A long time coming

I've been meaning to write a blog for a while, mostly about where I am right now...both figuratively and literally. Said phase started about a month and a half ago when driving back to Michigan (defeated) from Philly by way of Boston. Crossing the Canadian border, car stuffed to the ceiling with all my possessions, I hoped silently that I wouldn't be searched or asked any difficult questions. Apparently I couldn't even field the easy ones because "Where do you live?" took me by surprise and I hardly had any sensible answer to give. "Well you see I don't have an address right now because I'm moving back to my parents' house from Philadelphia where I used to live when I was in grad school but now I've graduated and I don't have a job so I'm ...." Unfortunately that sentence isn't an exaggeration. I was incoherent. They were merciful.

Almost two months later, I'm still trying to answer that question. Each sent application leaves a new dream in its wake of my possible new life in whatever random place - NYC or Arlington, VA or West Hollywood. I've got a few promising things in the works but no strong idea of where I'll be next. This transition zone is nothing new however. For the last two years I've been deferring other decisions because of grad school. "I'll figure that out once I graduate and get a job." The job was supposed to be the thing that put me where I'm supposed to be. Now there is no job, and I'm living in nowheresville (the suburbs) just waiting for the call that will send me away to the future or present where I belong.

Some of my friends coupled during grad school and chose their new destinations together. Other friends picked a city and decided to go there no matter what. They prioritized the place or the relationship over the blank career possibilities and seem to be content with those choices. I wonder whether I'm going about this the right way. I feel like my self-proclaimed transitionary stage just enabled my cowardice on other decisions. I haven't decided where I want to be or who I want to be with. In the last two years I acted in ways that didn't accurately reflect myself but oh well, I was transitioning right? It sounds like bs.

I really think that the world is changing all the time. Our mobile, noncommittal generation may indeed be able to change their lives at the drop of a hat - but all any of us really want is something real to stay still. I think it takes more courage to say "I want this one thing no matter what, even if everything else changes. I want him or her with me or I want to be with my family or I want to live in NYC or ... I want to be president someday.

Maybe it sounds crazy, but maybe choosing something other than your job is the best impetus for the next step of life. The real risk is admitting that you want something more permanent than a job. Jobs change every couple of years. What if you pick a relationship and say, hell, I want to give this a real shot. Or jaysis, I'd rather be close to home so I can be an aunty. Or I have to live in New York before I'm thirty. Or I want to be president and everything I do from here on out will be for that. Jobs (even in this economy) will always be around. The real risks are the chances at relationships or dreams that you might never get again. In any case, maybe we should just go for it - with or without the security (paycheck) that we'd hoped for.

Seven days of rain...

Yet another rainy day
Hair inflates like a balloon
Soul shrinks like steamed spinach

On falling apart

Life is falling apart.  Not to be dramatic.  chuckle chuckle.  the sun still seems to be shining but some invisible economy is crumbling.  bad guys are taking all the money for themselves and we're all losing our jobs.  but we have magic machines in our pockets which allow us to connect to anyone, anywhere, in an instant.  we can see other worlds instantly.  we can get on flying machines that actually take us anywhere in the world in a matter of hours.  life is a strange juxtaposition of what we feel and what we've heard is actually happening.  the magic that is the reality of our lives is lost compared to the ever-impending dark clouds of fear.

i am a part of this mess.  i am falling apart while trying to hold it together.  everything means everything and nothing.  i care so much that i don't care at all.  i want to run away from everything i know but i'm scared to death of starting over all over again.  i envy those friends who are settled, or at least more settled than i.  i envy their relationship security, their teamwork, their intimacy.  and yet i would feel entirely stifled and trapped in their position right now.  grad school is by definition a transitory space.  Here comes another huge transition since the one just two years ago, and when it's over i'll have no idea where i belong in the world or to whom i belong.  i wish i smoked because i think a cigarette would do me good.

Whenever i have fits of mental discomfort, i image i'm made of hard-boiled egg and slice myself in one of these.

  

Hi all,

I've got a relatively fun post for today.  My friend Paddytime sent me this questionnaire from 'Inside the Actor's Studio' with James Lipton.  It was actually pretty hard to think of answers.  Anyway, here goes.

What is your favorite word?  Design

What is your least favorite word? Moist

What turns you on?  A good vocabulary

What turns you off?  Macho-ness

What sound or noise do you love?  Summer wind rustling the leaves of deciduous trees

What sound or noise do you hate?  My alarm clock during childhood

What is your favorite curse word? Friggity frack

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Actress

What profession would you not like to do? Lawyer

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?  I'm glad to see you, but everyone gets in :)

The old man and the father gazelle

But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able.

'I'll kill him though,' he said.  'In all his greatness and his glory.' Although it is unjust, he thought.  But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.

He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her...the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them.

But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars.  It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.

Besides, he thought, everything kills everything else in some way.  Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive.

'Ay,' he said aloud.  There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.

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I woke up at 5:30 this morning after a 24-hour trip back from Abu Dhabi.  One of our stops on the trip was a fishmarket.  I bought The Old Man and the Sea at the airport in Frankfurt on the way home.  I read it this morning as the sun came up.  These are some of my favorite quotations.  If you haven't read it you should.  More on Abu Dhabi to come.

Tuesday Haiku

Public radio morning

Sky spitting snowflakes

Wish you were holding my hand

Inspiration

I bought my first piece of signed art today. My fam was walking around Downtown Naples and happened upon the annual art fair. Most of the art was bad but the artists weren't talentless; they just made boring, insipid art. I guess one has to consider the audience - a bunch of wealthy old people probably don't want anything revolutionary hanging on their wall. Anyway, seeing all that stuff reminded me how much I like to make art and how I could make better art than a lot of that; art that people still might want to own.

This all tied in with this week's conversations between my brother and me. Rick's pretty knowledgeable on economics and unabashedly libertarian. He says the economic situation will force people to stop consuming and start conserving. Instead of throwing away a torn shirt you'll take it to a seamstress for example. He also thinks people will become entrepreneurs again. They'll lose their jobs and be forced to create products or services that fill a need. I've had some good ideas that I thought would make money before. But those ideas have never come to fruition because the risk required to realize them was too great. I wonder if getting pushed out of comfortable jobs will force people to wager what they wouldn't before. Perhaps the results will be innovative and fantastic.

Which brings me back to art. It's something I couldn't risk before and the pressure of it made me hate doing it. Now that I'm away from it, I realize I might have some talent, and I might have some good ideas. I bought that picture because it was the first one of the artist's that caught my eye. Michael Bryant is his name. He does the double exposures all in camera, so he's got no idea how they'll come out until he develops the film. I guess it just reminds me that life operates in strange cycles. Sometimes you think you're just going around the same circle all the time and nothing's going anywhere. Then all of a sudden you're someone new, and you're in some new place, and your whole life is different. But at the same time, whatever it is that makes you you is unchanged and you can't escape from it. Nor would you want to.

"plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose"