Sighs

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Romans 8:26

Sighs too deep for words. I kind of feel like I’ve had a few of those this week. I’m sure I’m missing some important events since my last blog but I don’t feel like reading it and filling in gaps. Wednesday I found out that a job I had been waiting on to be offered was denied funding for this school year. It was pretty much the perfect job for me. I would have been working on main campus in the union in a corner office doing gender and sexuality programming and overseeing two resource centers. The job has been vacant since July and was reworked into something perfect for me. I’ve been busting my ass to do at least half of the vital duties in my own free time since someone needs to do it, plus it was a good way to get one foot in the door. I’ve been checking online almost daily to see if it was advertised and I had my cover letter, C.V. and references all ready to submit. Then on Wednesday I was standing in line at the union to buy a slice of pizza before rushing to a class to give a Safe Zone presentation when I saw the dean in charge of the position. She looked sad and apologized that she wasn’t able to get the position funded. She even had cosponsorship from a VP. There simply wasn’t any money. I know the job was never mine but I was so close. It was my little light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve recently decided that Laramie is great aside from two things. 1) I’m bored with my job. 2) I’m lonely and I wonder if I will ever meet a worthwhile guy here. I figured if I could just remedy one of those situations then that would be enough to forgive the 8 month long horrible winters and the fact that I have to leave the state to buy clothes. They will ask again for the next academic year and maybe by then we’ll have money again.

I seem to have met a guy. A guy that lives in this town, is my own age, grew up 30 miles from me in the same county, has a dog, knows practically all my friends, and I’ve actually known for years. He moved away for a few years and just recently came home. So, since he is available and interested I have instantly decided that I don’t like him. I do that. I rewrite reality to make guys that show interest into monsters. Frick… how did I get so damaged? We had coffee on Sunday. It went well so we had a beer. That went well so he asked me on a date. A real date, no games, no pussyfooting around, direct. “Would you like to go on a date with me?” It was so refreshing and to the point. I said yes and meant it. But then my demons came out to gnaw at me. “Oh, he smokes so you can’t date him even though he’s trying to quit.” “He smokes pot sometime so you can’t like him even though you really don’t give a shit if anyone smokes pot.” “He’s not a GQ model.” “His dog is too small, your dog might eat it.” And so on… until I had invented an entirely fictional troll. The date was supposed to be last night (Thursday) but he postponed on Wednesday since he was sick. Then yesterday afternoon he texted to say he was feeling much better and wanted to know if we were still on. I need at least 24 hours to acclimate to the idea of a date and so I freaked out. I told him I made other plans after he canceled. I didn’t mention that those plans were to go home, make a frozen pizza, and eat the entire thing while watching back to back episodes of Doctor Who… Then I felt bad and stupid so I compromised and we walked our dogs together. True to form, my dog was horrible but I kept her mostly under control. His dog was wearing and adorable argyle sweater and we walked through the park for almost an hour just chatting away. It was good. I’m a dumbass. Then I asked him to see a movie with me, which surprised me. In the moment I think I’m true to myself. It’s later that I go insane. Or maybe it’s later that I’m able to digest things and come to a better conclusion… frick… more second guessing. I should be institutionalized.

Um, so what else is going on… I’m getting ready to have a Halloween party. Actually, I need to send out e-vites today. I’m dressing as Doctor Who. I’m a dork but I’m excited about it! I have my suit, I have my sonic screwdriver and psychic paper, my hair is growing out, my glasses are in the mail, I just need the brown trench coat. I’ll hit the second hand stores again this weekend.

This week I gave 2 Safe Zone sessions, one for a class of 32 future teachers, and one for 16 people that just wanted to go through the program. It was really heartening to put 48 people through the program. They were all involved and interested too. The teachers make me really happy. 32 future teachers that will know how to create safe classes for all their students… that’s cool. Doing work like that is really rewarding since I can go home at the end of the day and feel like I really made a difference in the world. It makes me happy but then it made me sad again since I was so close to that being my “real” job instead of just something that I spend a ton of time doing on my own.

Work has been frustrating. I don’t’ want to say more than that.

Things at home are mostly good. I love living there. This weekend was a tad awkward since my roommate asked me if I could go somewhere else for a few hours so he could have sex. The awkward part was that I knew who he was having sex with and that I was also expected to come home when they were done and have dinner with them. Gross. Weird. Awkward. It turned out to be ok though since I came home hyped up on caffeine, slightly drunk, and in a bit of a glow from having an unexpected first date.

This weekend – painting the living room, risotto, Where the Wild Things Are, another date, purple sticky rice, beers with friends/ coworkers, and Halloween planning – in no particular order.

Liminality

Between two places. Threshold.

It’s been a long time since my last post. I’ve been really busy and I guess I just haven’t felt the urge to blog. I find that my blogging usually corresponds to times in my life where I need an outlet to vent since something is not right or I’m not happy for some reason. So, I guess not blogging is a sign that things are going well for me. That’s good news I guess.

I came to an interesting realization recently. I always sign my name with a ~ before it on emails. In addition to being a tilde it’s also a sign of approximation. So, what I’m really saying is that I’m only approximately myself so I’m always in a state of becoming. I suppose this is probably accurate. I’ve always felt like I’m sort of between places and “becoming.” Becoming what… who knows… more myself? I suppose that’s probably true.

I’ve been a busy little bee lately. I went home to see my family the weekend before last. It was nice to see them and I’m happy to say it was less awkward than it’s been for the last few visits. Nobody outed me to an extended relative, nobody got all creepy conservative on me, there was no discussion of uncomfortable political differences, it was just nice. The weirdest part of the entire weekend was when my dad and brother were gone and it was just me and my mom hanging out at home. I have no idea how to use their TV/satellite. I don’t even have cable anymore and they have pretty much every channel in the universe and just one universal remote to run their huge flat screen, DVD player, satellite, and whatever else it is that my brother has installed. So, when my dad left he plunked the intimidating remote next to me on the couch and I found myself watching a rerun of a show on Food Network that I don’t even like. My mom came in and asked what I was watching and I mumbled something vaguely comprehensible that she interpreted as “please change the channel since I’m scared of this remote.” She found HGTV since apparently that’s what she watches when dad leaves and Color Splash was on. She apparently just adores the host of this show and went on and on about how cute he is and how much she likes him and then she got all conspiratorial and asked if I thought he was gay. I had my laptop next to me so I just googled his name. I didn’t really need to google him to know he was gay, he was practically vomiting rainbows. So, I told my mom that yes he was gay and then she wanted to know how old he was and where he lived and implied that it would be ok if I brought him home some day. Weird as it was, it was very sweet of her. My parents are great.

October is gay awareness month and I’ve certainly been aware of being gay. The GLBT student group has been keeping me very busy lately with events. Sunday night we wrote all over the sidewalks for the “first national you-are-loved sidewalk message project.” It was really cool and I actually ended up on the evening news because of it. Sometimes people just need a reminder that they are loved.

I went to church for the first time in years last Sunday. The Universal Church of Christ in town is having their “coming out” party as an open and affirming church and the pastor asked for people to come talk with their adult study group about our coming out stories. They were so supportive and accepting and wonderful. It was amazing to be asked into a church exactly as I am. His sermon was really good too. He started with the story of Jonah and the Whale, talked about how he doesn’t believe this is a literal story but how it is most certainly “truth.” Just to hear a pastor say that he doesn’t believe in the literal translation of the Bible meant a lot and that he recognized the fact that it’s a parable – a teaching story. Then he talked about liminality, one of my favorite subjects. I love the idea of in-between places since I often feel like I’m in a state of flux from one form to another. His sermon was about the in-between times in your life and about how sometimes it takes a big event to shake everything loose so that you can “rearrange your internal furniture.” He even talked about how the church was in an in-between place now of moving to be an open and affirming church that welcomes same gender loving and transgendered congregants. This morning I saw that I missed a phone call from him, asking if he could borrow a rainbow flag or some sort of rainbow flair to decorate the church with next Sunday. It’s going to take a while to wrap my mind around all this. He even offered to do commitment ceremonies for GLBT people. That’s big.

My life has been in a sort of constant state of change for as long as I can remember and I feel like I have even bigger changes in my future. Eventually a new job, eventually I’ll buy a house, eventually I know I’ll meet someone and hopefully have a commitment ceremony. These things could all be years and years away but they are on the horizon and that’s comforting. Change is a good thing. Liminality is a good thing. Pleasant surprises are great. I guess I’m happy and that’s great too. It’s probably weird that I have to use the words “I guess” in terms of my own happiness but it’s hard to see yourself since you are standing at ground zero.

I am Imaginary

I don’t exist. Or at least sometimes I worry that I will stop existing for certain people. I don’t mean that in a “death or dying” sort of way or even in some sort of weird existentialist sort of way. Or maybe I do… but that would require reading up on existentialism and I don’t want to do that. It’s just that sometimes I worry that my existence is dependent on others paying attention to my existence. Sort of in the same vein as “if a tree falls in the woods…” or how “fun” doesn’t really count as “fun” to my dog unless someone is watching.

I have some great friends that live in the same town as me that I see fairly often, but other than my roommate I don’t really “hang out” with anyone a regular basis. Sure there are occasional lunches and coffees and cocktails after work but there is nobody that I actually spend time with on purpose more than once every week or two or three. So many of my friends are “e-friends” that live in a different city, state, or even country. I spend an inordinate amount of time writing to people each week that I’ve not seen in weeks or months or even years. Some of these people are incredibly important to me and even if I don’t see them I can’t imagine what my life would be like if they weren’t a part of it at some point in some way. But then I wonder if I just stop writing to these people, how long would it be before they noticed? A month? What would happen if we just never spoke again? Friendship has no contractual obligation… so what keeps us together? I’m almost afraid of answering that question because often the answer might be; “nothing.” I keep these people with me as memories. They are sometimes badges of accomplishment, sometimes morose reminders of failed relationships, and sometimes reminders of who I once was.

I can think of at least 4 people that were at various times my “best friend” but I have seen in months. And knowing this it makes me wonder where I’ll be in a year, or 5 years, or 20 years and who will my friends be then. Will I finally give up on all the imaginary people in my life or will I still be diligently writing to them? Will they give up on me and let me shrink back into the corners of their memory? And if that does happen then what was the point? Or will they stop being “imaginary” friends and go back to being “real” friends that I hang out with regularly? Will they somehow get bumped up the list? Will fate draw us back together? And it’s this hope and possibility that makes staying in contact worth the effort.

For the record, if you are reading this, it probably doesn’t apply to you. Few people still bother to read this blog and those people I imagine will probably stay with me in some way forever. I guess the people I’m worrying about right now fall under the category of “almost lovers.” People that I had a short relationship with or would have liked to have had a relationship but something prevented it. People that I cared about very deeply for a very short amount of time and longed to make a part of my life but couldn’t do that in any way other than “pen pal.” These are the people that I still hang on to. Some of you might remember almost a year ago when I accidentally fell in love with an author. We spent so little time together but it felt like we had always known each other. We still keep in touch but he’s busy writing and teaching and has a boyfriend and lives in a different country. I write and I wait a few weeks and eventually hear from him. Each time I about convince myself that he’s ended our friendship by simply not writing and each time I almost come to terms with what that would mean to me and then an email shows up apologizing for not writing sooner. Sometimes I think it would be so much easier to just let this go… to let him lapse… but I can’t and I won’t. There are others that I have on my messenger list that I chat with once every month or two. Guys I was hopeful about but again something prevented a real “in person” relationship. No matter the reason seeing them online or getting an email is simultaneously a happy but very nostalgic moment for me.

I know this post is out there. It rambles and doesn’t make much sense. I just needed to write. Congratulations if you made it this far.

To let loose.
To let free.
To breathe in.
To breathe out.
Peace out.

Labor Day

It seems like I started writing a blog last week but lost interest and deleted it. I believe it was about the ongoing “Velveeta Saga.” So, I’ll shorthand the story and move on. My roommate is a food snob. (Well, a Euro-snob in general but specifically food - seriously he spends hundreds of dollars on food each month.) I bought Velveeta to make mac and cheese while he was gone one night. It’s how my mom made it, I know it’s mostly chemicals, I realize it actually has the word “food” in the title and that it’s not actually “cheese.” I just wanted it because it was familiar and comforting to me. Many discussions, much debate, a few hurt feelings later… fast forward… the Velveeta box is still in the fridge but is now in an actual red biohazard bag on it that I've ignored for almost 2 weeks. Damn snobby Czechs… I’m sure he ate something even worse as a kid… pig brain or something…

Otherwise, things are pretty good at home. I sometimes get cranky and need some “me” time but that’s normal. All complaints and differences aside, I like having a roommate, even if he is a Euro-snob. I think he had a date last night. He showered and left for hours and basically told me to “not wait up.” But he was deliberately mysterious about it as if he wanted me to ask where he was going. I didn’t. I was just happy to have some time to myself. My only regret is not eating some of my nasty “processed American cheese food product” while he was gone!

I had a nice Labor Day weekend. Friday night I was a grump and stayed home by myself to watch Doctor Who and eat Ben and Jerry’s in bed. Sometimes I just need a night to myself and that specific night I just couldn’t face the prospect of hanging out with my Euro-snob roommate and his even snobbier European friends. Spending an evening with people that immigrated to this country from other places to work and having them bitch about how much better their home countries are is extremely tiresome and makes me spout off very republican sounding things. So, I try to avoid that now. I appreciate their loyalty to their home countries but I get tired of explaining why things are done differently here and I get sick of having to defend things I don’t even fully understand myself. For example... roads that are solid instead of cobblestone. Sure, if we have to replace them, then they have to be ripped out and re-poured entirely and yes it's a huge pain in the ass... but cobblestone streets don't work in an environment where you have to remove snow for 9 months of the year or have heavy fast moving traffic. It's not a better or a worse system, it's simply different, shut up and quit bitching or move back to where you came from! :-P

Saturday night I went to the opening of a tapas and martini bar in the next town over. Some friends I hadn’t seen in a long time invited me and I was grateful to be out of town for a night! We had a martini at their house before going out. Well… most of us had one martini… someone had 2-3 and was drunk before getting to what might have been the classiest place in town. (That still isn’t saying a lot for this town though.) His boyfriend was tad embarrassed but I thought it was pretty funny and I had a great time. Best of all, it was totally free. Free tapas, free martini, free desert, all of it. We did leave a good tip since we were kind of a pain for our waiter. After, we went to an older gay couple’s house to chat and drink a beer or two. It was so nice to get out and spend time with new people! Sometimes it’s nice to step out of your own existence for a night and experience new things.

Sunday we painted my room. Well, we primered my room to be more accurate. First there was the taping of the trim, then the covering of the floor, then the primer. Two coats later, my room is white. The actual proper painting will take place next weekend. Still no idea what color. Not blue, not white, not green, not yellow. That doesn’t leave much… brown, orange, pink. The last suggestion was “watermelon.” Well, actually the last suggestion was squares… but I don’t see either of those happening. I’m thinking maybe a reddish/ pinkish sandstone color if I can find the exact shade I’m thinking of.

Then Monday (Labor Day) we got up early (for a day off) and went up to the mountains to do some hiking. I took the doggy along but had some very mixed feelings about it. I’ve never taken her hiking before since she’s dumb enough to run into the woods and get eaten, or push me off the side of a cliff because she smelled something interesting. I was glad to have my roommate with me since we took turns walking her. It was pretty much the coolest thing to ever happen to my dog. There were smells and things and… and… and! Unfortunately, in her excitement she totally wore herself out and then we had to practically drag her all the way back to the car. She slept the rest of the day. She was still pretty groggy this morning when I left for work.

And now… back to work. Only about an hour left to go then I’m slipping out early for a meeting on main campus. I feel fall creeping up and I noticed a few yellow-ish leaves yesterday. Boo… I would love fall if it didn’t mean winter was just around the corner.

Twos

Wow, it’s been over two weeks since my last blog post. I just haven’t felt like blogging for some reason. I always have things to say; just sometimes I don’t feel like writing them down to anonymously post in a blog. (Even though I’m not sure how anonymous this is anyway.)

So, I guess to start – a follow up on the last blog. I wrote about how my dad outed me to my grandpa, which was fine since he had permission. But I guess the story didn't end there. To recap, my grandpa jokingly asked if I was gay and my dad very mater-of-factly said that yes I am gay. I guess they chatted a little while longer and my grandpa said something to the effect that he just doesn’t understand how that works. My dad just looked at him and said “you don’t have to understand, you just have to accept him.” I almost cried when my mom told me the rest of the story. I am really blessed to have such amazing parents. That was exactly the right thing for my dad to say.

Things at home are a little weird and confusing still. I feel very much at home there. Possibly more than I ever felt “at home” even after 2 years of living in my last apartment. With the (near) completion of the upstairs bathroom and the installation of new recessed lights, the house took on a very warm “housey” feel that I love. And I like not being alone and sharing meals with a friend.

My dog is behaving a lot better than she ever has before. She loves having more people around and we actually had a guest over on Sunday night and she wasn’t a total embarrassment! She treated him just like he was one of the regular inhabitants of the house. Daddy was very pleased.

As I said, the roommate situation continues to be a little weird and confusing. He might have proposed to me last night. I’m not sure. I know… you are either proposed to or not, there is no “not sure” but… well… I’m not sure. I’ll pick up on the possible proposal in a minute. First some more back story. Last week he asked me if I would be his “insignificant other” at a going away party bbq thingy for one of his colleagues. I was a little offended at the “insignificant” part but I certainly don’t want to be “significant” either and I also decided that bbq accompaniment fell squarely in the realm of “boyfriend duties.” But I also knew that he wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t want me there and I remember going to work related events alone and hating it so I was considering going. I would have known at least 2 other people there and going to functions and meeting people is probably good for me. My other option was a shopping trip I had been putting off for some time. I needed new jeans. All my pants had more or less simultaneously self destructed so I had like one or two pair left that didn’t have a huge rip in the ass or weren’t embarrassingly short or something like that. I explained this to my roommate on the day of the bbq and he was feeling a little passive aggressive since I wasn’t going with him so he said something about how my ass and bad pants were the least of my problems. Well, that settled it. I was not going anywhere with him if he was going to be crabby. I gathered my shit and drove an hour and a half south to the nearest Banana Republic to partake of 30% off jeans.

Have you ever done something you thought was completely out of character only to realize that you’ve actually done it before and therefore it was pretty normal for you? It’s sort of an unsettling feeling to learn something new about yourself that is slightly less than desirable. I might have sort of possibly been a party to a booty call while I was on my shopping trip. The confusing part is that I’m not sure if I made the call or answered it and somehow I wasn’t aware of what I was getting myself into until it was happening but it still wasn’t a surprise. I’ve known the guy for at least a couple years and somehow every time we have spent more than 5 minutes together we’ve eventually ended up naked and sweaty. It’s just not been so direct before. In the past he’s usually been passing through and needed a place to stay and then “stuff just happened.” This time there was no pretext, we both knew why we were there. I guess it wasn’t really a big deal, just sort of unexpected in an “I should have figured that out sooner” sort of way. It was nice to see him and I have no complaints.

So, I guess to recap… my roommate might or might not be hitting on me and seems to not know if he wants to date me or not and so he asked me to a bbq and instead I drove to a different state to bang another dude. That would seem really slutty except I am most certainly single and I have always been at least a little in love with the guy I went to see. The last time he was in town a friend saw us having dinner together and she asked who he was. I just said “he’s the one that got away.” Damn, he has pretty eyes… and now he’s running through my mind again. Why can’t I just have a normal relationship where both parties like each other and everything can work out? I’m tired of only be being liked by people that I can’t be with or liking people I can’t have. I think I’m going to write a book about my relationships and call it “Unrequited.”

So, back to the possible but not probable proposal. I got home last night a little before 8:00. I’m usually home much earlier but I’m taking a 6:30 yoga class. My roommate was standing in the kitchen looking unusually grumpy. It seems he almost got hit by a car biking home, was hungry, I was late, and it was probably my turn to make dinner. That would make me grumpy too. But I was unusually cheerful after my yoga class so I didn’t let it bother me. I took a quick shower and then offered to help him make dinner since he was working on a salad when I got out of the shower. I decided to make grilled pastrami and swiss on rye bread since the bread needed used up and was getting a tiny bit stale. There was a bit of a heel left after I made the sandwiches. My roommate asked me what we called that and he was pleased to find that it’s a heel in both English and Czech. Then I cut it in half put it on the plates with the sandwich and that’s where the weirdness came in. It seems he so strongly approved of the eating and/or sharing of the last bit of the bread that he said he almost wanted to propose to me. I played it off as a joke and asked; “over a heel of bread?” And he got kind of serious and said; “for a lot of reasons.” I just told him to eat his sandwich and ignored the entire situation. Later in the meal he announced that he found me a “husband” online and described the site the guy’s profile was on and what he looked like. One minute it’s near marriage proposals, the next he’s pimping me out to strangers. Boyz R dum.

So, after not sharing anything for weeks I’m probably over sharing in this. But I guess that’s just how I roll.

Family... you have to love them

I went home this weekend to visit my family. I haven’t been home in almost 6 months. I didn’t realize it had been that long but my mom certainly knew. I had seen my family though, they came down here once, I saw my mom and dad midway once, and my brother came here to help me move… plus I talk to my mom about 3 times a week and my dad and brother once every week or two. Sometimes I wonder how I even came from there. I outgrew the town years ago but you aren’t really allowed to outgrow your own family.

I got home and there on the kitchen counter was a pistol. The clip for it was sitting next to it. And next to that was my brothers NRA membership card. I had seen this pistol before but it used to be kept locked up in a closet somewhere. I have no idea why it was just sitting on the kitchen counter with the bullets for it right next to it. The NRA scares the hell out of me. I’m not anti guns, but I’m not pro guns either, and I am anti NRA for sure. I knew this became an issue with my dad and brother in the last election. They both voted for McCain since they were convinced Obama would take their guns away. Yes, my family seems to be one of those families that stockpiles guns and grumbles that the government wants to take them away from them. Neat. But whatever… I guess that’s fine. I personally have no use for guns in my life… but that’s just me.

My family is pretty cool with my being gay, at least to the point that they don’t say anything derogatory. I think that’s just because they love me and accept me for who I am and that is pretty much awesome. I’m so incredibly thankful for that. But I also know that the word “choice” is probably floating in the backs of their minds and “disappointment” isn’t too far away. As if they really wish I would just stop this nonsense and get a girlfriend and start making babies so they can tell their friends and neighbors. I wish it was that simple, and I would love to give my mom grandkids… but it’s just not in the cards for me. Maybe someday I’ll adopt but only if I happen to marry someone that is completely loaded and well connected. I’m thrilled to have a family that loves me unconditionally but I feel like we live on different planets. Plus that’s the only way to describe the 4 ½ hour drive home, each way.

So it doesn’t sound like I’m just whining about my conservative family I’m going to preface this next story with the fact that I found it very funny, so do me a favor and laugh at the end. It seems my brother has a girlfriend. This was news to me, but we don’t really talk much. We get along just fine, we just don’t chat much for some reason. It seems my dad and grandpa were talking a couple days before I got home about my brother and his girlfriend and my grandpa asked my dad why I didn’t have a girlfriend and then asked (probably jokingly) if I was gay. My dad was just like “uh, yeah.” I have no idea how my grandpa reacted since my mom related this story to me just minutes before my grandparents got to our house for dinner. When they walked through the door I happened to be standing in front of the stove blanching peaches so I could take the skin off and peal them for dessert. I might as well have been wearing a big pink apron that said “Sissy Mary” on it when my grandpa walked in. He asked what I was doing, I told him, and he said “You’ll make someone a good wife some day” and that was it. That was his way of welcoming me out of the closet. So… that’s good, right? I had to laugh.

I didn’t really ever have any plan to tell my grandparents unless I got into a very serious relationship and wanted to share my partner with my extended family. And as much as I hate it… it seemed much more likely that my grandparents would laps into senility than I would meet a decent guy. I told my parents long ago that they can out me to anyone they want, just as long as they tell me after. This isn’t how it usually works, but I wanted them to have some sense of control over the situation and anyone they tell would be a relative that I only see a handful of times a year but they see almost weekly. And sometimes it’s easier for someone else to tell those people while I’m safely 4 ½ hours away.

The evening didn’t end there. We enjoyed a nice meal and at some point the topic of the environment came up. It turns out nobody in my family believes in global warming and described it as “propaganda cooked up by the liberals.” Neat. Much like Sara Palin, they believe in climate change but not that humans have any sort of impact on it. It’s just a natural thing that happens no matter what and the only reason you should save gas is so you can personally save money. Now, to be honest I’m not sure how big of a factor humans play in climate change or even how much the climate is changing… BUT I do believe we are polluting the hell out of the planet and that is having some very serious consequences on our quality of life. I also believe that our climate is changing and our actions are having some sort of affect on that. But what do I know? I’m just a (college educated) bleeding heart liberal nut job.

I didn’t realize that anyone actually thought these things… let alone MY OWN FAMILY! I’m constantly amazed that I came from that place. I love my family and always will… but DaaaMN!!!

Every time I go home I seem to have drifted further away. At this point the only unifying factor I have with my family is food. That’s why I tell people that being a vegetarian would be worse for me than being gay. At least I can still sit down for a meal with my family and eat the same food. I’m not sure if going home more often would make things better or worse. No matter what, I need to spend more time with my family while I can. Who knows what the future could hold for any of us.

Eep!

So, I was chatting with a coworker yesterday. We were talking about budget cuts and how fishy it was that 2 months ago the director hinted that another position would have to be cut but then nothing more has been mentioned since. We then talked about the recent firings and people quitting. The first person “fired” due to budget cuts has been more or less replaced, so we didn’t really save any money there. The second person was fired by the university and might not have been even funded by our institution… so I’m not sure that saved us any money. Then someone recently quit but they plan on replacing her. So… if my math is right… we’ve lost maybe one position and will temporarily lose a second but we needed to cut at least two. This left us speculating about who would be next. The university promised that no faculty would be cut – this leaves staff. We’ve already lost the majority of our staff so this leaves a secretary (that’s been here forever and also does all of our publications and is the director's assistant), our accountant (who will have to basically do 3 jobs since the rest of her office is gone), a woman that’s been working here for 20+ years and makes up virtually an entire department, and me. Well… it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which of those four people would be cut first. Me. I guess the only saving grace is the fact that all the other cuts have been arbitrary and the people cut were actually needed so that might save my job. I’m probably just freaking myself out for no reason but I hate to be caught with my guard down. I do want to eventually leave, but not because I was fired!

I guess I’ll just try to keep my options open and figure things out as they come along. I’m about to apply for a part time job at an art museum. I couldn’t live off a part time salary but it would be a pretty sweet job and a foot in the door.

I guess I don’t have much else to report. I should hear back on my job ap to the art school in a week.

Things at home are good. The upstairs bathroom is nearly finished. An electrician is installing some lights today. I spent several hours removing ¾ of the wallpaper from my bedroom ceiling on Sunday until I couldn’t possibly hold my arms above my head any longer. We’re still having fun and I still enjoy having a roommate.

If things don’t work out and I end up staying another 6 months or even a year, I guess that would be ok. I’m getting my credit cards paid down and saving some money again. Plus other than being bored to tears at work, and the fact that I’m convinced I will never meet a guy here… I’m reasonably happy.