Overwhelming

Is it really August? Oh dear. Thankfully I can say that Saturday was the last day for Auto L's show and that on one hand I like the guy but on the other hand holy crap he was a pain in the ass. Well, seeing how I am still jobless it looks as though I shall continue on volunteering at the Gallery along with Special Collections. Wavering between death by chocolate or throwing myself off a bridge for my birthday. Chocolate sounds like more fun. Trying not to think of imminant loserdom that, at the fantastic great age of thirty, I will be exactly where I was five years ago except now I have a college degree worth exactly squat.
Life goes on, the family reunion is next month in which I get to see my cousins who will bring their boyfriends and ask me what have I done with my life recently.
Trying to find a gallery in the city that will take my things. Don't know how this will work out seeing how art is dying right and left as the ecomony continues to dwindle.
Have fully embraced my old woman-ness with gardening. Weeding, rather. Trying to make the front yard look nice, if only the grass would cooperate. Fighting an ever lasting war with weeds that seem to pop up every time I yank them out.
Facing phantom limb pain as september rolls by without me being in college. September college was the nicest feeling the world. would settle for a job. onward pointless life in that perhaps someday you'll find meaning.

We've reached the end

Countdown. The last month of twenty nine. I've decided to throw a really big party. ha. 'really big' in this sense means inviting people who are more or less mere aquaintance's and hoping they show up. more like a pot luck party where people can come and go as they please. hoping to get a friend involved seeing how our birthdays are a week apart but so far she doesn't seem too enthusiastic about it. was supposed to go to another party (and seriously this was so exciting to me seeing how I haven't been invited to anyone's party in years) but of course my life being how it is, her brother died the Sunday before so it was canceled. was thinking about making our joint birthday party a triple birthday party to include our friend who's poor brother died on the eve of her birthday.
Feeling somewhat powerless of late. Trying to change destiny is difficult and it seems my life is destined to squat in mediocre non-being and to continue aging to the point where I AM that old woman who collects cats (even though I'm allergic). I can't even get myself a decent job. Beyond hope, beyond changing, beyond it all; it seems perhaps nothing at all is going to happen in my 29th year or any other year for that matter. This day is a day of pissed off depression.

Of Acceptance

Staring over many different views of my life over the last two weeks or so. On the social side I've met people, been doing things with people, been volunteering and have met people but have also been led to believe that my life has reached some sort of strange, strange niche that leaving may prove to be impossible. Why I read those social commentary lists is beyond me but here we go. According to society (this is hardly new to me) I'm a 'red flag'. What does that mean? I'm religious, I believe God has a plan for me. I am very close to my parents(actually, my entire family), my mother is my closest friend. I still depend on them. I haven't had a boyfriend in years. I don't have a wide social circle. I don't have a full-time job I've worked for the last ten years. I'm sensitive and emotional. All of these things apparently condemn me. Oh, and I don't think I want children. Hot DAMN that's even worse!
For some reason after reading that list and being in society all this time it doesn't bother me so much. What I have learned is that most of what people tell you is bullshit. Complete and utter.
They tell you if your guy is close to his mother you better run. Is it seriously that bad that he loves his parents? That if he loves comic books its a sign that he never grew up. So what the hell does that say about me? I'm a freaking artist, I plan to draw illustrations/comics for a living. It seems more like to me that this is just another bullshit attempt of the general population to draw lines at what is 'normal'. That we should all follow in the lines and not differ. and of course if we don't ever break the mould what the hell happens to us as a society? Seriously, the stupidity of the general public. People didn't understand and hated Da Vinci, thought of him as a wacky old coot. and if he wasn't Da Vinci who would he have been?
It seems as though the older I get and more experience I have, sadly the more I dislike the world around me. The world is just so full of stupid its disheartening. Is it any wonder I'm not socially inclined?
So enough of disjointed thoughts. A brief update.
Fourth of July was boring but I ate nice food and visited a cool place. Volunteering has been awesome. Ex GM tried to rope me into taking her shift but I refused. Special Collections tomorrow. Working on illustrating a book and getting it published. (two books actually). Summer is finally acting like summer, getting to be towards 100 degrees. Have small idea to sell things at local junk/antique shop for a little bit of money. and finally have had it driven clearly home how bad the state of the economy is out there. There is literally NOTHING for jobs. Only things like truck driver, nurse, dentist, legal secretary and various really, really crappy jobs. Rather disheartening. I just want to work at the University.

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.