My Life to Order

I am a great one for making lists.  No, really, I am.  The problem is in implementing the items on my list, but I find that a deadline really helps.  So.  If you recall, I wrote four things that I want to do with my life right now.  I was pretty broad about the list, so now, I am going to expand on each item.  Oh, and on the dating thing, even if it’s not tops on the list.  Anyway, I have decided to flesh out what I want from each of the four main goals I enumerated in a prior post.  Mind you, this isn’t going to be actual nuts and bolts stuff, but it’s one step in that direction.

1.  Get a job.  I want something that I can leave at work.  I did counseling for juvies as my first job out of college, and it was emotionally draining.  Now, granted, much of that had to do with the tension between me and my colleagues, but it still wasn’t a job I could just leave at the office.  As anyone who has worked in the social services knows, it’s not easy to detach from the clients.  I still remember two who really stuck with me over the years.  One was on his way up despite being in a group home as I left the agency.  The other one we had to kick out of the program, thouh I fought hard to keep her.

In addition, I would like to put my writing skills to use.  I do some freelance editing, and I find that to a good way to make money.  Not a whole bunch, mind you, but if I were to do it on a regular basis, it could be a nice side income.

I have a degree in psychology, so I’ve been thinking of working in a group home or with people with disabilities.  I would love to work overnight, and I know that those places have a difficult time retaining overnight help.  Ideally, though, I would work at home.  Initially, I thought it necessary to get a job outside the house because I tend to be a hermit, but I would rather work at home and then find other activities that take place outside of the house.

I refuse to wear a dress or heels.  This is nonnegotiable.

2.  Get involved in politics.  This is a perfect time, actually, because Governor Ratface Pawlenty is not running for a third term.  I would thank god, but I know it’s because he’s gearing up for a presidential run, which is a very, very, very bad idea.  He portrays himself as a moderate, but he’s as fiscally insane as the other Republicans.  I will write an entry just for him one of these days, but not right now.

Anyway, I have a soft spot in my heart for the late Senator Paul Wellstone, even though he did support DOMA (my one beef with him).  He was passionate, outspoken, enthusiastic, and as close to totally honest as a politician could get.  I would like to support a candidate such as him or as our president.  Although, I wish President Obama would show a little more initiative in the fight for equal rights for queers, but I will write more about that later as well.

I would love to run for office, but I know I am not electable.  Besides, I am not sure I would actually enjoy being a politician, though I could probably be a good one–as long as I learn to rein in my temper.  Men are allowed to be assholes in politics, whereas women are still held to a double standard of being nice (see, Clinton, Hillary).  However, I am bi, Taiwanese, agnostic, a socialist-capitalist, not married and happily child-free, and I am an introvert.   In other words, I’m an untouchable.

However, I could be a great behind-the-scenes person.  I saw Brian Williams interview two of the twenty-somethings in President Obama’s employ (his secretary and his receptionist), and I thought, “Hell, I’d like to do that.”  Except, I would like to write speeches.  I’m actually very good at giving speeches, and I’m charming when I want to be.  So, if I could imbue someone else with the sense of me without the accompanying baggage, that would be pretty cool, too.

3.  Focus on my fiction.  As much as I love blogging (and I do, you know), I really get a kick out of writing fiction.  Short stories, mysteries, literary novels, and plays.  They are the stuff of life for me.  I have so many stories moldering on my computer.  I really need to polish a few and send them off.  Plus, I want to have a second website strictly for my fiction.  I already have the domain name, and my brother has found the perfect platform for it.  The problem is, that means learning a new system, just when I’ve gotten comfortable with WordPress.

The thing is, my stuff is really weird.  I know, surprise, surprise, right?  Well, it is.  It’s mostly dark, but it’s not horror.  My mysteries have been called noir, but I think of them more as gritty contemorary novels.  I’ve been called a post-post modernist (whatever the fuck that means), and I frown on labels in general.  When I was in San Francisco getting my MA in Writing & Consciousness, I had difficulty labeling my thesis.  It was based on my life, but there was a lot of flights of fancy in it.  It wasn’t creative nonfiction, nonfiction, biography, or fiction.  If I had to slap a label on it, I would call it surreal fictional nonfiction with a soupcon of exaggeration.  Something like that.  Now, while  I like not being peggable–er, you know what I mean, it’s not a great way to sell a book.

While I was in San Francisco, I kept sending out short stories to various contests, and I kept not getting picked.  I was there when the Twin Towers fell, and all the literary journals wanted nostalgic pieces after that. I remember one piece that won a contest was about a man remembering going fishing with grandpa when he (the narrator) was a boy.  Nice enough, I suppose, but not my kind of thing.  On one piece, the editor wrote back and said that she was disturbed by the violence.  Well, yeah.  Violence is supposed to be disturbing.  That was the whole point of the piece.

This happened when I wrote poetry as well.  I didn’t fit any one style; I didn’t rhyme; I didn’t use capitals or punctuation much (this was before freestyle poetry was all the rage); I hated titles.  I once took a creative writing class in high school in which we had to put titles on our poems.  I argued with the teacher, but she wouldn’t budge.  So, I would take the first line of the poem and slap it on the top of the page and call it the title.  She didn’t much like that.

There is a lot of fear when it comes to my writing.  I know it’s odd and isn’t the sort of thing that is appreciated by many people, but it’s pretty damn good writing.  That should count for something!

4.  Get back into theatre.  Of all the things I’ve done in my life, and yes, I’m including sex, theatre is the purest high I’ve ever had.  It’s the closest thing to bliss that I’ve experienced on this earth.  I stopped doing it once I moved to SF, and then I was too busy sulking and licking my wounds to go back once I returned.  In addition, I didn’t know exactly what kind of theatre I wanted to do.  I like ensemble work, but I also like working alone.  I felt stifled by Theater Mu because they were focusing on immigrant stories back when I was involved.  Interesting, but not what I really wanted to do.

In addition, because theatre is so precious to me, it’s also where I feel most vulnerable.  I am not very good at auditioning, and my biggest fear is forgetting my lines.  In fact, I dream about that quite often.  It never fails to distress me.

One more thing.  Being involved in theatre takes a lot of energy–physical and emotinal.  It’s highly demanding and highly rewarding at the same time.  It doesn’t pay well, but I don’t plan on doing it for my livelihood, anyway.

Hm.  This is running waaaay long, so I”ll stop here and tidy it up tomorrow.