Theatre= Drugs??

I find myself missing production more and more these days. I think that this due to the fact I haven’t done a proper show in a year and a half. I think this was also prompted by a phone call I made this evening. I called a friend who does production, but whom I had met after I had stopped playing in that world. I asked my standard “Hey are you alive?” which in Chris translates into “Hey I miss you and know you’re probably obscenely busy, but I just wanted to say hi and see if you were okay.” He proceeded to tell me the insane hours (a normal person) he was working and that he was in tech. I told him cool and I’d call him later. What I really wanted to say was “Why the hell did you pick up the phone?” Hell when I was in tech my family knew I was unreachable as if I was in another century or on the Moon. I think my non-production friends thought I dropped dead. It is odd to have a friend who doesn’t know how well you understand the world they play in.

However, whenever I come to this point of desperately missing my old life I remember what it did to me. It left me broken, shattered, and barely able to cope in normal life. It was as if I left a cult or finally got off some drug. I look at all I sacrificed or shoved aside for it, stability, monetary gain, finical security, normalcy, friendships, and family. And then I remember all I gained from it, random odd skills, an ability to know that almost no problem is too big, how to say no, getting to live all over the place. It was a fun ride. I was able to inhabit a place where I didn’t need too many social graces, where my ability curse a blue streak could occasionally be career asset, and above all else place that was community bonded together by the mass insanity that we were all participating. There was something wonderful about doing the impossible in seven days. Something great about being able to point at something and say I did that today. When it all came together, it was the best high in the world, and when it didn’t it was the absolute pits.

I find myself not wanting to fling myself back in wholesale but to go and stick my toe in the waters. To go and play and fuck around a bit. But I know myself too well. I have a job that is realtivly boring in comparsion but pays the bills. The arts really don’t unless your playing in the big leagues. And I never possessed the innate talent that is necessary to play at that level. I always felt like I was faking it somehow. I was constantly waiting to be caught. To be called out and told I had to leave. That I did not belong in this amazing collective. And when the shit finally hit the fan, it was a relief, an absolution. That this wasn’t just my own self-doubt and lack of confidence. That was just mediocre at best. Now that there has been time and space I feel like a recovering junkie needing a hit. While the entire time I know if I go get a hit all I’m gonna want is another.

And the last thing I need in my life is to give myself another opportunity to go get my teeth kicked down my throat. I finally got my adult teeth on this set and I’d like to keep them for a while. And as I sit here on this whole, damnit I miss putting on show kick, I find myself wondering if going back to school and eventually getting my masters in a totally different field will fill this gaping hole at the center of me. Which then leads me to ask the question of why do I expect a vocation to do this? After all most people seem to look to another human being to fill this hole in them. I just plain don’t trust anyone else enough to put even the tiniest bit of my future happiness into their hands. What the hell does this say about my ability to be in anything other than fleeting relationship? How the hell did this go from me missing my old life to wondering if I can manage to have a trusting relationship when I’m a mistrusting bastard? Huh, the places my brain wanders if it is given half a chance to.

Socks

So I've been neglecting my poor little blog, not to anyone's dismay. September and October have been odd months for me. They've been a lot of fun but have also taught me a lot of things about myself that I thought I already knew. I'm going to be chewing on this for a while. At least I'm aware of how ruthless I am. Not that I had to be. Just potential situations and I how was thinking about responding to them should they arise. Nothing did happen but the thought experiment was rather interesting. Learned a lot and now its time to process all that crap. To chew the psychological cud so to speak.

But that has nothing to do with socks, save that I learned last month that my three week supply of them has some how dwindled to a two week supply. Apparently my washer just recently became a home to a sock monster, either that or we've got two of them living in the dryers. And thinking of socks, I of course thought of something I wrote years ago. Something I can read without grimacing. So I thought I'd share it with whoever the hell is reading this.

My glasses say I'm a Black Honey Optimist
My shirt says I'm a Champion
While my pants tell me I am Divided

My shoes say that I am of the Earth
While my underwear that I Have It My Way
My bra tells me that its Uplifting

And my socks, my socks say nothing
They do not label me in any way
They keep my feet warm

Maybe I'll be label-less like my socks
Maybe I'll choose not wear the labels I'm given
Maybe I'll just wear white socks and nothing else.
At least my feet will be warm.

-C

CON CCC CON CON CONNNN

Okay so I’m a slacker. I’ll deal. I haven’t had much to write on but today I had a day that gave me material. And while I’m bone tired, I still feel the need to strike while the iron’s hot.

I went to Dragon*Con today. I didn’t get a pass but as a native Atlantan I decided what the hell, might as well go and see what‘s what. It’s in my city and I like to watch. So I got up early and went down to the parade with two friends. I love the parade. It’s just a celebration of nerds doing what we do best, playing pretend. And making really cool shit. The costumes are fabulous and the crowd has a wonderfully infectious enthusiasm. It’s just a wonderful celebration of all things nerd, from Comics, to movies, to books, to realms of fantasy. If it has a fandom, it is represented, and not by people who make their livelihoods off of this but by average folks with abnormal devotion. For most of these people this something you spend all year tucking away (or so it seems more on this later) and then for one glorious weekend in September you flaunt it.

And that brings to the part of any con that just disappoints me. The supposed partying. Now I spent several summers working for an opera company out west. In a state where most people don’t drink. Our weekly themed party (we were bored and there was nothing going on in town) put the supposed craziness of con to shame. Now maybe I missed something but honestly women walking around in states undress just aren’t my thing. Sorry nope. Some of the costumes are great; some are not (more on this later). There is none of the familiarity and boredom that breeds in my opinion true debauchery, madness and generally doing crazy shit that you end up laughing about the next day. Like climbing a mountain while very intoxicated. Or craving Mc Donalds so bad that several of you pile into car drive and get and then go drive up the canyon to watch the sunrise while still drinking scotch and eating out egg mcmuffin ( by the way our driver didn’t drink but found us drunks amusing so she humored us). Or climbing up the side of a cliff and continuing after it was to dark to do so, just to watch the sunset. Or crawling under a glacier because it’s really pretty. Or watching the Northern Lights after having a few beers. Or driving down to the Grand Canyon cause, what the hell we’re close enough any way.

The other thing that strikes me, is that it seems that quite a few people play nerd for one weekend and wait a year, or if they are a full time nerd they hide it or something. Most people who know me know I game. I love it. It’s an awesome outlet and I’ve made close friends because of it. It’s not something I hide. Like my love of music and comics, I wear it on my sleeve. If you’re gonna look down on me because of it that’s your problem, not mine. It’s taken me too long to get comfy to give shit. I’ve got the people that love me, the people that like me, the people I get on with and that for me is good enough. I won’t rule new people out. But if people want to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, fuck em. Not worth it. So for me I guess I’m comfortable as a nerd girl and admitting it and I feel that a lot of people at con haven’t reached the fuck ‘em point. If I want to go wear a corset out, I will, normally under something (it was originally underwear thank you). At con or on Halloween I might work it into outwear but that’s not the point. The point is that I’m me and if I’m going to bother I might as well go as me. I raided my closet for a last minute costume tonight, threw something together in 30 minutes, went to con, and got complements on it. But part of it was that I was comfortable with a. being me and b. being on my own. I carried myself like I do when I’m out by myself. Like I can do you serious harm, but won’t, unless provoked. And when approach in a non threatening way, I open up to talk. And when people do engage me I think we have fun.

Also I’m not trying to hard to be all sexy nerd girl (i.e. jacking the girls up to my chin, wearing the shortest skirt possible, and wearing my corset waaay to tight or two sizes too small). Sorry ladies, know your body type. I know that me wearing a short skirt just doesn’t look good. Really I’m tall but my height’s in my torso, not my legs, so in a short skirt they look top heavy and stumpy. I also realize that my corset is and under bust corset and has no support so I gotta wear a bra.

There are women who can wear the Baroness from GI Joe’s cat suit and look hot. One of my former bosses is one such woman, I on the other hand, not so much. And that’s fine. I might want to do the Baroness, but I need to get creative with how, since the most obvious answer to that costume will be really unflattering. Or maybe I just shouldn’t do that character. Simple, find what works and make it work for you. If you’ve got the body for Princess Leia’s costume in the Return of the Jedi (y’all know which one I’m talking about) go nuts. If your like me, its not gonna look the way you want it too. So just do the costume from the first movie, or the second. Don’t do something that’s gonna make you look like shit when all you want is to look your best. Don’t sabotage your self. And sometimes how you hide stuff can make an outfit sexy as hell too.

Also there are some worlds that no matter how into you are, you don’t do. From ever thing I know which I admit is not a lot, if your not part of and MC don’t wear a cut, even if it’s from a fictional one. Seriously if the wrong people catch you wearing it, your gonna get your ass kicked. I don’t care how big a fan you are you are wearing something that to the people who live in that world is unearned. And those are emulating gang colors. Think about it. Seriously you might as well go up and punch these people in the face. Cause that’s what you’re doing. And they don’t take kindly to that. When the creator of the show tells you this is a very very very bad idea to wear a cut modeled after the ones on the show you might want to listen.

Also if you dress up as Special Forces don’t do the tats. These are things that have to be earned and mean a lot to people in that community. I was talking with an ex SEAL tonight, who was an old school steam punk enthusiast, who had seen someone dressed up as Special Forces with these tats and insignia that mean a lot to that community. He was furious. He seemed for the most part a very kind a gregarious fellow, but he had to restrain himself from causing this person harm. Cause the tats were obviously fake and therefore unearned. And the gentleman wearing them was completely unaware of the fact that this 1. Cheapened the meaning of those markings and 2. Disrespected the people he was trying to emulate. Be careful with real life things, and be respectful of the people who actually live in those worlds. Or it might end in you needing to get dentures.

Sorry that’s my soapbox I crawl up onto every time I go to a con, or a Ren Faire or hell now a days Highland games. And all the things I said above about members of my sex goes for men as well. No one wants to see some dressed up from 300 that is walking Skelton or is morbidly obese. I know this is an outlet and an anything goes type thing and maybe I’m a conservative asshat. Whatever. All I know is that I want people to know that you don’t have to show it all off to pull a hot outfit off. And please keep the girls and the boys, tucked in.

Still I’ll wander back tomorrow, with a cup of coffee and find a nice perch to watch things. However most of my day will be devoted to something near and dearer to my heart, than all things nerd, a perfectly grilled stake. Hello Meatfest, quite possibly my new favorite Labor Day tradition.
Later-C

Sick

That is all.
-C

Cities

So tonight was the night I almost didn’t post. Not that anyone other than me would be disappointed in that fact. Hell I’m not sure if anyone is reading this. Blogging like this seems to be, at least to me, like casting a message in bottle out in to the ocean. Except that I there is a chance that I might get a response. It’s an interesting paradox. Throwing something off into the Void with the expectation that one might get a response. It seems to be a fundamentally human urge. We did send Voyager out into the unknown, not expecting contact, but hoping for it. Odd. Anywhose on one hand I’m not sure if anyone is reading this, but just in case I don‘t want to offend. Strange, it is at once very liberating, supposedly being able to state your opinions through the veil of time and anonymity, and at the same time censoring oneself, just in case. Odd in deed.

Not much happened today. Work and hanging out with a friend and chance encounter with another whilst buying beer. I think that’s what I love about this city. The fact that if I am in the People’s Republic there is a good chance of running into someone I know, and, that if I wander out to other neighborhoods I am just another anonymous person. Its like have a small town and city at once. So that when you tire of one you can go visit the other.

I have to say that I like the fact that I run into friends and acquaintances on the street. I spent most of my 20s as nomad, and if I ran into someone that I knew, it probably meant that I worked with them. And that they were just as much of a foreigner or outsider as I was. It’s been a long time since I have truly gotten the opportunity to get to know an organic neighborhood. A place that has developed and changed over time and really wasn’t planned.

I never liked living out in the suburbs; it always felt so artificial, fake and unnatural. Everything was chains and anything that wasn’t was in the process of being forced out. It always felt like a very transient place to me. A place without roots. Or maybe that was because, living in the suburbs also coincided with the time that I lost my physical link to my roots.

Even so, in this city that is almost a thousand miles from my childhood, I feel that are roots, even if most us who live here are transplants. It’s also the first place that I have lived permanently since leaving my parents home. Maybe that is the reason for my attachment. After all it is very odd for me to be attached to this city.

Had I told myself even 4 years ago that I would live in Atlanta and love it; I would have laughed at myself. I mean I’m terribly far away from home and any long established support network. There are no mountains. No easily accessible woods. It’s really fucking hot in the summer, and no snow. But there are amazing people who have surprisingly become a support network in a very short amount of time. Wonderful neighborhoods for me to explore. Awesome music that reminds me why I enjoy going out to see bands. Interesting architecture that changes styles every couple of streets. Several really good bookstores. Secret hidden parks that you can walk past a thousand times before you notice them, tucked into a hill below the road. Places where in the midst of the city all the noise seems to recede. The scuzziness and the danger. The way the city forces me to pay attention. The odd community that seems to have surrounded me while still leaving me with ability to have my space.

It’s a city of paradoxes. After all I live in a city lacking a central identity where each neighborhood seems to have a very defined one. However those defined identities are very fluid and change with years. It’s a city that more so than anywhere else reminds me of an organism. Like a coral reef. Made up of many unique individual parts that don’t seem to follow a unified pattern, but that create a wonderful chaotic whole.

Maybe I’m just attracted to cities. I’m always curious why they sprout up where they do and why some endure while others fade. What makes people love them and hate them? Why does one place speak to some people while at the same moment drive others away. How they are able to be places of tight knit communities and at the same time harbor soul aching loneness. Maybe I just like paradoxes.
Till Tomorrow- C

PS The cricket in my kitchen wall seems to have vacated my apartment. Either that or its really been digging the music I’ve been playing.

Attack of the Nerd Girl

So it’s an odd Tuesday for me. No dice are rolling, no beer is being consumed, and no hill giants are being turned into squirrels. No Tuesday D&D ( Dungeons and Dragons). Its odd how this event has become a staple of my week and how I rather miss it. However since I spent the day feeling like 18 kinds of garbage it’s probably a good thing.

Work was another day of slinging coffee and dealing with the craziness of working at a small business. Nothing terribly exciting save the fact that my back hurt so bad that I had to sit for a bit. And tomorrow will be more of the same. I should go put the aspirin in bag now.

Okay aspirin is in the bag. I guess I need to find a topic for this entry lest it become an exercise in rambling. Topic, topic, topic…. Topppppppic……. Topic.. To-pic……… I guess I’ll write about gaming. It works well enough.

So I’ve been a RPGer for ages, since I was 14 actually. Now I don’t do computer games or larp-ing and I don’t play to many board games either. I just really enjoy getting together with a group of friends and rolling dice while becoming someone else. I just enjoy getting to deal with parts of my psyche that otherwise get repressed and tend to cause trouble. Yes I am a nerd, a total geek, seriously go take a wander through my movie collection, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the first two X-Men ( the third was awful), all of the official Sean Connery, James Bond movies ( I totally blame my high school boyfriend for this), season 2 of Battle star Galactica ( the new series not that campy 70s crap), Highlander ( there can be only one), Labyrinth, season one of the Muppet Show, ( I freaking adore Jim Henson), Serenity, Young Frankenstein, Space balls ( I love you Mel Brooks) and of course the original 3 Star Wars movies (before George Lucas decided he needed to basically shit all over the Sistine Chapel of Sci-Fi). Yup nerd, plus I have comic books, too.

I’m actually pretty excited about a new character I’m going to start playing in a new game. It’s my first time playing an RPG outside of D&D in ages and my group is playing Rokugan which is a setting in feudal Japan. I’m really exciting because for the first time in forever, literally since I started playing, I am not playing a thief, or a bard ( which I view as a thief that can use magic, hey in 2nd edition I still had backstab). No I am playing a straight up shit wrecking fighter, or in this case samurai, and in this system there is one family in one clan that has female samurai and I’m part of it. My character’s external motto is, “If I can’t kill it, I’m probably not going to be much use.” No negating or using tactics for this one. But what has me really interested is the fact that I’m using her as a way to explore non-traditional women and how they cope with there femininity. I want her to try and establish an alternate to traditional femininity without completely aping traditional masculine behaviors. It’s going to be a constant struggle for her since she is treated essentially like any other samurai by the society but I feel that there should be this conflict within her. Oh yeah and she’s going to be very attractive which is very odd for women in this family so that is something she’ll constantly have to be dealing with.

So is this escapism on my part? Hell yes it is. But in escaping Chris and all the preconceived notions people have of me and that I have of myself, I get to learn a lot about who I am. Especially when I know what I would do in a certain situation is totally at odds with my character. Since I’ve been playing for awhile I know how to fight the urge to make the character do what I would. But it’s still hard, very hard, almost disturbing sometimes, but then again it’s a great way to learn about who you are and what you honestly believe in. Plus it’s a good excuse to sit around and bullshit with friends afterward.

Still it’s nice to have a week off from it. So to help with the slight nerd withdrawal I’m off to go watch some Doctor Who and drink a metric ton of OJ in hopes of feeling better tomorrow.
Till Tomorrow-C

PS The Cricket in my wall appears to like early Radiohead and Iron and Wine. While it’s an annoying little bastard at least it has good music taste.

You can have this chair for the "affordable" price of one arm and one leg.

So in an effort to get used to writing again I’ve decided that as much as possible I’m going to post daily on this thing. Even if it’s short and mundane. Even if I don’t feel like. The one thing I’ve always felt I’ve lacked as a writer is a solid idea of a voice, as well as decent grasp of grammar and an ability to locate misspellings. So this is an attempt to hopefully developed one, as well as fulfill the whole narcissist urge to yell, “Look at me! Look at me! I have something important to say.” It’s really awkward when you do that in public, people stare at you funny.

So that all being said, today was an excellent Monday. I am wiped the hell out. I spent it furniture shopping with a close friend and for the first time in ages I left what I have deemed “The People’s Republic of Atlanta.” I normally live my life and work in an area of Atlanta that seems to run on a slightly different track than the rest of the city. It’s different enough that anytime I wander over to Peachtree Street and into Buckhead or the Westside, I feel that I have wandered into an alternate city. It’s odd for me to think of an Atlanta where cyclists, tattooed freaks and skinny white dudes who dress like my little brother are not normal. But that is what’s normal.

Any way we hit up the garage sale at City Hall East and found a lot of crappy office furniture. Unfortunately anything we liked was already sold so we contented ourselves with being allowed to wander around part of City Hall East with out getting arrested. For any non-Atlantans City Hall East is a truly massive structure located down on Ponce. It has been abandoned for as long as I lived here, and the city somehow managed to sell it and now has to vacate. The thing that makes this place truly awesome is the fact that it was, from the 20s to the 70s, the Sears catalog distribution center for the Southeast. Its industrial architecture from before it came to be soulless and dead. It’s fabulous and it makes me happy that it’s not getting torn down but made into something else. I know there will be housing but the space is just too massive to turn it all into apartments. I’m curious to see what gets put in there.

The customary visit to Ikea was paid to look for shelving and I of course got lost in my Ikea fog. I enjoy Ikea, and for whatever reason it is one of the few safe public spaces for me to allow my ADD to go and wander. And on a Monday I don’t have to worry about hitting people. It was great. I wonder if they’ll ever dig up an intact Ikea one day in the distant future and assume that it was some kind of massive public housing project or that we some how lived in the display rooms. Any way it was a fun thought to ponder as we wandered around trying to find utility shelving. Which is the lasting thing you see before you hit the warehouse section. Unfortunately none of it worked. Where the height was fine the depth was to shallow and etc. Coming out of an Ikea fog to try and figure out what the real dimensions of an object are is a difficult thing to do.
We laughed and headed out.

We met up with another friend for awesome burgers and more girl time. It was so nice to have a girl’s day. We wandered over to this store on the Westside to look at more furniture. Ikea it was not. Most of the chairs a. looked like they wandered off the set of Mad Men (and not in a bad way) and b. cost more than my monthly rent (and I live in a relatively nice area). And on their sign it said they believed that good design should be “affordable”. Last time I checked an affordable chair is not the average rent on an apartment in the city you are located in. Once I got over the prices (every thing was waaaaaaaay too expensive) I enjoyed what we were really doing there. Looking for ideas. My friend has been working on redecorating her space and I’m around to give my opinion. My opinion, we needed to hit estate sales about a decade ago, I swear I saw my grandma’s couch for the bargain basement price of a used car. Still I saw some kick ass shelving that I liked, and I am reasonably sure I can make it, or eventually go over the Container Store and pick it up for a tenth of the price.

We continued onward and upward to a store that has now beaten out my beloved Ikea for Chris’ favorite furniture store in Atlanta. CB2. It is a Crate and Barrel modernist spin-off and while it was much more reasonable than the afore mentioned furniture store it was sadly out of my price range (which lives in the Goodwill and shit I find on the street category). I still drooled over several items and laughed at several others and figured out how to make several others. Muahahah my Ma’s genes never stay dormant. Still, I loved the modern feel and blend of styles which is rare. Normally I hate a good 40% of the stuff I see in furniture stores. I’ve got odd taste. Ask my Ma, she’s helped me decorate several places and is very aware of how f-ing picky I am.

After that I got home with a renewed plan to keep my space cleaner. I managed to clean off my desk (an awesome off the street find, thank you) which is a far scarier task than one might imagine. It has been holding space non personal and non urgent mail for the past, oh, forever… Still for the first time in geological era I am writing at my desk, and as I am a cheap ass in a small space, it is also the first time in ages I’ve eaten dinner on it as well. So all in all I feel very accomplished. So now to watch crappy TV (hello True Blood how are you??) and to return to my regularly scheduled programming of coffee. Till Tomorrow- C.

PS Does anyone know how to kill a cricket that has decided to take up residence in your wall??

Creating dangerous people through......Teaching??

“The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are. "- From Transmetropoltan by Warren Ellis ( he got the quote from elsewhere but I forget where)


So I've been using the fact that I'm not getting enough hours at work to, a. look for another job to make ends meet, and b. checking out the teach for America website. Oh yeah, I've been doing a little recreational drinking, a lot of walking ( go wandering from Inman Park to Cabbagetown, its really neat), and hanging out. But I find myself floating back the idea of teaching. Part me is really sure I'd do okay. And part of me is afraid of cussing in front of the kids and the fact that... gulp... I'd have to grow the hell up, which is something i have successfully avoided until this point. Cause let's face it kids, its put up or shut up time in my life. I can't keep doing what I'm doing. Its been fun but I need that purpose back, and maybe teaching is it.

I've always been a knowledge junkie. Information, even before beer, is my drug of choice. I like knowing stuff and I like sharing that knowledge. I really do. Trust me, if you've seen me on an good night at Manuel's you know this. Or if I've ever lent you a book. I think that it is something that really feeds me. Getting to discuss history, politics and why the world is the way it is, this makes my day and sometimes my week. Now I know a casual discussion and teaching a class full of kids who don't always want to be there are two very different things. And I also don't expect to change every student I meet. If I help one find a path then I've done something exceptional.

Its not that I have low standards, but I have realistic expectations. We don't remember all of our teachers, not all of them helped push us on a life changing path. And I'm cool with that fact. I don't want to teach cause I think I can individually change kids lives. I want to teach to change the system. The problem that needs to be attacked is the institution and how it lets too many people slip through the cracks. I got lucky, in many other situations the fact that I am twice exceptional ( learning disabled and gifted) would have meant that I would have fallen through the afore mentioned cracks. It was due to the fact that I have an observant mother and a really awesome 2nd grade teacher that I got diagnosed. That and the fact that my parents told me what was up in spite of the fact that the school district told them not to. ( They were smart enough to realize that I would a. figure it out and b. have very hard time trusting them again if they lied to me.)

And I believe that it benefits the general population of students to have someone who is like that in charge. Someone who was not just smart. Someone who has seen all sides of the public education system. Who has seen where it works and where it fails. I honestly belive the best way to change a system is not attacking from the outside, but getting inside and then subverting it. And I want kids to learn this. That if the system doesn't fit your needs, don't give up, make it bend in the ways you need it to. That is how I got through college. Be smarter than the system, study it, find where its not working for you and look for the ways around it.

I want them to know that the most dangerous people in the world are people armed with critical thinking and library card. I want them to understand that it ideas that fuel revolutions and change. In short for any comic book junkies reading this, if I teach I want to be the motherfucking Spider Jerusalem of education, minus the filthy assistants, the bowel disruptor, guns, nudity, and with less swearing. But want to some how get across the idea that truth is essential to our world and we need to be able to wade through the bullshit to find out what's really happening.

And that's another area where I feel our education system is failing. Through necessity and through standardized testing ( which unfortunately is one of the few concrete ways to judge how schools are preforming) we have created a society where we know things for the next test and then forget them. We are training parrots. Students aren't being taught to look for trends and connections. And through looking at those trends and similarities we can better understand the world around us. Our form of government depends on having a population that is able to look at facts and critically examine them and then only then come to conclusions. And we are losing this. And that scares me shitless.

They are missing that this on going quest for more knowledge is quite possibly the greatest thing humanity has ever accomplished. They are not learning that we are the only form of life that we know of that has a collective memory. And we have made contributing to that quest something that is not culturally acceptable. That learning for the sake of knowing is considered not cool. I still cannot believe that we have let our libraries turn into homeless shelters. We have free and unhindered access to information. That is amazing considering that most people on this planet cannot even imagine having that opportunity. And we treat it like something matter of fact, to the point where most of us don't take advantage of it.

And if in the course of teaching I can get one student to realize the importance of critically examining the facts, how to make the system work with out being a jackass, and to take advantage of our access to information then I have done my job.

Thank You , How did you know I loved crumbs?

Dear Asshole-
You're a pig. You are a pig because you left all you food dishes sitting on the floor. Now I understand that there is no bus station so I don't expect you to make the flying intuitive leap to ask where to put the dishes after you have finished, but I do expect you to leave them on the table next to your chair. Seriously. It was absolutely delightful to not only pick your dishes up off the floor but to also deal with the coffee cups that had been knocked over. Thank you so much for making my afternoon even more wonderful than it already was.

Sincerely
Your Barista.

What do I want to be when I grow up??

I might need to change the title of this as it looks like my time in the coffee biz may be coming to a close. A cut in hours has made me seriously start to look for another gig. Not because I am unhappy at my current place of employ, but due to the fact that they have had to cut hours across the board and it is no longer financially possible for me stay there. I need to make rent and when my work is no longer allowing me to do so I need to look elsewhere. And so I find myself pondering the question, what do I want to be when I grow up?

I thought I knew the answer to the above question, and for years and pursued that dream with a singled minded fanaticism. I gave up a stable job history, financial stability, stable friendships, relationships, living anywhere near my family, and living like a normal adult. I spent six years as a gypsy, going from gig to gig, climbing I believed, the ladder to success. I got pretty far before my lack of expreince and the fact that I was working against my natural talents, well, bit me in the ass. I was tired, worn out, and sick of having my ass completely kicked in by my job. I just wanted to stay somewhere for more than 6 months, and damn it I still had 5 months left on my lease.

So I took the first job that could possibly pay the bills. I became a barista. And for the most part its a pretty ok gig. Besides the fact that there is no opportunity for promotion ( I work in a currently overstaffed local coffee shop) and the financial rewards were just enough to barely make ends meet. But I was sick of hustling for a job so I made the best of situation until it became untenable. So I'm back to looking for work and again I am faced with the question I successfully ignored for a year. If I'm not a Props Artisan, what the hell do I want to be?

I never have known the answer to that question. I latched on to theatre in high school because they gave me power tools and it was a lot of fun working on team, and there was a tangible goal. I told myself that this was it, this is what I wanted to be. And on every occasion that I questioned that idea, I told myself to shut the hell up cause I couldn't think of better career path.

I am a passionate person and when I am not involved in something I care passionately about I wilt. And I haven't connected to something that I care about deeply for the better part of a year and I feel huge chunks of me languishing. So I've been trying to come up with a list. And I haven't got very far. Here's the list, museum curation, archeology, historian, teacher, professional crazy, going back to theatre, and finding a way for someone else to pay for me to travel while I keep my current apartment. As you can see, easily achievable goals.

I guess that's why I sit in limbo, I can't envision anything clearly. I see no good path, and I refuse to go charging down a path with no clear goal in sight.

But I have to find something else to pay the bills. Something hopefully a little more grown up and with vacation. I really need one.