Hi. Come here often?

Save your dirty double entendres.  ;)

So.  Recently funemployed.  Interview in 14 hours with Williams and Sonoma.  A large corporate company.  Most folks (i.e. 95% of the youth in this lovely political hotbed gay lovin' fag-tastic small town of a city) would balk at working for anything corporate.  But I'm sick of small time businesses.  Or rather, sick of working for people who go power hungry out of no where.  Like a random brain cable snapped and all of a sudden they're all out for blood and you're fucked no matter which way you look at it.

I'm also sick of being lied to.  Tired of hearing bosses tell me one thing and then go do something else entirely different.  And bosses, if you're too stupid to figure out that most of your employees are more often than not snarky internet savvy geekzoids then you are really shooting yourselves in the foot thinking we won't find out how you decided to screw us over.  I'm tired of short job runs, tired of freaking out about money, tired of fighting to stand up, tired of holding myself in so tight that I subconsciously set myself up for panic attacks if I have just enough alcohol in me to lower ALL my defenses, tired of being scared of losing my job because all I do is let myself settle for the shitty ones....I'm sick of it.  God damn fucking sick of it.

And then I'm fighting the battles of watching my friends graduate before me, find things that launch them forward financially, finding things that have shaped their lives so that they are serving their passions at MY age...and I'm still in school under the guise that I'll have accomplished something extraordinary with my fancy piece of paper in 2 - 3 years.  I'm fighting myself over and over and over, and it seems like all I'm doing is telling myself that this is the thing that will make it better, this is where I'll finally stop feeling like I'm incapable, that THIS, all of this, will add up and be worth ten times more than I ever amounted to in grade school, high school, and Lord help me the first several years of college.

Where I just didn't know what was going to happen.

But on the flip side to all of that...there are positives to my seemingly mundane and generally ordinary life up to now.  A lot of the time as a kid I felt like I had to be my own rock because I wasn't good at making friends, but I was good at making up stories in my head, on paper, and being a good family member.  High school is a fuzzy memory but what I remember was first discovering I was gay.

And then I came out.  Not once, not twice, but three times.

First as  bi, then lesbian, and then queer.  I met Noah and experienced for the first time my relationship with a transgendered man from start to...now.  It is an ever blossoming and burgeoning process and not only with re-assessing my personal identity but learning new things about him every day.  And I couldn't be more lucky to have such a beautiful man in my life.

I have never butted heads with my family so hard before in my life to keep him near me because while he may not have been family per se to them, he is family to me.  And if you're family, you aren't going anywhere.  Period.  But through standing up for my beliefs and never once thinking that stopping was an option, has earned me respect from family members I would have never expected to earn it from.  It's not something that's given away so easily.

Jobs were in flux for almost 2 years, but I survived each crisis and had an amazing group of friends and family to cheer me on the whole way through.  I'm becoming more and more grateful for my mother the older I get, and there isn't a day where I'm not reveling in awe over our ridiculous relationship and her endless, endless love and support.  Seriously, there is no bottom.  I can't find it.  Not that I should have been looking, but you get the idea.

This is a cycle I visit often inside my mind.  The anger, upset and freak out over what I believe to be lacking, am failing at, or not good enough for.  But after I've let my mind run through all the negatives, it cycles back around to the positives, and realizing that I've personally come a long way as a person.  If I wasn't challenged as much as I have been, I probably wouldn't be the person I am now.  

So...just cycling.  Like you do.  When it feels like the world's about to cave in on my head.  And then I get to go to bed and lie next to the best human in my life.  And wake up to feel like I can conquer the day.  You can't get places without a few scrapes and bruises now and again.  Because then you don't get to flex your cool scars to the cute girl at the end of the bar.  And cool points are everything.

I am so smart! S-M-R-T!

So as I was plodding through my day I came upon an interesting conversation with a friend of mine.  Granted I wasn't looking to create any kind of great debate, and my thoughts on the matter were genuine and true.  To give context, we were talking about school and plans for her going back.

I agree with the fact that debt isn't something one looks forward to while doing the school thing because the more you acquire the longer it takes to pay off the debt.  Or at least that's the usual run of it.  I'll be upfront and say I'm a little more than 20K in the hole right now, and I'm not even done with my God-damn BFA degree.  Why?  Because it took me so long to figure out this was what I wanted.  But anywho.

 School.  Costs money.  Period.  Whether you are the shining golden boy, girl, person, or  gimp donkey with a genius IQ, you're going to watch your bank account wither and die under the duress of trying to carry the weight of respected academia on your shoulders. 

There are alternatives, however, to making this load a little better to bear.  You could be a good ol' boy and join the military, turn into Safari Master of the Universe  and hunt down the wily scholarships and grants that would pay for some or all of your education, or find a government job after surviving the hell of attaining your Bachelor's and after several years of being their bitch-monkey you have your loans forgiven.  (inhale)

We live in a great country where in order to be somebody, you need to be buried 6 feet under in debt to show what a great contributor to humanity you are by willing to give of your heart by the sweat of your brow.  

It's this kind of nauseating rat maze without an exit hole that makes me envious of those who took their Creator given craft and made a living for themselves through self teaching, the balls to live life by the seat of their pants, and my favorite: dumb luck.  

School isn't the answer, but for one reason or another I have made it mine.  There's always a little voice in the back of my head asking what the hell I'm doing here because I'm constantly feeling like I'm not contributing to much of anything.  Although recently I've found a new love with animation and I'm hoping that my labor of love for this new interest blooms into something I can be proud to call my own.  

We shall see, sweet Universe.  We shall see.