Thursday, May 31, 2007

Sob

I'm driving home tonight from a foreign film, art house double feature, full moon shining bright against a clear black sky. And I can't stop sobbing. I've been waiting for this cry for almost two days now. Two of the men I love the most in this world are sick. Not flu-sick, but really sick. In hospitals hundreds of miles apart and hundreds of miles away from me. I'm stuck babysitting the dog. And my bestfriend, another one of the men I love the most, might be moving to the other side of the country, settling into an affordable trailer park and buying a bar. I have no job right now, though a big job interview next week. Everything is up in the air, but nothing seems to really be changing. So, of course, the sobbing is par for the course right now.

But I still want to take a picture of this beautiful moon, even if it is with my crappy camera phone. (God, how I really really want a great digital camera!) And I spend five minutes after I park looking for the stray wolf-looking dog that I saw wondering a few blocks away from my house on my drive in, in the complete dark, even though my own dog is probably dancing at the door with his legs crossed. No matter how bad it gets, I'm still me. And it isn't really that bad.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Diaries

Diaries
I leave my diaries
scattered all over the house
in plain sight,
on coffee tables,
next to my purse,
on top of the stack of books on my bedside table.
Confident
That no one would be interested in reading them.

I can't pass up reading something someone else has written. Perhaps fortunately, I've never been in a situation where someone I was dating kept a journal or a diary (or at least I never knew of them having one). I don't really think I could have kept myself from reading it, no matter how wrong I may know that is. I have snuck peaks at my mom's journal and she must have figured it out because, when I went back to really read it, it was gone and I've never seen it since. When looking for a pen & paper in my uncle's desk, I found a notebook of erotica he wrote. I wanted to put it away, but I read for quite a while.

This is why I'm amazed that no one has really read my diaries/journals. Well, I don't think they've read any of them and I assume that, if most people who could have read them had read any of them, I'd have heard quite a few choice words. But I can't write words without somehow feeling that they'll be read by someone other than me- I mean, I don't use short hand or purposely bad grammar.

I think this is why I keep my blogs. I'm just taking my personal journals and allowing the whole world to read them, anonymously. Though I'm still not please with how few people read it, but oh well.

This is why I have started to wonder if I'm not more cut out to be a personal essayist, rather than a fiction or poetry writer. I have this need to bare myself to someone, anyone, the world. But I'm not sure I feel the need to cloak all that in the story of fiction or the lyricism of poetry. Maybe this whole personal essayist thing is just a a result of my generation's (and the one before that's) self-absorbtion and total inability to think about anything other than ourselves.

I keep thinking about something my fiction prof last semester said in reviewing my final portfolio. He said that I tend to protect my characters too much, that I need to let them just live their lives and have challenges while I simply record what happens. Maybe I'm my ultimate character in my writings, the character I really wish I could shepard away from all the bad shit, though I can't really seem to do that.
I don't think I'm too picky or hard to please. I just want to date someone who is slightly interesting and interested in me. I have lots of interests and life stories that I can talk about and I'm sure everyone else does too. But I can't carry the conversation myself! I need some help here girls!

I guess I'm just frustrated. I know there are probably dozens of gay/bi women my age here in the metro area who are looking for a nice woman who will treat them with respect and try to get to know them on a first date and see if they have chemistry together. This is all I really want myself, though I can't seem to find it anywhere. Maybe I expect too much conversation, linguistic back & forth, on a first date but I think that is what a first date is for. I've also recently decried the lack of chemistry I've had with the women (and men) I've met recently but a lack of chemistry is not something I or my date can fix. It is just there or it isn't. Neither of us can really do anything to help chemistry. But we can do something about conversation! Please, I'm really trying on my level. I know that I'm never going to have everything, or most things, in common with my dates, but I'll try to keep a conversation going. I know that most of my interests will probably not interest you on the surface, so I try to tell you why I like things, what is interesting on a fundamental level, tell you a funny story about it, or do something to make it not totally boring for you. I would think that most people would do the same. For example: If you like sports, I'd love to hear a funny story or stat, or why you like a certain sport over another. If you like reality TV, tell me why, what interests you about it, its strengths or flaws, why you watch Real World and not American Idol. I can appreciate you sharing why you like something I don't like. When I ask you about something, I'd like more than just a few word answer. For example, if I ask you about your family, don't just say, "They're cool." That tells me nothing!!!

Ok, look, here it is ladies. I'd love to have a long-term relationship but, first, I'd like to find women I can have at least a second date with. I expect I'll have to get to know quite a few women before I find that LTR and that's ok, but you have to give me something to work with. I'll try to do the same.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Not 9 to 5...or just lazy?

I can do office work. I can have, have had in the past, 9 to 5 jobs. Well, not really 9 to 5 jobs, but jobs with Regular People's Hours (RPH)= 40 hours a week, Monday through Friday, going into work between 7am and 9 am and leaving after 8.5 hours with a 30 minute lunch break. Even now I could probably get a RPH job in a cushy office somewhere, and take a night class or two a semester until I finish up. I could pay back my parents fully and start paying down my student loans. I could even get my own place. By the time I graduated, I could even be debt free. There was a time when this was even my plan. But working RPH Oct 2005-Jan 2006 demonstrated to me that this probably wasn't an option for me. Basically, I hated it.

As a side note, when I quite the last RPH job I had, there were lots of crazy depression and personal issues going on and I shut down my whole life for a few months. Because of this, I can't really say if I could have stuck with the last job, if it world have gotten better, if the money would have balanced it out, if I could have balanced that job and a class or two.

What I do know is that I was miserable those months that I worked RPH. While working at the video store I had crazy hours, often closing the store and getting home at 1am, and I had frustrating customer issues, it was more than bearable, mostly enjoyable, until the end and that was only because of the shitty management. When I left and started working temp offic jobs, I was introduced to new levels of boredom and unbearableness. I had worked over six months doing third shift data entry, which was boring and tiring but I could do homework and read novels. I also did temp office work one summer but it was only for the summer, not long-term. But this longterm temp work, the third placement being quite permanent, was hell. Though my jobs were neither physically or mentally taxing, I got home completely wiped out. My mom and I were trying to exercise together at night, in order to be in better health and sleep better at night, etc, but we rarely did it more than once or twice a week. Any real life stuff had to be done after work or on the weekend. I never had energy either of those times. I slept most of the weekend away. I finally understodd why my parents came home to "veg" in front of the TV, not really engaging in what they were watching like I did when I watched and followed a TV show passionately, why they didn't engage in politics or read magazines or want to watch movies that they "had to think about". Sir has been complaining for years about how his parents' blankly sit in front of the TV at the end of the day, because, in his opinion, it is such a waste of time and brain power, but I finally understood after working this job. And though I'd get home before anyone else, I loathed the idea of having to come home at the end of the day to learn how to cook food I didn't particularly like because it was what my parents (read my step-dad) like. He and I had two cooking lessons together. The second and last ended in me telling him to cook it himself because I obviously couldn't do it right, after which I locked myself, crying, into the bathroom for two hours. I think I'd have gladly paid for fast-food or delivery or even a real restaurant meal on nights when I was supposed to cook rather than having to learn how to cook for my parents after working all day.

The job itself was mindless, monotonous and boring. My co-workers weren't great. Where I was working only added to the crappiness. In most office environments, there are windows, even if you don't get to work near them. Also, you can go outside during breaks. The last assignment I had was in a cave used to store documents. Yes, A CAVE. It took five minutes by car to get to our area of the cave. It was almost impossible to get out on breaks and quite tedious to go out for lunch. But, as this was winter, I never saw daylight unless I went out during the day.

After my mind adjusted to the work, the imaginative part of it went off on its own while the other part did the data entry. We weren't really allowed paper or notebooks at our workstations, lest we steal someone's confidential information. I squarreled away a pen and a small notebook in my pant's pocket to jot down notes for poems and story ideas. We also couldn't keep our purses or the book that we kept to read on breaks at our workstations, which was fine except when a computer system breakdown or error left us all sitting there with nothing to do for hours on end. This usually happened at least once a week.

Ok, so that job especially sucked. And I've known a few people who've worked at cell phone company call centers which really really sucked. And I have a good friend who works sales and customer service for a credit card company. She doesn't LOVE it and it sucks when her sales are down and she's under pressure, but it's just ok. But what's really been plaguing me lately, after this latest job, which I did really like, went south, is whether or not I'm severely flawed because of my dissatisfation with these jobs, the way I mess them up, the way I don't seem to be able to just stick it out like others do? I know Sir isn't happy with the RPH he works. I know my mom can't wait to just retire. But they do it everyday. Just like most people do. I'm starting to worder if I'm not just lazy.

Last Tuesday I went to a poetry reading. My poetry teacher from last semester was there. I know she doesn't teach full-time, but I'd never gotten to ask her what else she did until last Tuesday. She said she writes grant proposals freelance from her home and teaches a class or two a semester. This allows her time to write and submit her own work, to have a meditiation practice, and to raise her kids. She said she just wasn't a 9 to 5-er, though she could do it if she needed to, had done it before whne she had to. I wonder if I'm going to be able to find an equalibrium between just being lazy and not being a 9 to 5-er.

Friday, May 18, 2007

First Semester Back Grades

I finally got around to looking up my grades for this past semester. (I've been kinda too busy with my intersession class lately to do much else.) And, for my first semester back in two years,

I got.....drumroll please.......

All As!!!!!

(Ok, so there was one A-, but I missed that class way more than I should have and I'm just happy not to have failed! My prof was amazingly understanding and I did all my work like a pro because I really loved the class.)

It's weird because this is the first semester that I've really told myself that I don't care if I get all As or not. It's been kinda a mantra when I start stressing about something not being perfect. I don't have to get all As, I don't have to get all As, I don't have to get all As, I don't have to get all As. I've been trying to focus on just learning as much as I can and really getting something from the class because I'm there to learn first and foremost. And, while I'm also there to get a degree and not take these classes over again, I do not have to have all As in these classes to get a degree. And I actually think this semester has been my most enjoyable semester so far. Though it is still cool to have gotten all As to match what I learned.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Conservatives and the French

Today after class, I was running errands for my family, listening to Rush Limbaugh (I know, I know, that was my first mistake, right?). A female caller, responding to something another called said about the French Presidential election effecting the US Pres Election in 2008, said that the election shows that 85% (don't know where she got this number since I think the guy won with only 54% of the vote, out of 84% turnout) that 85% of the French people didn't want to vote any more socialists into office and that didn't surprise her because most of the people in France, especially those living in the countryside, are basically decent people. (I should note, as a disclaimer, that I'm not absolutely sure this is what she said and that I'm not taking this from any transcripts, just what I remember hearing. I am probably wrong. I usually am. Maybe she was just saying that 85% of people voted and most of those were decent people who didn't want socialism and thus voted for the other guy.) Either way, I think she seems to be saying that no decent people could be for socialism and that the people in the country are both definately decent and against socialism, as opposed to those who live in the cities and the suburbs, many of whom might not be decent and might want socialism. Mmmmm....

Today was my first day of my intersession film class- Radical Changes Since 1945. It's three hours a day, five days a week for three weeks at the art house theater in Westport. Yea! Three weeks of non-stop films. And I get out early in the afternoon so I have the rest of the day to run errands and do whatever, unlike if I didn't have to be up for this class, in which case I'd be sleeping all day. But, to my point. our first reading was the introduction to Esslin's 1969 book Theater of the Absurd. When discussing why artists from all over the globe (meaning from all over European countries and America) came to Paris to work on their art, he writes that Paris isn't a French center for art but an international center for art, and that it is a magnet for people seeking the freedom to like an unconformist life and produce their art in an environment where they wouldn't have to be looking over their shoulder all the time to judge what their neighbors might think of them.

Is there something wrong with me that I appreciate the second description of France much more than the turn away from "socialism" that all the American conservatives are hoping will happen with this new president as expressed by the first paragraph?

Sunday, May 06, 2007

I Cheated Myself Just Like I Knew I Would

I just can't seem to get it right for too long at a time.

Amy Winehouse-You Know I’m No Good
Meet you downstairs in the bar and heard
Your rolled up sleeves and your skull t-shirt
You say why did you do it with him today?
And sniff me out like I was tanqueray

Cause you're my fella, my guy
Hand me your stella and fly
By the time I'm out the door
You tear me down like roger moore

I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told ya, I was troubled
You know that I'm no good

Upstairs in bed, with my ex boy
He's in the place, but I cant get joy
Thinking of you in the final throws,
this is when my buzzer goes

Run out to meet your chicks and bitter
You say when we're married cause youre not bitter
There'll be none of him no more
I cried for you on the kitchen floor

I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told ya, I was trouble
You know that I'm no good

Sweet reunion, jamaica and spain
We're like how we were again
I'm in the tub you're on the seat
Lick your lips as I soak my feet
Then you notice lickle carpet burn
My stomach drops and my guts churn
You shrug and it's the worst
To truly stuck the knife in first

I cheated myself like I knew I would
I told ya I was trouble,
you know that I'm no good

I cheated myself, like I knew I would
I told ya I was trouble,
yeah ya know that I'm no good