarkably uneventful week. Spent some days at my parents home and was fed nice food by my mother. Unfortunately at my parents home access to the internet is only in three minute intervals so this is late in updating (not that there is much to update.) Visited ye olde homestead up at the lake and managed (twice) to almost get into a wreck thanks to exceedingly stupid, monkey brained, dumbshit drivers who (I'm assuming thanks to impatience) proceeded to pass three cars on a double yellow line while going around a curve (both drivers, one truck, one motorcycle, managed to miss an oncoming collision by seconds), NOT FUN.
Doesn't help me like the world much more considering the amount of people who really should NOT be driving.

I hate that I'm old enough to feel nostalgic about high school and growing up in that community. I hate being there and not being there anymore. Hate going into stores that I grew up with and am able to say, 'this used to be the video store (when we rented VHS!!)'
The fact that at 2:30 in the afternoon I can look at how the sun slants across pine trees and get the overwhelming feeling like its time to get out of school and walk home and I'll drop my backpack off by the front door and mom will be in the kitchen or practicing French with the ladies in the living room and I'll grab a snack before I do homework then call some friends to hang out. and its all gone now. everyone I knew is no longer in my life or play a very small part when once we were all connected. Its not my home anymore and I really, really miss it.

Not the place so much as the feeling. Like belonging, like feeling everything's just fine, I'm young and I have the world before me instead of now where I only feel dread and worry about a completely uncertain future.
So that was Monday. Spent the rest of the time reading, drawing, screwing around. Didn't get to decorating today but looking forward to it tomorrow. Sunday I have a Social Gathering for a local art group (we all met in college and decided to continue a group in the fall). Art show and lecture tomorrow and I found possibly temp. work that doesn't sound so bad:
Macy's is looking for people to decorate the mall for the holidays. I wonder if I can screw up enough courage to apply.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Leaps and Bounds


Life always manages to amuse me and really piss me off all at the same time. The four years I spent in college I tried to make friends and be social (I really did). I asked fellow students who shared classes with me if they wanted to grab a bite to eat at the new soup place downtown, I went to events, joined clubs and put myself out there (probably not as much as I should have but still...) and nothing really came of it; I came away mostly with vague aquaintance's that showed a mediocre interest in my personal self which was very off putting and aggravating considering I've known some of these people for three years and they never ONCE thought to ask about me, or return the interest or invitation to be social. Really annoying. So all in the space of a weekend (last weekend) I get flooded with social contact, good and bad.

First the wedding.
Okay, I fully admit I let some of my bitter feelings get to me a little too much. I just don't like a world that doesn't seem to care to put forth the effort to be friendly back to me when I put myself out there. Personally, I consider it rude and just sad that most people are so self-absorbed or ill taught as to not return interest to people trying to be friendly (there's another topic I want to write about; the modern me-first society that we live in) but okay, the wedding.
It was really nice. My neighbor spent a year in China and met his fiancee there and they came back here to be married. It was in a friend's (very spacious) back yard and would have been even better if the weather cooperated a little more. Nothing more uncomfortable than 90 degree heat bouncing off of concrete into your face and the late afternoon desert wind picking up and knocking over tables. The DJ was corny, the ceremony was short, there was cake and lots of food and really hot Asian relatives(friends?) of the bride (why don't American men take note from Asia on fashion!?). I shook a lot of hands, smiled a lot but my family and I being mere neighbors didn't really socialize a lot (although that one guy managed to ask me if I golfed recently; I told him once five years ago that I was on the high school golf team (my parents idea) and ever since then he thinks that I actually care about golfing and do it all the time which I DON'T, I haven't picked up a golf club in over 12 years).
Also came to the conclusion that even if I were in a relationship I'm nowhere near marrying which I suppose is odd for such an old female such as me (the biological clock is ticking, dear).

Sunday was a day of hilarity and misunderstanding. A couple of things that led up to Sunday;
First, I joined an online dating network for the sole purposes of amusment (for I cruelly find people that think a functional relationship from a dating website will work hilarious. Folks, you have a better chance of winning the lottery) and had been casually talking to a guy who lives in my city. He's cute in a computer-geek way and I probably outweigh him by twenty pounds.

Second, I have a friend of sorts who told me about an event at the local Border's (and this is EXACTLY what she told me) where a group of published authors and illustrators come to sit down and look over your portfolio (writing or art) and give you constructive criticism/feedback and possible contacts to further you on your way to being published. This is the EXACT impression I got from her and no, I didn't misunderstand. We get to Border's. I am nervous which results in major fidgeting. Meet the ladies of the group; about five all quite a bit older than I am with some kind of writing printed out on recycled paper. Everyone buys a mocha-whatever covered in whipped-cream and nuts/caramel/ect. (I would have liked one but I'm flat broke, depending on my parents for survival and starting to gain fattage in my thighs anyway)
We sit. and gossip. and sit some more. and here is the actual truth of the matter:
These were not actual published authors and the illustrator lady never showed up. These were bored housewives who write as a creative outlet and hope to be published someday, in the far future, maybe. My first tip off was when one of them whipped out a twenty-five page manuscript and started reading. and reading. aaaand read some more for about a half hour in the which time I was clawing my seat in frustration and WTF's. As a side note I DID happen to notice the vague cute guy sitting next to us focused on his computer but what the hell, coffee shops are where students/geeks thrive so I didn't pay much attention at the time.
So this lady gets done reading her twenty-five page monologue about angsty teens and basketball when I turn to my fellow socially-stunted friend who brought me in the first place and said, 'WTF? I thought we were dropping in having a few words and would be out of here in twenty minutes, tops' (not in those words, exactly, just imagine something politer) and she gives me the goldfish stare and goes 'oh, no. didn't I tell you? this is an all day thing; we're going to be here for another three hours'

Yup. Time to backpeddle.

I smile sweetly and say, 'oh dear, I didn't know that. I have a previous engagement (HA HA!)that I have to be at in about twenty minutes'
in which she replies, 'WHAT engagement are you talking about? Did you have something to do?' as everyone in the group turns to stare at me and wait for a response. thank you SO much socially retarded friend who can't take a hint that I may not have been comfortable and was trying to get out without carnage and makes me suffer with the embarassment of muttering lame excuses about helping my parents with something (another reason to get a job; when in need of backing out of lame events I could always say its a work thing).
In which there is a fuss because she doesn't want to leave and I am literally stranded at Borders, my house is a twenty minute drive thattaway and my driver says , 'see if you can't find another ride'. So I excuse myself, grab my portfolio (everyone ooo'd and aaah'd and one lady said, 'your perspective is wrong' EVERYBODY'S a critic even the ones who never took an art class in their lives) and went outside to sit on the bench and give Daddy a call to come and get me.
Well that was interesting enough for one weekend but it's not over yet because God is ironic and likes smack me with the irony stick. (That bench was uncomfortable, it made my butt hurt,as a side note.) I tried to look busy and important because that area has a tendency to have a lot of beggers (who are well dressed, clean, wearing jewelry and claim they have been stranded and are in need of gas money. hmmm) that sometimes are aggressive. Out walks cute-ish computer boy who kind of wavers as he walks past me then turns around and says, 'excuse me, do I look familar?' thinking this is some kind of new panhandler method I say, 'er, well. maybe? sort of?' THEN I recognize his picture from the dating website and he gives his avatar name and now I think I may have given him the wrong impression. My first impulse was 'JOY, another human MALE being is giving me attention!! Let's be amusing and charasmatic!' so he gives me his business card and asks if we could have coffee sometime (and comments how I didn't look like I was enjoying myself in there). Isn't this sad? He IS cute but after looking in his eyes, shaking his hand and talking to him I felt nothing. (other than a sense of how strange the world is that it would throw me across the path of someone I never intended to meet) but the reaction was interesting; my first impulse was to gaily go along with whatever he said. the ride home I was thinking, 'what the hell, we'll go to coffee and talk' then as the 'i had social contact!' feeling wore off I realized I had fallen into an old pattern of mine towards the opposite sex; I go for the 'safe' men. the men I am not really attracted to (if you don't feel anything you can't get hurt) and therefore the relationship is doomed to fail even before we date. and I made myself swear after the last disastor of a relationship (it was a doozy) that I would never do it again. More things have happened since Sunday;
I dropped off a resume
I learned a new dish to cook
I played five straight hours of Fable
I created three more illustrations that need to be colored
but this is long enough for a post so I will continue on later.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Living in the Shadow

Having just gotten off the phone with my dad has given rise to another thought of topic, a sticky one but something that has a part of shaping who I am. My brother. I only have one sibling, one older brother (by one year) and it's an odd sort of love we have for one another. Best observed from a distance across the planet.
We were discussing the wedding tomorrow and (perhaps not in the best taste) I said ,' Hey, I'm only going for the food'. Understandably I was censured but I have reason for my passive-aggressive anger on two accounts. The first is that my neighbors have never shown the slightest interest in me as a person. Which makes it odd they (rather their son who is about my age) would invite us (me) to begin with. We used to get together every summer for a football/cookout and about three summers ago I was actually socializing with him and his friends. We were playing poker in the living room and having, what I thought was, a great time. Then suddenly he gets up and says , 'Me and my friends are gonna go hit the casinos. see ya' and left me staring after them thinking, WTF? What am I an afterthought?
Last spring, when I finally started to live on my own, his parents (who are realtors in the area) asked my parents if they wanted them to sell the house because its not like I was living here or anything.
How does my brother come into this? My brother is the shining poster child for Everything That Is Awesome in America. He takes risks, he socializes with ease, everybody loves him, he's aggressive, loud, drinks Budwiser, is outspoken and is always into or up to something. He's served in Iraq four times, he's a decorated hero and me, well me, I live in his shadow. I'm surprised people even know of my existance sometimes.
Of course I need to balance it out with a disclaimer of YES he is awesome, YES he deserves all the love and respect he gets, YES I love him, and oh yes I am jealous.
My neighbors remember and revere my brother. On those summer cookouts all I remember is sitting with the Grown Ups listening to them blather about whatever and my brother while rarely I would get a glance and a ,'So you're in college. When are you graduating?' then the conversation would swerve back to Iraq and the War and What My Brother is Doing for the rest of the evening. Because introverted artists are passe and uninteresting.
and art isn't really a subject anyway, more like a fluffy ball of yarn for kiddies to play with. Because its not like art ever did anything for anyone.
In the days of introverted misery when I was struggling to make it outside the bounderies of my house all I heard were conversations about my brother from my father's business associates and various family members. How was he doing, when was he coming home. I never got mentioned because mental retarded shut-ins don't deserve mentioning.
Last month when I graduated college one of my aunts called the house and this is how the conversation went:
my father: 'oh yes, she graduated. even if she got a C in that math class. they'll mail the certificate sometime.' 30 seconds hangtime. and my brother got a half hour of his travels, his serious girlfriend he met in a hotel lobby, his current tour, the house he bought, his trip out here, ect. ect. ect.
I never even got a congratulations card for four years of hard work and two years on the deans list.
This is one of my greatest wants for the future; I want recognition. I want my own group of people, my own friends, my own circle that only know me and not my brother. I want someone to say , 'Wow, you're a really good artist.' or a good writer, or a good person or a hard worker. I want someone to talk about the things I've done because I don't think its inconsequential. Someday I want my father to recognize my achievements, that even though I don't have a medal, or a piece of paper stating how great I am, coming back from that frozen wasteland of mental defeat wasn't easy. To go from shut-in to college graduate wasn't easy. To keep on going and find a job and path somewhere isn't easy. And even if it doesn't compare to fighting in Iraq its something that means a lot to me.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Greatest Motivator


As par usual I spent the weekend at my parents home and was fortunate enough in one of my frequent visits to thrift stores to find vintage sewing patterns that have selling potential. Its not a lot but its something to do while waiting for my life to start; selling hand crafted items. I am reminded why I despised the breaks between semesters so much now; my parents (more specifically my mother's ) immovable belief that idle hands are wicked. If you are not working towards a degree then you must be working a job. No matter what. Therefore, also, this weekend I was assigned to manual labor in the backyard. I didn't have a problem for doing it for a day or two; I do happen to owe my mother money but I draw the line at a whole week of moving rocks and digging ditches in the hot sun (living in a desert and all).

Not working, to my family, is testament to being a freeloading, worthless bum (whether or not the country is in economic ruin; I could still be a grocery bagger you know). And although I have to admit I really don't like sitting around all day (hench the crafting/selling idea) I have this thing about doing soul-destroying, thankless, menial labor. And by all accounts I realize the foolish sentiment of that; there are plenty of people who will gladly (and do) take it for a pay check, its how you survive in the world. But me, now, I just... can't. I can't make myself do it; I've had those kinds of jobs when I was younger. I've bagged groceries, I've worked customer service, I've done those minimum wage shit jobs and the reason I went to college was so I never had to do them again.

And, ha ha, here we are right back to where I started; jobless, being pushed by my parents to be a productive member of society. Get a job, any job, I don't care how shitty it is.
What I hate most about unemployment are the 'talks' I get from my parents. The reminder of what a worthless freeloader I'm being.

Being unemployed makes me a second class citizen; depending on my parents for food and shelter also puts me in the position of not being able to say no to anything they ask of me. It messes with my own self-perception and creates this vacuum of unequal power; as long as I need them for survival all my adult independence is put on hold.
Then there's the agoraphobia angle that makes it difficult to work and employers are less than understanding when you have a screaming panic attack and have to go home or take a break or leave the area. Different when you were in school and could just leave the classroom without anyone caring; at a job I think the boss is going to care if you just take off. In the guilty confines of these pages I can also admit that I haven't really been looking. I haven't put in an application anywhere and partially it's not my fault. A sampling of jobs in the area:

- Assistant to psychologist, duties include interviewing inmates at local prison
- Coroner
-Sub sandwich artist (which is a really stupid way of saying minimum wage job where you make food for cranky customers)
- Nurse/Health Practitioner
- Tech jobs (in which I have no Tech skills)
- Warehouse supervisor (see above)
- Library assistant (which I would gleefully take except for it's a six hour drive from where I live)
- Be a model today! Hundreds of people being casted for background movie characters!
- Join the Marines!
- Bar tender

Slim pickings, as it were. I check the wanted pages everyday and it doesn't change; this is exactly what is out there right now. Again, guilty confines, I have to admit the dread feeling of fear in the back of my mind; since my world came crashing down eight years ago I haven't really worked. It scares the crap out of me.
I tried it once, three years ago and it turned out poorly. I lasted three days on the job, got so wound up I couldn't eat or sleep and I just ... ran away from it. The boss was understanding though, she said I could try again later if I wanted. I worked a student part-time job at the local planetarium, doesn't that sound fantastic?

I thought it did too but I had a terrible time with it. My co-workers were all under the age of 22 and, I'm sorry, complete dipshits. I had to endure four hour shifts of console talk, favorite games, Wii sytems, what they were buying with their Christmas bonus and if that wasn't bad enough I got to work with the hick who liked to kill things and tack deer heads on his wall.

There are so many whatifs that go through my head. Whatif I start my job and then I panic (again)? I can't leave, what do I do? Whatif I'm stuck at this job for the rest of my life? Whatif I get sexually harassed, bludgeon the bastard's brain open and have to move to Tibet to avoid the fuzz? Whatif I get treated horribly? How do I even broach the subject of mental illness with my boss? Do I tell them I have panic attacks? Would they work around them? Would they burn my application for even mentioning 'mental illness'? I know there are laws against discrimination but how do you prove they are discriminating against you when they say 'you don't have enough experience' and what they really mean is 'I don't want no mental freak working for me'?


Things to get Done for the Next Week
-Put in a application. Somewhere
-Confront fears of working in some constructive way (volunteer?)
-Prepare for neighbor's wedding on Saturday (meet possible dating material? har har)
-Be more social

Saturday, September 12, 2009

The momentous first post.

When I was nineteen I had a dream and it stuck with me for the next ten years, sometimes thinking on it, whether it was the product of a disturbed teenage brain or whether the realism and conviction of it meant something, I can't really say. It was probably a prophetic wish for a distant future; a dream where I was recognized as a worthy human adult, chosen as special, all my half-formed talents and ideas shining above the masses, where I was recognized. Something big was going to happen when I turned 29. That's all I took away from that dream and that is what I have held onto for ten years.

Reality, however, has a tendency to smack me upside the head with a vicious uppercut. Like so many people before me I can now say , 'This isn't what I expected life to be'.

Moreso than other people because somehow, despite privileges of class and race, stable childhood and opportunity I fell through the cracks of society no matter how hard I backpeddled.

This is my journal and this is a record for the next year to see if prophetic dreams come true.

I have failed spectacularly in the eyes of society and my ever harsh-judging peers. Despite all expectations I am not married, I do not have a career, or children (nor any inclination to have any children) I do not have a job and have the merest handful of social contacts. I am social phobic, obsessive, recovered shut-in, occasional gamer, nose-in-the-book worm, religious, closely bonded with my parents, agoraphobic, anxiety disordered woman. My experience in the world has put me on a different planet so I often feel as though I am speaking a language no one understands nor wants to understand. I am angry. I am resentful. I have a wicked way with words and this is my story; when I turned 21 everything that could go wrong, went wrong. It would almost be sitcom worthy if it had been someone else.

My family lost all our money which included my childhood home, everything that could bring a price and the unstable terror of not knowing whether there would be grocery money or a roof over our heads for the immediate future. We all moved into a two bedroom one bathroom house with four people and a dog. My brother joined the military two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks and was sent to Iraq.

I went into depression. I dropped out of college. I started having terrible panick attacks and stopped going out. I lost my friends because of it. I spent one whole year inside my room, roiling in inexplicable violent emotions which involved self-hate, hate for my friends that abandoned me to my fate and general anger and hate for a world that continued on without me without knowing or caring what was happening to me.
Does funny things to the head.
The worst part about mental illness is the complete isolation of it. Not to wallow in woe-is-me, nobody-understands self-pity but no one does understand who hasn't been through it. How can you describe an experience?
It came to a point where either I did something about it or I was going to die. I lost thirty pounds (when you're already twig thin, its a big deal), I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping, something had to give.
I spent four years in counseling just to get me back into college. I was 25. I was terrified to sit in a classroom and it took nearly two years of trying before I was comfortable with it. I stuck with it (the alternative was to revert back to being a shut-in) and learned a lot; about myself, society, people, the world and how I really have no place in it. As a result I can honestly say I have a perfectly unique perspective. I graduated last month with some of the highest grades in my department. I was on the dean's list for the last three semesters so it isn't like I can't do the work.
So here we are, a college graduate with no prospects in a fucked up world and economy struggling once again to find a niche in the world around me. As my counselor would put it; make a plan.

For the Immediate Future

- Keeping up constant correspondence via blogger
- Daily scanning of the wanted ads in hope of a job that does not destroy the will to live
- Be more social
- Ride the bus alone, downtown and be social
- Knock out some commissions
- Prepare portfolio and make appointment with head of Art Department for advice
- Start Etsy/ some sort of self-supporting means of income
- Actually apply somewhere to work
-Think of places to work where I might actually want to work