Burnout

I think after two weeks of hard labor I'm getting really burned out working at the gallery. So, in fact, I think I won't come in tomorrow. Like Auto L said 'you're pretty much my entire crew'. and its catching up to me - let someone else handle the rest (its all done anyhow, someone just needs to hang up pictures). I'm going to work on another goal my advisor set for me; riding the bus downtown. Doesn't sound like much does it? But for some reason its difficult for me. There's something about relying on someone else to get me where I need to go that makes me intensely uncomfortable. Maybe its the heat, maybe its the fact I've been working like a slave this week but I've fallen back into a funk of sorts. Feeling like Fate's out to get me, or rather do nothing to me at all. Feeling like...nothing's ever going to happen no matter what I do. I do find it incredible that five years of college and two years of being actually pretty social has lead me to meet exactly no prospective boyfriend. I know the arts generally don't have a LOT of guys but there are some. I wonder why its so difficult to meet people after you hit a certain age. It seems like after I hit 25, that was it - my age group disappeared off the face of the planet. Or perhaps I'm living in a different age. I go to places, perhaps, that are no longer meeting places for young people. Libraries, grocery stores, church, school - nine years I have lived here and nothing. Today I think I really am cursed. For whatever reason Fate won't touch me.

Summer Collections

I find it sort of, kind of, odd that even though I'm actually busier than I've been for a long while (with volunteering and whatnot) that I can still feel really, really...lonely. Its good to keep busy though. Today was the first official day for working at the Special Collections. Oh Sweet God, if I am very very very very very very very VERY lucky I may get to work there someday. If you like warehouses full of antique books, valuable art and esoteric things than this is the place for you. I may even get an official nametag (that would rock). I got an orientation tour and a general sketch of what I may be doing. Today I got to look at press-printed books/hand-crafted books/made by artist books and choose some that will be on a local art tour next Tuesday. Then I got to set up a display with books that fit into the palm of your hand. In the future I will be cataloguing and helping with photographs and the web-site. So pray for me, that I may be offered an actual money-paying job on campus.
No first day is complete without mishaps, however.
The first was when I stupidly didn't take the hint to use the foam book-rests for very valuable books so while I was holding it in my lap one of the employees said, 'uh-uh, put it in the holder please'. bah, that's what happens when I get around beautiful, rare objects - I forget common sense.
And the second was slapstick stupid. The library where Special Collections is located is the new library on campus and therefore is HUUUUGGEE with HUUUGE staircases that lead up to the second floor (out of five floors). So after I had a lunch break I was making my way back up the stairs when the toe of my shoes caught on the edge of one of the steps and I went FLYING foward and ended up sprawled on the stairs in front of, at least, one hundred people (the local high schools are having college tours today). I'm grateful that nobody laughed at me but I grabbed the things that went flying out of my purse and ran up the rest of the way. I think I strained my arm trying not to brain myself on the marble steps. So glad I didn't know anybody there; I can imagine my 'friends' wouldn't let me hear the end of it (seriously, I'm not usually that clumsy)
Gallery work is super busy. I'm like the only person from the gallery who has bothered to show up to help..hmmm....he needs a nickname, Auto L. Auto L is a local artist who is having his first show (bronze sculpture) with us this summer and has spent the last 15 years making things for this show, so its pretty important to him. The first day almost all the gallery volunteers showed up (not including Ex GM who stopped by the first day to sweetly mention she's going to be too busy to help until the 8th of July which conviently misses all the hard installation work) and it is seriously hard work. This is one huge production with a lot of stands, lighting, computer images, painting, moving ect. ect. and Auto L (rightfully) is very particular about what goes where. So after that first day of nitpicky work (and grumbling behind Auto L's back) the other two have disappeared into the land of excuses.
Auto L said it himself yesterday, 'You're the hardest working volunteer I have AND the only one who's shown up almost everyday'. Which means I have good work ethic and enjoy what I do or I have no life. Possibly a mix of both. Tomorrow the lighting will be finalized (holy crap, the lighting is a job in itself- ancient light tracks from the 1960's that don't always work and occaisonally go off for no reason that we can find) and since it opens Thursday we better be done tomorrow. Have met some interesting characters through Auto L who has found all sorts of people to help out, not just us gallery volunteers (thank God for that).
The one particular guy whom I find amusing (when I probably shouldn't) is the guy that speaks in one word sentences. A conversation between us:
Me "So, you said you just came from a barbecue?"
Tall John "Yeah."
-silence-
Me "Um, so where was it?"
Tall John "Oh. At work."
-silence-
Me "sooo...where do you work?"
Tall John "Winco."
Me (seeing how there are two different Winco's in town) "Oh, on which side of town?"
Tall John "The south."
-silence-
It was after this point that I gave up any attempt at conversation (except when I was prodding him for my own twisted amusement - getting a conversation out of him was like pulling teeth).
Actually he spent the time that wasn't spent moving things (being about six foor six and supposedly strong) sitting in a corner. Literally. Why is it all the men I meet are braindead and lack social skills? Would it kill you to ask me about myself? or expand on your job because, you great nitwit, I'm giving you an opening to talk to a cute girl? At this rate it will literally be a miracle on high if I get a date.

A Larger Perspective

Often, when you're feeling like the lowest creature on the planet if you look beyond yourself you'll find someone a whole lot worse off than you. Two of these people have been brought to my attention that makes me mentally slap myself and say, 'stop wallowing, you're well off'.
The first is a cousin of mine who has a disease where she literally cannot stop eating. She weighs upwards towards three hundred pounds and may never be able to survive without a keeper. It isn't even certain how long she will live if she doesn't find a way to cope. She is three years older than I and will never have things that other people don't even consider. She won't get married, won't be able to find social contact easy. She won't have children, or hold a job, or live a normal life. and people will blame her and hate her for something she can't even control.
The other is my (ex?) neighbor; the one I grew up with during my childhood. She spent her married life with a greedy, self-centered jerk who figures now that she's past her prime and he's having a mid-life crisis its time to dump the old wife and trader her in for a newer version.
She spent so many years on birth-control she will never have children (he never wanted them, always put it off). She's beyond the age of hopefully finding someone who deserves her; getting remarried a slim, slim chance. What does she have to look forward too? She is extremely intelligent (an engineer) but now that she's on the other side of 45 what will the rest of her life be? With no family to visit her, no kids to watch grow, deemed 'past her prime'?

I don't know what's going to happen to them but I can pray for them. Now I know exactly what its like to be on the other side of the fence. I was that person who got hit. I was that person who people ask 'what the hell happened to her? why didn't she live up to her full potential? what a loser'. or worse yet the pity - 'did you hear what happened to her? God, poor thing.'
a wider perspective, a different viewpoint; its pretty important to look beyond yourself. and pray.

The Price of Being Different


There are days that I compare to older ones that make me feel as though I've been walking a long, hard mile. And those days I look where I've stepped, seen where I've fallen, struggled to find my footing and felt like a stronger, better person yet to run into another wall. The wall for today was being in social interaction with 'normal' people. Young people, newly graduated. When I feel like I've acheived something great, as though I've fought and won back a part of me that was lost long ago days like these show me how far off I am from the mark. These long days that make me feel like I'm speaking in a language no one can understand.
Something as simple as an introduction divides the chasm even further.
and all I can do on the long walk home is ask, 'who am I? and why am I here?'
Around me is the rhythm and pull of a normal life; they can talk about the place they work, the future that job will bring, the plans of an ordinary life. The people they've dated, the birthdays they've celebrated, the bright and open path without question or worry.
I'm just the background.
Smugly congratulating myself on worthless endeavors. Wondering someday what-if, what if I were free? Leaving behind cold isolation and uncertainty, warm and happy in a niche made for me.
I wonder if I'm delusional.
Give up freak, go back to the closet of seclusion where you belong. There is no place for you, perhaps anywhere.
These are the long days where I survive and it has to be enough. and I try not to wonder if I have a place somewhere in the world and if I will ever find it.

Shinpai-suna

Mother has a calming effect one me; 'it doesn't mean anything, you're still plenty young' helps me. Although I have decided from now on that NO ONE gets to know my age unless they are super, super close to me. People are damned impertinent anyway; any time I meet someone new (typically a college aged person) right off the bat I get asked 'how old are you?' so from now on my answer is 'old enough'.
Some interesting things from the last couple of weeks. Book arts group was great; those ladies always make me feel fantastic and (almost) none of them are college aged. Got a lot of work done for my parents - I actually really like how my rock path is looking.
Yesterday was sort of a big leaping step although I didn't mean for it.
Went to the school to see if the gallery needed help; seeing how we're operating on summer hours means that the gallery is barely open. Nobody was there (the artist who is exhibiting got his times messed up) So I wandered over to the library and went to special collections. I asked about volunteering and got an impromptu interview with the Head of Special Collections who said she didn't like volunteering because it felt like slavery to her but seeing how they are laying off more people than hiring she would see if she could find something for me to do. Sent her my resume yesterday. Oh man, I hope she finds something for me. How AMAZING would it be to eventually work for them? It would be a dream come true.
So I spent a lovely early afternoon sitting beneath the shade of a tree, eating my lunch, reading a book and enjoying the one place that's felt like home to me since I've moved down here.
It's strange how entwined and yet seperated I am from that University. Everything in my life thus far has been strongly connected to it. It really is my second home. I just don't know if I can go on being connected to it; the fact that I came into my own at the exact moment our way of life took a nosedive isn't lost on me.
Then, that evening, I took my customary walk around the neighborhood and ran into the neighbors who invited us to the wedding last September and lo! they were SUPER happy to see me and invited me to their Fourth of July party. uh, so wow. I would like that; maybe it would give me a better chance to be more social with them.
These days I'm floating towards resignation of growing older (I mean, DUH, you can't stop it) and screaming hissy fits of 'I DON'T WANNA'.

Hmmm, speaking of the gallery I was able to make another comparison to work conditions. The young lady at the counter at Special Collections impressed me (I actually remember her name, which is a big deal.) She had good sense of humor (when I mentioned that at the moment I'm doing yardwork for my parents she laughed) and had a good, firm handshake. As compared to GM (who I should start calling Previous GM because her contract with the gallery has run out, meaning it's open season now that I no longer adhere to her) who I met again after a three week break to be met with an underlying feeling of , 'oh GOD you're still here?'
Now that she doesn't have any say in my work there I won't feel bad about being snarky. That would be good practice wouldn't it? Putting up with her bullshit with what she deserves? I really don't like that chick. Everytime she looks at me it's like for the life of her she can't figure out how I exist; like I'm an alien species. I think on our last day I'll buy a pack of salami and toss slices of it at her.

So I Lied

In state of crisis, more or less. Now that the summer months are upon me an overwhelming feeling of desperation has taken over. I'm really not happy with how my life turned out. NONE of it I planned for and for most of it I floundered like a retarded goldfish out of my bowl. What does it mean to be thirty? What it means to me isn't what it means to other people. I'm not traditional, my life isn't traditional. My mind-set is still stuck at about 24 and I feel like...this is it. Once I hit 30, it's over with. Nothing will ever happen to me. I'm not young, I'm not worth anything if I can't be twenty-something and 'hot'. Whose going to want to date the old chick? and now that I think about all the online dating sites I've seen all the men in my age group are all divorced with children looking for sex, basically, nothing more.
I feel like I should just resign myself to sitting in the basement and watch anime for the next ten years.
Crap, I need a decent job.