Crossroads

Once again I find myself at a major crossroads. No car, no job, still in grad school... but i hate it. I applied to do a second undergraduate degree in Japanese and ESL, but i haven't heard back from the school year (Eastern is bad with paperwork it seems). Obviously the biggest problem is simply my lack of a job. I still have an apartment to pay for (they don’t let you break the lease here unless you basically want to pay half what they’re going to get anywhere for the rest of your lease ^^;;) so I DO need a job, but… it’s not quite that simple. I left my last job without putting in my two weeks notice because I was so frustrated and could no longer commute due to my migraines. So that basically screws me whenever a job wants to run a background check (which is always). The first number they call they’re going to get a bad review. Although I did fine work there and probably would have eventually been able to switch to a less stressful job… it wasn’t going to be anytime in the immediate future. Sadly now I have to somehow get two jobs to pay for my apartment – way too many bills. Before I didn’t have enough energy to get a second job… now, since my first job (whatever that will be) very doubtfully will be the same as what I was making in my last job, I really need to have two. Only, my feet have been seriously killing me: I think I might have a bone spur. How I’m supposed to stay on my feet for two jobs straight isn’t very clear. Or, even, how I’m supposed to get those jobs.

Right now it seems that a lot of businesses are having a hiring freeze. Pretty much any retail job and half the restaurants. I do have skills, but Michigan’s economy has been rotting away year after year and with the current economic crises, it’s somehow amazingly even worse. I tried to do this canvassing job last week but… I guess the rules dictate that you raise $110 in donations every night for the whole year… and I made zero dollars. The catch is, if you want to keep your jobs you become trained as a “director” and then you have other obligations that keep you employed, except I can’t really be shifted from state to state as a director would be. I’m still in school, and I have a lease on this apartment. The only other job I’ve been offered so far is Vector Marketing (basically selling knives in people’s homes), which is also impossible to make money at. I’m guessing before too long I’m going to be evicted. Even if I can get another loan for next year there’s no way it would pay for this

apartment.

This all adds up to basically to me losing my mind and probably is the reason for all my migraines. I’m not 100% sure of course, but it’s a safe bet. Migraines… make it hard to get a job (you have to be able to go outside when sun’s shining), and even harder to concentrate at work (note: this is why I lost my last job). I guess a lot of people don’t have it quite this bad, and others have it worse… but unfortunately I don’t have a spouse to turn to. My parents won’t bail me out, and even if they did, I would have an even harder time finding work way out in the country. I guess I need to get a better attitude and put things in perspective and all that. So… how does one do that?

Very Odd

The other day i was shocked to discover i had to explain to my mother what narcolepsy is. she'd never heard of it. Even though she's been alive 33 years longer than I have. it was the first time in as far back as i could remember that i had to do explain something for her (that wasn't technology related). She is like a scrabble and trivia champion, it always blows my mind when I catch her on some bit of minutiae.

I guess it's not that important in the grand scheme of things if my mother knows about narcolepsy or not... But somehow i had always thought of her as this rock-solid reliable source of information (putting our religious and political differences aside). To have my paradigm cracked in this way is extremely disquieting. I guess in the end, nobody's perfect.

Stuck in the Shoals

Last night I had a date. At least, I want to believe it was. Of course nothing happened, and for that I have no one to blame but myself. I need to seriously ponder if I've matured at all since high school. I still make a far better supportive female friend than an interested male date. I know I've accumulated more street knowledge, and am slowly coming to terms with how to tell a joke or two, but in terms of actual social development it feels like I'm standing on the shore of a great sea of doubt and watching the waves of failure continually crash against me.

I don't think it's my appearance, though admittedly I still wear glasses. I try to exude an air of cool and hip, but appearances are only meaningful to the pathetically shallow. Maybe I am shallow... how would I know?

I brought her a dozen cute roses. She didn't give a shit. An obligation to put them in water. No need to display them somewhere. Perhaps this is a tradition that died decades before I was born and no one told me? Yet another example of having absolutely zero experience with these things. What did I seriously do in college? Aren't you supposed to learn how to be a real person in college?

I made it a case to take off my shirt to show her my tattoo. Nothing. I felt like a girl switching dresses with her friend. And the really sad part? I would love to do that. If I really do make a better girl, than what do I do with that? Certainly I have no lesbian waiting for me, as I lack the needed accouterments. Physically I'm short, but I need about ten more years of yoga before I can pass as female. And why would I seriously want that? Supposedly my friend Janine became a woman because she wanted to experience lesbian sex. I want to be a woman so I can, what? Fit in? What an oxymoron.

What is needed to be a successful man? Power, wealth, abuse of women, some other awful stereotype I'm not capable of? If I were to trace my history of masculinity back, I can't find the divergence. As soon as my brother was in middle school he was attracting the opposite sex. I was, what? Being awkward and inadequate. Both of my brothers are now happily married (mostly). There has to have been some critical stage in male development I never was presented with. Some test of manhood which decides if you sink or swim as a guy, and I got lost and never found the proctor.

This all of course negatively effects my self-image. If I thought I was god's gift to women, I probably would be. Instead I find myself on the road to loneliness and too many cats in my mid-twenties. WTF. Is there really anything that can be done at this point to feel comfortable in my own skin? For years I couldn't even look at myself, spare to shave. If I do so now it's as one might look disgusted upon Buffalo Bill.

I make for a dutiful son, but what does that say? I'm sure I would make for just as dutiful a daughter.

Sometimes I think it would be easier if we've never developed sentience. If I didn't ever have to look at myself in the mirror. Maybe I'd be one of the jackles who waits in the wings for his time to pounce. Psychology doesn't work like that. If I don't take it upon myself to be interesting, witty, fun, drunk with life, sexy, miskept, whatever else there is that makes men attractive to women, how can I ever know what success feels like? I don't want to go my entire life hoping the right woman will come along. I'd rather know NOW that I'm a complete failure and should become a Buddhist monk.

"Special Libraries Association does have a Read or Die sound to it"

Above quote is courtesy AndersH from #lililicious

I've decided to change internally to Library Science from Young Adult Library work (which ended up requiring far more energy and creativity than i am capable on any given day) to Asian Library work. I know, I know... it requires knowledge of 3-4 Asian languages and often a European Language as well. I'll pull it off somehow... or die trying?