Turkey Trot

Wednesday morning, as I was driving into school I nearly ran over a group of four or so turkeys. Yes, I said turkeys. And yes, I know it sounds ridiculously improbable. I mean, what on earth were a group of turkeys doing wandering out in the middle of the road, just one day away from Thanksgiving? Escaping? Getting one final look around at the world before accepting their honored place in the Thanksgiving oven? At the time, I felt a small panic expecting an impending explosion of turkeys into a catastrophe of feathers, but I managed to recover enough to find that all of the turkeys, largely unconcerned about their near death experience, were in tact and casually meandering from the road to the field nearby. After puzzling over such questions, I figured that either the turkeys escaped somehow, or that someone had intentionally let the turkeys out in order to give their surroundings the appropriate decorative touch for the holiday. Wild turkeys aren't native to our area. The turkey episode actually helped in way because I had hardly any sleep the night before, so the brief terror I felt and the attendant adrenaline helped me feel more awake.

As if you couldn't tell from the previous posts, the last couple of weeks of school have been pretty stressful and unhappy, primarily because I had fallen behind on some important projects. I spent almost eighty hours! working on just one in a period of only a week and a half. I know this because, as part of the project, I had to keep track of the time I spent on it. It may not sound like so much, but remember, this was in addition to the other work and obligations I had for other classes.

Concerned about my ability to pass the class with my being behind in my work, I talked with the instructor which helped to clarify which homework had priority. The instructor indicated that while the late work will have an effect on my grade, it isn't as disastrous as I had imagined. Her concern was that I continue to come to class despite being behind in work. At least four students have dropped the class, two of which have dropped the entire program. Attrition is showing more and more, but on the plus side, the less people who complete the program means there is less competition from my design peers.

And, while I still feel unhappy about my prospects for a good grade in the course, I feel much better about passing the class as a whole. "Passing" this class is my academic goal right now. I can work on "passing and exceeding" in my future courses, and I feel confident that, in those future courses, I can better avoid the mistakes I made during this term. Today, I even managed to impress the instructor and the other students with the work we did in class, which was nothing more than construction paper cut-outs of small icons, but it felt good to get praise nonetheless.

The stress will ramp up next week (Dead Week) I am sure. If I had Adobe Creative Suite Three at home, I would be able to do much better with the homework I think. It's easier to work in bursts of varying length at home rather than try to hammer out marathon sessions in the computer lab. It might be better if I lived closer to the lab, it takes me an hour to drive to school one way, without turkeys of course. Tomorrow though, I set aside all of these concerns and will focus riding out the chaos of family Thanksgiving with as much equanimity as is possible to manage in a house full of crazy people.

Knitting Sea Chanteys

Well, as if you couldn't tell, I've been a little stressed and depressed lately, mostly having to do with school and my life being in general disarray. While the threads of depression are still woven into my spine to some extent, I think I am over the hump on this latest bout of it. Wednesday will be the next day I will have to prove myself, so tomorrow and Tuesday will be full of work.

Today, I slept in for as long as I could, 11:00 a.m., before I had to raise my dizzy head from the pillow and get in the shower for work. Work was largely uneventful except for the appearance of creepy man skulking about the back of the shop. I only found out about him after he left, but I did make sure to tell everyone to let me know if he showed up again. It wasn't anything he did; he just gave everyone a bad vibe.

I guess I was preoccupied with the boss' computer. I noted her firewall was down, so I called her to ask about it. She explained that her Ebay account was hacked because of a weak password, and when she was corresponding with someone from Ebay to sort out the mess, took her firewall OFFLINE!?! to send them an e-mail. Frankly, I was a flabbergasted! The closest analogy I could think of would be if you were driving along the highway, saw a police barricade up ahead, and instead of slowing to a stop--the reasonable thing to do in said situation--you slammed the gas pedal completely against the floorboard hoping you could jump the gaping chasm ala Dukes of Hazzard! I tried to not sound too incredulous and consequently make her feel unduly defensive, but I don't think I succeeded. I did forget to write my time down, so I hope the boss catches my mistake before the checks go out. I will have to tell her about it soon.

After dinner, I settled in to watch television and surf the internet for cartoons, art inspiration, and illustration tips, something that I do more often these days as I seek to improve my skills. For example, Little Dee is one of the comics that I occasionally surf, and it is a pleasant read, especially seeing it develop as it has. I think Chris Baldwin, the guy who draws it, is really talented, and I missed meeting him at his booth at the Portland Stumptown comic fest this year. Little Dee, for those of you who don't know, is about a silent little girl who lives in the forest with a bear named Ted, a dog named Blake, and vulture named Vachel. One of Vachel's hobbies is knitting, which helps to explain the following bit of inspired creativity, a knitting sea chantey!:


We Rogues of Wool

I have never posted a video before, but this was too good to pass up. One of the reasons that I think it works so well is that the characters are so strong and developed. And, somehow, the combination of characters really manages to evoke a childlike sense of the world and the overall comfort of creation that children seem to feel. It was a nice boost and uplift in what has been a dreary past week or so.

Bad Surprises

When it was clear that my graduate school career was pretty much dead, I had to do some hard thinking about what I was going to do next. I was deeply depressed, out of money, way in debt, and had met enough homeless people to know that I was only just a few steps away from sleeping out on the street.

I had spent eight years supporting myself with a bad job and going to Community College. After earning my Associate of Arts degree, I took a leap, got expensive college loans, and transferred to a State University where I spent three years earning my Bachelor of Arts in English. Then, I spent three years trying to meet the demands of grad school. In one way or another, I had been in school for fourteen years in school. Let me repeat, FOURTEEN.

But during grad school, personal troubles, most of which I couldn't help, overwhelmed me, and I found myself facing a personal crisis that, in many ways, is ongoing. In a period of months, I lost my apartment, my girlfriend, my career, and my remaining self-esteem. With the help of counseling and medication, I picked up what pieces I could and re-enrolled in Community College, this time in a design program. However, as a result of the grad school disaster, I am left with my share of emotional scars, one of which is anxiety about being out and around people. It may not make any logical sense, but there are days when I can get ready to go to school, put on my jacket, get my keys, and then find myself sitting on my bed unable to move. This happened to me on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday, I had to work.

So, in class this Monday morning, I find out that the major design project that I believed was due next week is actually due this Wednesday. I am way behind on it. If I had found the emotional fortitude to go school on those three days the previous week, I would still be slightly behind, but I would be in much better shape.

Also, in a discussion of due dates for the remaining weeks of winter term, the instructor asked how many people had their own copies of the software we use in the course, software that costs hundreds of dollars by the way. Everyone--except me--raised their hand. This means that the other students can work on their stuff at home without being required to drive into campus, an hour away from home for me, and can work without having to worry about when the computer lab opens or closes. (The hours for the lab are pretty restricted for a College in my opinion.)

Suddenly realizing this morning that I was imminently facing a poor grade, or a zero, for this major project was depressing. So depressing in fact, that after class I drove the hour it takes to get home, turned off all of the lights in my room, closed the blinds and went to bed and slept for four hours in the middle of the day. When I awoke, I drove back to school and skipped my evening class so I could spend until 9:00 p.m. in computer lab working on the project. At 9:00 p.m., the lab closed.

Desperate, I called my sister and asked her if she could give me the number for the library at her University, which she did. When I called, I found out that it was possible for me to use their computers as a "community member," but only for a limited time, two hours a shot at most. My best option, I realized, was to go home and try to do as much on this project as I could offline. On a hunch that only comes to those who are truly panicked, I discovered that I can download a 30-day trial of the software I need, something I am in the process of doing now. I've spent three hours downloading it so far, and it will probably take a few more hours. The trial software is not going to help me tonight, but it is possible that it will help tomorrow night if I am still not done by then.

It is not at all certain that I will be able to finish this major project in time. Tonight, I was in the lab until it closed, and early Tuesday morning, I will be back again to work all day. And, I am still depressed, but not as much as before.

Cross Species English

A bird bit me this morning. Specifically, a cockatiel. And while I thought it would be a nice surprise for the bird to join me in a warm shower, the bird decided it would be a nice surprise to bite the ever-loving fire out of my index finger.

It was one of those cross species misunderstandings that often occur because none of the animals I know can speak English. Heck, none of them even understand English all that well. The dog does much better than the rest, but he has no motivation to improve his meager comprehension unless there is a treat involved somehow. The dog's first and best language is the language of food.

But, if I could intelligently converse with the bird, I would have said something like: "Hey bird, let's go for a shower. I know how you really like playing with the mist and water. And to be totally honest, you seem a little bored of the fabulous vistas of the living room. A visual change of pace might really refresh you." The bird might then be able respond with something like, "Wow that sounds awesome! Let's go!" Or even say, "Gee, I'm not feeling up to that today; I'm stuffed from eating that delicious millet you gave me earlier!" Instead, ignorant of the bird's mood, and faced with the bird's obvious ignorance of my good intentions, I blithely stuck my hand in the cage only to have an ornery bird open up a can of proverbial whoop-@!& on my finger mere seconds later.

Cross-species English could have also helped with the above picture of Busby the cat. I would have been able to ask him to keep his pose for a minute longer so I could properly get his face in focus. As it is, the fence at his feet is in better focus than his face. You may not be able to see the difference in focus all that well with the above small picture, but you can really tell when the picture is at its full size. One of the basic skills of photography seems to be bringing to mind all of the variables and making the corresponding adjustments as quickly as possible before you lose "the shot." I have several more pictures of this cat on that same fence, but they are all terrible. The funny thing to consider though is that in the scant few seconds just before those shots were taken were really great "potential" pictures that are now irretrievably lost to the Fates.

On a personal front, I am still dealing with a lot of anxiety. I make several fantastic plans about what I am going to do in day. I even get dressed up and ready to go, but when it comes to actually getting in the car and driving off in order to put those plans into action, I run into an internal brick wall and sit in my room to stare at the wall instead. I tell myself: "O.K. I'll give myself just another moment, and then I'm off to run my errands or accomplish some meaningful work," but each moment slides by without much of anything happening. I don't want my school to suffer because I am having trouble getting out of the house, and I don't think it will this term, but it's going to be tough. Unless you've been there anxiety-wise, it is hard to understand. Sunday, I am going into work and so, in a sense, I will be forced to get out of the house. But the deadlines for some pretty important school projects are looming, and I am getting more anxious and nervous about finishing them on time. This next week will be crucial.

It seems like in this last year or two, I'm constantly discovering some new facet of feeling, some new emotional scar, that affects me more than I ever would have thought it could. I think I am healing them all and am becoming a better, healthy person for the future, but then again, I wonder if I am making progress or just wishing that I am. If you gain spiritual virtues through suffering, I suppose I am making some spiritual progress despite my seemingly outward failures. Sometimes though, it can be hard to tell.

Creativity and a Rut

I've thought about posting to the blog here about a million times, but when I think about what to post, I find I am completely out of ideas. All the writing classes I took in college suggest that I shouldn't really worry about what to write and just start writing. Free writing they call it. It's good advice I guess, but something holds me back. The last few months have really brought home the difference between intellectual knowledge and emotional ability. Knowing what to do, and mustering the will to do it are two different things.

And, of course, while I felt a little lacking in creativity when it comes to writing, my dreams have apparently taken up the slack. I've been on a train, part of an early 20th century comedy team much like Laurel and Hardy, a tour guide on a small ocean trawler, and an antique dealer in a bizarre musical instruments. In one memorable dream, I lived in an ocean-front town, bright and summery, will several million people (including myself) milling around a large cliff-side estuary. An impossibly gigantic wave would occasionally sweep up the estuary and take a few of the happy people out to sea. Most everyone, however, was unconcerned about this seeming tragedy as it was an apparently normal everyday occurrence. I've had a couple of dreams that take place in ocean-front towns. In one, I lived in a small apartment that housed a few people who were part of an artist community. I'm not sure if any of this means anything.

I think I've been in a rut for the past few weeks. Other than school and television, I haven't done anything of note--except, perhaps, attend the funeral of an old friend. I hadn't seen him in over 15 years, and of course, I thought I had at least several more years to make a visit. His death was a little bit of a surprise. I made a special effort to attend his commemoration. Although he was not an Indian, he had a lot of Native friends to whom he meant a lot. I arrived just as things were beginning to start with a drum circle and singing, much like a pow-wow. Towards the end, they passed around an eagle feather fan with the idea that whoever was holding the fan could say a few words about the departed. I enjoyed hearing about my friend from the people he touched, but it also made me regret not having made the effort to have visited him earlier. Every once in a while, I find I'm thinking about him and his spirit and the stuff he had to deal with in his life.

As for myself, I am hoping to overcome my rut soon. I just need to work a little harder at it. I might be thinking about the past and the future too much rather than living in the present, but then again, I don't like that thought either. I can think about whatever the hell I like as long as I get what I need accomplished, right? It's a complicated balance that I guess I am still searching for. Maybe things will look better in the next few weeks.

Odd Comtemplations

I've been in a odd contemplative mood for most of the last several days. The summer has now largely evaporated, and the memories of my doing anything substantial during this time are like steam vapors that drift far away from, and well beyond, my grasp. Somewhat hibernating within my darkened bedroom watching re-runs of the various Star Trek incarnations or fighting digital monsters in the fantasy lands programmed inside my laptop, I've effectively isolated myself from the outside world. And the sense of dull dissipation I've developed is like an inertia magnet that only attracts more void, more nothing.

Lately, most of my interesting adventures take place at night when I am deep asleep. For example, in one of my recent dreams, I am traveling through a town with a shallow river running directly through its center. While I am in the act of crossing it, I notice that the river washes over main street and somehow runs into a distant cavern far below. (Perhaps this is an unconscious echo of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan," especially the bit about "where Alph, the sacred river, ran :: In caverns measureless to man.") I manage to make it across the river, only to immediately find myself on a broad wrap-around porch of a wooden Victorian home. It is now dark outside, and I am locked out. I search around the edges of the front door and front windows for some way in, but am unable to make any entry. I begin to hear something, a rustling of activity, below the porch. Leaning over the steps in a brief investigation of the noise, a little girl, just a toddler, appears with large round eyes that are mysteriously shining with an eerie and watery luminescence. The little girl is scared, lost, and has been crying. Moved, I gather her up into my arms, holding her, and she clutches at my side with a strong monkey-like grip. She is still scared, but now a bit mollified that I am taking care of her. I awake soon thereafter.

I've given up on trying to interpret the symbology of my dreams during this period of odd feeling. It is too much work to delve below their surface meanings for obscure insights into my evolving character. But this is not to say that unanalyzed dreams like these do not also have a mysterious effect. It is like being scratched in the unconscious part of your mind: you may feel it's presence during your awareness of it while simultaneously awaiting for the sensation to vanish just as briefly as it appeared. I can still feel the itch of this dream somewhat, but I am also sure that, in another two or three days, I'll probably have forgotten it.

School starts on Monday, so this afternoon, to avoid the inevitable crowds, I bought the yearly parking permit. I am not sure what to expect from this next round of classes as my expectations for myself are under heavy reorganization. In the past, especially with regard to my own assessment of my potentialities, I had been a perfectionist expecting nothing short of total mastery, total success at the many things I attempt. But I am slowly learning that I have often been too hard on myself; the effect of which, when I am unable to meet my own impossible standards, has been to leave plenty room for me to berate myself or allow others to treat me poorly. (After all, if I feel like a failure, then I am unlikely to challenge you when you treat me as if I really were a failure.) Knowing this, I am trying to unlearn unrealistic patterns of perfection, but I have yet to develop a healthy alternative the holds the same motivation that perfection had. Will I always miss not having been able to get a Master's degree in English Literature? Can I feel the same way about a career in graphics that I once did for becoming a professor of literature?

The answers to these questions are not unrelated to my thoughts about perfection, answers that are still shrouded for me. I suppose this leaves me, essentially, in the odd mood I mentioned in the beginning of this post. When you come right to the bottom of this whole thing, I feel confused--a sense that I believe I may have been feeling for awhile now. But perhaps, this feeling of confusion is also a progress of some kind, especially if I remember that, only a year or two ago, I was coming from a place of feeling totally sure about all the wrong things. Certainty leaves too much room for blind spots.

P.S. It has been ten days since this year's fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attack in New York. I admit that I have been too self-absorbed to think about such things lately, but today, while searching through my lists of blogs that I read regularly, I stumbled on this web documentary. It is the thought-provoking account of that attack five years ago from eight professional photographers who were in New York when the attack happened and the towers fell. Towards the end, it perhaps gets too political for some, but if you have the time, I would highly recommend seeing it. Also, if you have the time, you may want to listen to a cab driver's first day driving her cab. It is has a similar connection to the events of 9/11, and happens to be from one of my favorite blog authors.

Pigs and Dreams

I've heard that some people have a hard time remembering their dreams: these people will either say either they don't dream at all or the last dream they can remember having was several years ago. On the other hand, I can remember my dreams fairly easily. I might even have two or three memorable dreams in one night, which to me, seems like a lot. But at the very least, I will have a dream that I can remember about once every week.

This last dream that I had the other night was fairly disturbing. There was a very large pig underneathe a queen-size bed. It had lived there for several years, stuck and very probably in pain, but I had only just discovered it. Initially, I tried to feed it placing my hand near its mouth to feel its weak bite, but this was not working. I pulled the mattress and the box spring off to the right, leaned them against the wall, and released the pig from its imprisonment. Before it's snout was the only thing visible, but now the whole pig came into view. It was stuck in a metal frame and looked entirely hideous. I'll spare you the exact details of the visual, suffice it to say that the pig looked disgusting because it was covered with sores and wounds. Still, I felt pity for it and tried to bring it back to health after releasing it from its abusive confinement.

The dream has stayed with me for a few days, and the literary critic in me cannot resist trying to sort out and interpret the metaphors. In a way, (that I will leave completely unanalyzed), the dream is symbolic of a very rough two-week period for me. I have been eating too much, sleeping irregularly, and spending a lot of time alone. I'm going to be changing a few things soon that will help me come out of the funk that I find myself in, but at the moment, I am just trying to maintain some positive habits that will supposedly pull me into a better place. Despite popular cliches, staying still can sometimes be a type of progress.


Mossy River Bank

Anyway, all of this aside, I have been reading more, perhaps not enough, but definitely more. Right now, I am reading Rick Moody's memoir The Black Veil, and I enjoy the artistry of the sentences and the narrative so far. I'm hoping that it will provide me with some inspiration to get to my own writing. Writing on the blog can be problematic sometimes as it is a essentially a public medium. I've thought that I should write more in my personal journals because there I can be a little more free with my expression. I've read some of the journals I've written over ten years ago, and it is interesting to see how I have personally grown, but also note where the journal really works as good writing (in just a very few places), and note where it the writing is truly terrible (on nearly every page). I have had similar journal thoughts when it comes to my art. I really need to practice my drawing skills more, especially as I have not drawn a single thing since the final week of Spring Term.

Really, I have spent much of my time, perhaps too much, on the computer playing World of Warcraft. It has been a little easier emotionally to explore the forests of that silly game, than go for hike in the woods twenty minutes from my house. But, I have been making some attempts to get out of my so-called comfort zone. The cup of coffee picture at the top of the page is evidence of a recent trip to be out and about, and I am hoping that positive steps like these will help me build the momentum up to be more confident in general. In any event, I'm hoping the next two weeks go a little better.

The Unknowing Burden

Depression is an ugly hulking thing that follows you around like a shadow, and the longer it stays with you, the harder it seems to get rid of it. Its ethereal tendrils seep slowly into your being tightening, minute by minute, its tangle of roots around your bones. You become comfortable with it's hot and weary presence, and unless you purposely try to notice it, it melts into your subconscious, disappears from view, and settles on your shoulders to become the unknowing burden.

It's this seemingly disappearing aspect of depression that sometimes confuses me. In the popular imagination, one usually thinks of someone with depression as a person who feels "sad" all of the time, of someone who carries grief around with them like a candle in the overwhelming dark, of someone who is always two seconds away from crying. That would be an "in-your-face" type of depression. But, for me anyway, that is not how it most often shows up. Instead, I sleep a lot during the day when I can (naps for two or three hours), and then at night, I can't seem to fall asleep until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Depression also causes me to think a lot about my life in terms of mistakes I have made and opportunities I have missed, like the "wasted" money on graduate school, or my failed relationships. I don't feel like eating much, and when I do eat, it is usually only to fill my belly. I get headaches frequently. I almost always feel like I need a nap even if I am wide awake.

In brief, I feel like the mayor of failure-town. But these are not grief-inspiring thoughts as much as they appear to be evident "facts," and in the false guise of "facts," these thoughts mask the depression. The real fact, objectively speaking, is that my brain does not make serotonin like a healthy person, so these negative thoughts of failure have some roots in a very physical cause. I have the hardest time getting my mind around this concept, but there it is. Just as a person with a broken leg would have some trouble walking, a person with messed up serotonin levels has trouble being "not-depressed." I've been in a depressed phase during the last week or so.

Actually, I guess I would have to say that it has been more than a week judging by how often I have posted on my blog, but this week has been particularly bad. I've not met many of my goals and I have spent more than a few hours in bed during the middle of the day. I am trying to change that around, and I would have to say that I am making a little progress. After all, I am writing this blog post rather than telling myself how I should be doing something other than watch television. I also did some cleaning up by removing a lot of clutter and generally making things look nice.


Another thing that I managed to do just for myself was accidentally go to a Civil War Re-enactment. It was an accident because I had meant only to go to a State Park and possibly go on a hike in a natural setting. I looked up some nearby parks and made my choice, but when I got there, I found that there was a large reenactment group doing their thing. I took some pictures of the battle behind the "Confederate" side of things and then looked around at the various displays after the faux fighting was over. It was a nice distraction away from my various problems at the time. I further distracted myself by making a little comic about the experience. I think that the next two weeks are going to be better for me personally. I am already feeling good enough to a blog post, right? So, I think I have reason to hope for the future. Until next time.

The End of the First Year

Tomorrow is the last day of my first year in the Graphic Arts program. Okay, so they call the program “Visual Communications,” arguing that designers do more than just graphics, but whenever I think about the businesses that want to buy the kind of design services I am learning, I can’t imagine a single one of them wanting to hire someone called a “visual communicator.” It sounds too damn new-agey, too esoteric, like something akin to voodoo. If I were a business owner trying to sell my product or service, I would want a graphic artist.

In my current plan, I’ve got two more years of this graphic arts program to complete. This next year is the one that I’m looking forward to because I’ve gotten beyond the silliness of introductory undergrad courses. (While some freshman kid straight out high school may not realize some college assignments are busy-work, a hoop for instructors to feel justified giving the final grade, I’ve done so many I can see them a mile away.) But now the appetizers are done, we finally start getting into the meat of the program. And then, I think I will be better able to judge if this program is going to get me where I really want to go, or if I should start in another direction.

Anyhow, I’ve spent the last couple weeks finishing up final projects. On friday, I went out for a mini-hike near some forest falls I know. This trip was a little different from the ones I have taken in the past though. Those previous trips were for pure pleasure, but this one was a little about business. Our final project in photography class is to create a shampoo ad. I figured that I would take a picture of two shampoo bottles near the waterfalls to convey the idea of fresh and pure. It was not the best pictures I have ever taken, but then again, they are not the worst either.

To setup, I had lie on the very edge of the water and hold the camera as steady as possible. Even still, my pants got a little wet. Also, while the idea of a forest stream and waterfall conveys the idea of cleanliness, the reality is that both are pretty messy places. For instance, the mud was thick and it hardly ever dries out cause it is always shaded by the trees, so it was tricky keeping dirt off the shampoo bottles while simultaneously trying to keep the camera dry.

The above picture is from that trip. While I was wallowing in the mud trying to get a perfect picture of a shampoo bottle, a man taking his cat for a walk in the woods came up to the bank behind me. It is not everyday someone takes a cat for a walk, so I asked him if I could take its picture. In retrospect, I should have asked him a lot more questions: what was the cat’s name, does he take his cat for a walk often, or even what did he do for a living. However, he seemed painfully shy (makes sense in weird sort of way), so I just made a random comment about how I like taking pictures of nature scenes like the falls.

The Barn Trip

This morning started out with a minor walking trip through the dewy grass in my sandals up to the big red barn to recover the small pet carrier that is stored there. Normally, I don’t visit the barn that often; and I don’t think I have ever been in it at 6:30 in the morning. If I am not digging out a half of coffee can’s worth of chicken feed from the barn’s feedbox as the substitute “farmer” in place of my dad, I really have no call to be in that dark and dusty place. But this time I needed the pet carrier because the cat (the cat which I never had any intention of owning in the first place by the way–long story) was going in for her operation. This vet trip gained particular urgency in the last couple of weeks because the cat had been seen cavorting with the stray tom who lives in the woods behind the barn. Not a good sign since the last thing I need is another set of kittens: one set was already too many. In any event, I managed to pack her off into the carrier and have her driven to the vet. The cat is currently spending the night there after having been spayed just this afternoon. The other cat, much too young to be neutered yet, has decided to stop being a pain and settle down after an hour of trying to sit on my keyboard, assuredly some kind of feline entertainment.

The only other reason beside the pet carrier or chicken feed that might be cause for me to be in the barn is the fact that some of my old things are in its upper loft. These things comprise about eight or so boxes and are mostly filled with old textbooks or schoolwork scribbled down in notebooks from my undergraduate days of about six or so years ago. I tell myself that I should move them to prevent any more of the thick barn dust from settling on it, or to prevent the inevitable dew from wetting that dust and caking those papers with a fine mud thereby warping the pages. Probably, I will move it sometime in the summer.

Still, even though I was a little tired, I braved the rickety ladder and opened up a couple of boxes to retrieve six of my notebook journals that I had written during those early college days. Back then, I fancied myself as a writer of sorts, so I included everything that one who considers themselves a “writer-to-be” in those journals: poems, phrases that I thought interesting at the time, a few overheard conversations, or memories of things I had done. I had been to a few author readings, writer presentations, or library events where writing was concerned, and invariably, aside from questions about how to get an agent, the speakers mentioned that the best way to develop “the craft” of writing was to keep a journal. After all, artists have their sketchbooks, so writers should have their journals. Most of my journals were written before I had a blog of any kind, and in that regard, if I had never created a blog, I would probably have filled up a lot more than just these six.

I still keep a written journal to write things down when I don’t have a computer on hand to type something off real quick, but mostly the blog serves most of my creative writing purposes. I’ve only had a chance to read one of these older journal and already two things stand out pretty clearly. One, my writing was pretty terrible–overwrought and whiny–which I have to admit, I can still be guilty of, but trust me, it was far, far worse back then. There is a lot of awkward complaining about being lonely and trying to be a “good person,” which likely meant that I was really, really, really lonely and had more than my share of self-esteem issues. The second thing I noticed was how, back then, my writing was less focused on my personal problems. I suppose I use my writing more these days as a way to explore my emotional life and sort out how I feel about things or my past. Even though the old writing is terrible, I miss the creativity it expresses. I think I should go back to writing more poems. A few of my undergraduate professors had mentioned that I had some talent for it, but then again, that is the story of my life: potential that doesn’t seem go anywhere. Perhaps this is my basic personality, but I sure hope not. I’d really like to be able to have accomplishments to be proud of rather than a truckload of regrets for things I haven’t done or things that didn’t pay off with the results I really wanted.

Gaining Ability

I only got about four and half hours of sleep last night, but despite that, I managed to get to school on time this morning without frantically speeding down the highway. Somehow, I also managed to finish up a lot of previously incomplete work during the afternoon. Energy and motivation had taken a vacation during the past couple of weeks, but surprisingly, for some unclear reason, I found them again. I just have a few more unfinished projects to complete in the next couple of days. I need to print up a few photography assignments on the school’s fancy Epson printer tomorrow, and I further need to complete a couple of overdue life drawing assignments by 11:30 a.m. It’s doable, and I am still confident I can get it all done.

By 5:30 p.m. tonight, I was ready to quit working on assignments and begin the trip home. It takes an entire hour from the school parking lot to my front door at home, so the trip is a bit of hassle, but today’s sunlight and light road traffic made the trip home almost pleasant. Between stoplights and the ever-present muffler fumes from the other cars, I had time to muse over how I’ve really gained some real artistic knowledge these past few months and, while I definitely need to practice my skills a lot more, began to reflect on how that knowledge is getting incorporated into my current work. I only have to look over at some of the beginning Art students struggling with their drawings and designs to see how I have gained an ability that they have yet to develop. I have noted in myself a tendency to be overly insecure about my own abilities, especially as that may relate to a future paying career. Self-esteem, anyone? While I am not sure that being gratified at noting my abilities above the other students is necessarily a healthy thing, it does go a little way to maintain my confidence in myself.

But back to the four hours sleep, my being up way too late was my own fault for not turning off the television at 11:00 p.m. like I had planned. Cartoons and late night comedy proved to be too compelling. The afternoon nap I took yesterday did not help matters either. The cats like to zoom around at midnight anyway, so my being up late accommodated their schedules if not my own. They seem to like to have an admiring audience to their feats of destructive acrobatics, but don’t seem to understand that I wind up watching more out of concern for the objects they invariably knock over than any admiration for their capacity to leap from the bookcase to the windowsill across the room in a rainbow-like arch. I am sure that there are more than a few things under the bed that either one of the cats has pushed or carried away there than I really care to know about: a dusty sock, a toy mouse, a deck of cards, or a forgotten scholarship application for instance.

My graduate school life of a couple of years ago seems like a million miles away today, but I can still feel its lack in my life. I want to clutch its memory with a granite squeeze and press it into the firmer side of my heart, but it seems less like granite and more like a drifting summer smoke chasing its way out of my hands whenever I grab at it. Summer days must cause me think of grad. school more than during the darker days of winter for some reason. I am not sure I will–or at this point in my life, even could–return to a possible future career as English professor. But now, and I mean right now as I sit in my chair typing this on my laptop, I feel the need read a lot more often between now my next blog post, whenever that will be. I hope it will be sooner than next month.

Midnight Worries

Another night that I can't sleep all of the way through. This time, I am pretty sure I was awakened by the sound of my glasses hitting the floor, and the initial grogginess I felt wore off after a few minutes of searching for them under the bed. The culprit, as if I didn't know immediately when I heard the report of the frames bouncing on the ground, was one of the four cats living in my room at the moment. You know, cats are great in small doses, but for extended periods of time, they become like pebbles in your shoe: an irritant.

As for the Court I attended the other day (mentioned in my previous post), although it was very interesting, ultimately, it was also very disappointing. I discovered halfway through this process, that thanks to the State Legislature, if one gets a fine within a school zone, it cannot be reduced by the judge at all, which of course meant that I had to pay the full amount of the ticket, $206. The judge noted my driving record was immaculate up until the school zone ticket, further noted that my violation wasn't all that extreme anyway, and expressed his own frustration at not being able to reduce fines for cases like mine. (However, I'm not entirely sure if he was really frustrated, or if he was just putting on the show for the others in the courtroom and saying that he was frustrated to make me feel better for not reducing the ticket.) Overall, I did worse than the elderly lady who forgot her disability permit to park in a disabled space--a potential high dollar fine of which she only had to pay $20--and I did much, much better than the Mexican guy who, because of previous fines and violations, is likely to spend some time in jail. I felt bad for him because he seemed very worried.

School is going okay at the moment, but to be perfectly honest, I think I am feeling the wear of the appearance of not making any progress. It is like the hope and optimism I had for a comfortable future is being ground into a fine powder against the twin rocks of debt and my previous failure to complete graduate school as I would have liked. At this point in my life, mid-thirties, I imagined that I would be in a decent paying career, have health insurance, a nice apartment, and have a healthy savings account. Of course, I am still grateful for the continuing support that I have to actually pursue a new school path, a place where I am trying to build new hope as an artist rather than an instructor. However, all I have to do is think about the talented art students in my current drawing classes and see the evidence of even more talented students who have already completed the program to feel a lot of trepidation about the future viability of this new path. My talent for art maybe nothing more than a mediocre skill easily attained by others who have more energy and devotion. And in the highly competitive art job market, competitive as all jobs in the humanities are, you have to really stand out above the rest. I think my best hope for a career most likely lies in the ability to learn how to operate software like Photoshop, and not in the ability to create a work of art with the lyricism of craft. And as fast as computers change these days, my meager skills with Photoshop can disappear with the advent a new software standard, or more profoundly, a new technology.

I think about all the kids who wanted to be in the NBA compared the minuscule amount of kids who actually made it. Hoop Dreams, anyone? Or, I think about all of the kids I've met in the college who want to become famous movie directors. Their hopes far exceed their potential, but they don't know it yet. The film students who have any kind of experience in film making, however modest it may be, tend to keep these hopes secret knowing what an embarrassment that their foolish hopes can be. In the Literature world, it is like everyone who wants to write a novel, imagining the millions of dollars that will flood in when they do, but never put a word to page, or worse, never read a book--or if they do manage to tap something out on their laptops, cannot make even a simple sentence bend to their will, much less come to life.

I will try to get back to sleep for a little bit. School is in a few short hours. I will continue to go and put my time in there as it is my best hope for a brighter future, and I will try to remain optimistic about future success. But in the dark night of the early morning hours, optimism is a much tougher thing to hold on to than it is in the daylight.

Sleeping on It

I woke up in the middle of the night (4:30a.m.) when the cat in my room knocked over an empty birdcage. The birdcage was okay but my heart took a few minutes to get started again, and then a few minutes after that to start beating normally. Night terrors are really no way to get up in the morning, but it turns out that they are pretty good for keeping you awake after the initial shock. I couldn’t get back to bed, so I made breakfast, took a shower, and drove into school.

The funny thing about the morning class today was that the instructor spent about half of it talking about how wordpress was a such great blogging system for posting your photos. Sure, blogging is great (I’ve done it for four years now), but I think that the instructor oversold it a bit. He seemed to indicate that blogging was a great way to get your personal photos noticed by the general public. Over these four years, I have seen the kinds of hits I get from “the public,” and unless I do something to appear in the papers (like win the lottery), it seems very unlikely that my blog is going to get noticed more than by a handful of people a week, and those people are usually looking for something else.

Tomorrow morning, I go to court. I’ve got a traffic citation ($200!) that I need to get resolved somehow. I am hoping that I can get it reduced significantly because $200 bucks is a lot of money for someone who hardly has any. I was told by a classmate who has gone through the process before that the most the judge can reduce the fine by is 1/3rd, so it is still going to hurt, but hopefully not as much. I’ve never done anything like this before, so it will be interesting to see what happens, but right now, I really need to get to sleep so I can wake up and arrive to court on time.

Drawing upon Thought

Yesterday, I went to the first figure drawing class I am taking this term. I was initially nervous because I had heard that this particular instructor is a little demanding; and also, I felt somewhat nervous because I had been out of practice for some time, the type of classical practice a college art class seems to require. However, towards the end of the class, the instructor wandered over to where I was drawing and commented that my drawing was actually very good, the sort of compliment which makes me slightly embarrassed. I nervously smiled, laughed, and then tried to point out the drawings flaws: the composition wasn't very balanced, the model moved so the back look out of proportion, etc. The instructor countered each one, partly for encouragement.

Compliments, it seems, are always harder for me to take because I am always ready to receive criticism, deserved or not. And of course, criticism is always seems easier to believe, easier for me to mentally support, even if I know it is not necessarily rational. Not rational, just how it is. When I was ten years younger or so, I once overheard someone talking about receiving compliments and that it was generally considered polite to simply say "thank you" and leave it at that, advice which I remembered and took at this occasion.

Despite my various personal insecurities, I am looking forward to this class. It is not very often that I have the time (or, admittedly, the discipline) to explore my art in this way, a not-uncommon problem among artists and fellow art students. Plus, I am hoping to gain a few insights from the instructor about the larger context of the art business and world to somehow become more of a self-starter. I look around at the paintings that hang in the various small-time coffee shops and small galleries and have the thought, perhaps naive, that I could do something similar once I learned the "secret," learned the right techniques, and got introduced to "the scene."

In a connected way, I have been having a lot of thoughts about getting my master's degree in English again, to work towards becoming a college instructor. It is the other area in my life where I seem to have some ability, and have received enough compliments from others, mostly instructors, to make me think that I have serious potential. However, enough major obstacles remain to where these thoughts are not entirely developed: for example, I can't afford much more debt, the competition for those jobs are fierce, and the idea of facing 30 or so people per class is a little daunting, even if the students are all mostly young and have their own worries.

Anyway, these are the types of thoughts I have at night, when I am alone and the thoughts pour in like cool soaking water. I went to bed too early tonight (technically yesterday) because I was tired, so I woke up in the middle of the night and began to write this post. But I can feel the fingers of exhaustion slowly curving around my back muscles and crawling up to my neck. It's time for bed again. When I wake up, I begin work on my scholarship application. It is due by 5:00 p.m. and I still have personal statement to write. I highly doubt that much will come of this application because I already have a undergraduate degree. It is even possible that having that degree will automatically disqualify me for consideration, but there is nothing in the application that says it will for sure and I certainly won't get anything if I don't apply. Time for bed.

Notes about Nothing

It's been quite awhile since I have last posted here. I think that part of the reason is that I'm not sure what to write about anymore because, I guess, that the usual amount of whining I do on here is beginning to wear on even me. How many posts can I write where I talk about my daily difficulties in getting things done, or my being behind in due dates, or whatever?

I could write about 80's television because I spent my childhood devoted to it. I could write about books I have read, music I've heard, or art that I am doing but, the sad fact of the matter is: I am a lump. There, I said it. I am a lump. I've been spending most of my off time playing World of Warcraft, to the point where I am currently a level 57 paladin. The only reason I don't really blog about that is because I am a big enough nerd already; I don't want to put any more nails in that coffin, even though it is a certainty that the nerd question is probably already dead and buried. So, that leaves me with nothing really interesting to say. I'm pretty sure that, at some point, I may be able to turn that around, but right now, things on the interesting front look pretty bleak.

Conditions on the Ground

This morning, I woke up to about three inches of snow on my car. On a normal Tuesday, this would not have been a problem as class starts in the afternoon. By the afternoon, the temperature rises, the snow melts, and the plows have had a chance to go by the house. However, I had an 10:00 a.m. appointment that, clearly, I was not going to make. I gave it the "old college try," by which I mean I attempted to drive on the snow anyway. A few harrowing and unplanned slides in to the opposite lane convinced me that while I was still only a few hundred feet away from the house I should turn back. Utter terror behind the wheel can give one a clarity of mind and decisiveness like nothing else.

The appointment that I missed, a meeting with the college career counselor, wasn't anything that was at the top of my list of things to do this day anyway. However, lately, (as if you couldn't tell from 90% of the other posts on this blog) I have been feeling some tension between my current career path as a graphic designer and my previous career path as a college writing/literature instructor. Even though I am not spending as much time reading Derrida, Lacan, or Barthes as I used to, I find that I still enjoy metaphor and analyzing creative works. (A recent trip to a major art gallery, and the corresponding paper that I had to write about it, helped me see that I am still talented in that regard. Instead of reporting on the mere anatomy of an artwork, doing tasks like identifying its overall color scheme or the describing the various kinds of colors that it used, I spent most of the time analyzing the theme and meaning of the work as a whole.) Anyway, I scheduled this appointment because I had got some advice that indicated seeing a career counselor would help me clarify these questions in some new way I can't yet foresee. I'll have to reschedule tomorrow or Thursday.

Once back inside the house, I settled in to wait things out. I spent most of the morning watching the snow pile up on the outside deck while painting on a school project. The lights went on and off about five times, which wasn't a problem as I was painting by the dining room window. It gave enough natural light to work by. Eventually though, enough snow had melted to where I was able to leave the house and get to school; and, fortunately, after a brief lunch break, I was able to make it to my class on time.

We spent the entirety of today's class learning how to retouch photos. It took quite some time to get through everything the instructor wanted to present. By the end of class, he had assigned a project in which you take an old, black and white photograph that had been ripped into pieces and clumsily glued back together and remove any evidence of rips or similar types of damage. I decided that it would be in my best interest to stay after class and do it right then, which I am glad to say, I finished. There was a lot more that I could catch up at school, but it was late, and I was hungry, so I left. I got home at about 7:00 p.m., which considering how I had worked all day, I felt was fairly long.

From everything I have heard, there is going to be even more snow tomorrow morning. And I've got a morning class then as well, so unlike today, I won't be able to wait around until conditions are more favorable. I am going to hope that it doesn't snow as much as they're saying, force myself into a determined sort of denial. It may only be foolish hope, but it is getting close to the end of the term, and I still have some work I need to catch up on. Less snow clogging up the roads mean more time spent buried in the computer lab working on homework. In any event, tomorrow brings what tomorrow will bring regardless of my wants and needs, so there's not too much use worrying about it. And right now, it's time for bed again.

Cities of the Past

Today, I made another one of my bi-weekly trips to my former college town. Enough said about why. Suffice it to say that, overall, I find I have been inexorably drifting towards a greater personal forgiveness for myself over the things that happened back then, and, gaining a clearer perspective, discovering the ability to go forward without the past unnecessarily holding me back. It seems so easy for me to escape into analysis of what went wrong back then or thoughts about what could have been done differently that I often neglect exerting the effort to simply move on. And while I do think it's good to visit the city of the past and entertain your previous mistakes in order to learn from them, at a certain point, you really do need to pack up your things and leave it behind.

During the later afternoon, I visited the University Bookstore there, the one I used to go to, and bought a 1GB compact flash card for a fifty dollar savings over what I had paid for my other one at the mall. I hadn't really planned on buying one, but I couldn't pass up a price like that. My initial reason for shopping there was to scope out the price and styles of drafting tables; the prices there have been the best I have seen anywhere for drafting tables. However, after much looking, I found that what I saw wasn't exactly what I had in mind. When I was in high school, I had a large, smooth door set up on cinder-blocks as a makeshift desk. And even though such a setup is extraordinarily cheap, something much more likely to appear in dank dorm rooms or depressing bachelor apartments, I must have really enjoyed the space it offered and its low relative height from the floor because I kept thinking how a long door on blocks would probably work way better than anything I could buy. But all of this may be moot since: a) I don't have room for either a long door or a drafting table, and b) I am not sure if having either one would improve my art at all, the only reason to get one.

After looking at the tables, I unconsciously meandered over towards the desktop Mac computers for sale. From everything I have heard, it seems that if I am going to be a serious freelance designer, a mac computer is practically a necessity. The cost of the iMac I found most appealing is a little over a thousand dollars. Add the price of the student version of Adobe Creative Suite to that and you have an overall investment of about two thousand dollars, nearly the same amount I used to get from previous financial aid checks in order to pay rent and buy groceries for three months. Yes, it is quite a lot of money relatively speaking. But, I can also save for it a little at a time I suppose, an idea that goes back to the idea of exerting effort rather than dwelling on obstacles.

In any event, after all the shopping and looking, I drove back to the college in which I am currently enrolled and worked in the Mac lab trying to complete a couple of assignments from the past week. Getting there was a pleasant enough drive in cloudy weather, and the picture above is from the parking lot of the taco bell where I had lunch. As for work in the lab, I may need to go back tomorrow and finish what I started. If all goes well, I am really going to try and post something on my comic blog soon too, maybe on Sunday. It will be interesting to see how the scanner works after a couple of months of neglect. I think it will be fine, but you can never tell with technology, right?

Struggles with Humility

Last night, I dreamt that I was back in my previous college town. I was talking to the last professor I had in graduate school explaining--in detail--the reason why I left and why I had not done well. It was a humbling experience, a little sad too, to recount the litany of failure I felt I had accumulated there, but it was also somewhat cathartic to know that the professor understood on a whole new level than before. (In real life, I had felt she was a bit mean and stubbornly obtuse. To my view, she seemed personally offended I was having problems keeping up, as other professors had not.) The reasons why my performance had been so poor, as I explained it, were not because I did not take the class seriously or was somehow not intelligent enough to do the work. No. Instead, it was an overwhelming amount of personal problems that were constantly pulling me under an invisible tide, one that nearly drowned me. She appeared sympathetic. On her own accord, she looked on the computer to see if I was somehow still "in the system," but perhaps under a slightly different name; maybe there was a paper that she could return to me. She found a name on an e-mail list that might have been a bureaucratic fouled-up version of my own last name resembling something like "shakey." Then, she called over to the Student Association across campus and asked if they could check for any of my unreturned papers. I left her office for the student building where my office used to be. I found my old office on the fourth floor, smaller than before, but more closely packed with current graduate students. Each was asking about where I had gone. They managed to find a couple of my papers, which had been placed in plastic sleeves, and gave them to me. I returned to the lobby before leaving without any fanfare.

I think the dream accurately portrays my struggles lately in trying to place the graduate school experience in perspective. I suppose I am not entirely happy with how things stand. And the classic old behavior, a habit that reflects on my desires for acceptance--the damned need to explain myself--is still deeply felt. I think there is a fair amount of nostalgia in there as well, as my current motivation to excel in the school I am currently enrolled has been significantly dampened. While I'd like to excel in my current classes, the feeling of having done all of this once before prevents me from putting in that extra effort to impress instructors. To have reached graduate school as an English scholar, only to start over again as a freshman Graphic Design student can be a little surreal. Every once in a while, I see the students struggling with what I struggled with, and then overcame, years ago.

In my current art class, I have a paper to write. The last paper I wrote for one of my art classes, I wrote in the twenty minutes before class in one straight sitting: with hardly any revision, absolutely no planning, and a not really a careful analysis of the subject. I got an A-plus with the instructor commenting that he would have liked to have heard more of my interesting analysis of the art I was critiquing. Most instructors grade papers the same way, which more often than not is partly based on their biases about writing (which are often wrong) and an off-hand general opinion of the student and not the paper. Despite the effort I put into the work for this art class, I do not usually get anything more than a B." I have a strong suspicion that no matter how well I may do on the paper, I am going to be stuck with a "B." Not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but also not an accurate assessment in my opinion. And, if I were more like my fellow design freshman, I would be happy with a "B." But, in a manner of speaking, I have seen behind the curtain: I've graded numerous freshman papers, took several classes on teaching and pedagogy, and even taught a few college classes myself. It makes accepting these types of circumstances just a bit more difficult.

This morning, the challenge will be to write the paper anyway and catch up on all of my other assignments as best I can. I've been feeling tired much of the time as of late, and that makes putting in the effort just that much harder. I see a nap in my future.

Thoughts about the Future

Tonight, I made a few minor clothing purchases at Walmart, which I suppose is the same as admitting defeat in the fashion world. Nothing big, just a blue t-shirt, a black sweater-shirt, and a belt. The shopping trip was a whim really, as I hadn't planned on making any purchases. I have nearly no money, and I haven't been working as much as I should be, so paychecks are minuscule. But, as my clothing is beginning to wear out a little, I figured that I would check for some bargains.

But aside from that, on my evening drive home from school today, I was thinking about how the way things stand in my life currently isn't exactly what I would have chosen for myself. For one thing, I am not sure I have sorted out what I want to do for a career, and as a mid-thirty-year-old, time is always getting shorter. Occasionally, I see professional people on television, like business-people, firemen, or teachers and I notice that not a few of them are my age. There was a time not too long ago when that wasn't the case. And conversely, there are not many people my age left in college anymore; they have already passed through, and in some cases, more than ten years ago. It can be an odd feeling sometimes, a feeling that tends to crop up in the quieter moments during classes. While everyone is busy taking notes or listening to the instructor, I'll look up--not at the teacher, but at the other students--and think things like, "what am I still doing here; am I learning things that will help me get where I want to be; couldn't I find a decent paying job with the things I know already?" Depending on mood, the answers for these questions change with fluctuating subtleties. The last question about getting a job with what I know already often feels like defeat, a way of giving up.

But, I wasn't just mulling over my life as it pertains to career. There were thoughts about my personal life as well, with the main problem being not having many people in life to whom I can relate. Because I'm an easy-going guy, laid-back, with a strong tendency to believe in fate, I don't do much other than feel out of sorts about my condition. And, the feeling can seep slowly into my consciousness like cold water after days where the only people I talk to are my parents, and not even them for very long.

Of course, I didn't come up with any solutions to these problems, but I did think it would help to write out a list of goals and ways I think I could get there. I hate the idea of writing things out because it sounds too much like something from a self-help book, or the detestable prophets of motivation and improvement that infest television. But, I do believe in writing as a way to think, and I tend to be a visual person, so a list is what I have resorted to. I used to think that my main problem was that I simply wasn't self-disciplined enough to get whatever I wanted done, but maybe the problem is also that I am just not sure where or what I really want to do. For example, do I sign up for more student loans and make a second attempt at graduate school and an eventual academic career, or do I continue to try for a new career in graphic design or illustration? I can come up with strong arguments for and against both. It is true that I have talents for both, but I have a lot more training for the academic life. I will not get, and it is unlikely I will ever get, as much education in graphic design as, say, an individual who has gone to Art School for four years and has a Fine Arts degree. Then again, my instructor, a professional designer has a degree in Chemistry, and he says that the chances for a designer with an associates degree in design has a fair chance to get a good job as long as you have a strong portfolio.

I am not sure what I will actually do about any of this, and there is a lot more that has been going on internally than I could ever express. I gave up thinking about it in the car when I reached Walmart. Still, I know I must do something, and I am very sure I will continue to think about these subjects for a long time to come.

Tuesday Transitions

I managed to exercise today for about a half hour, but then I wrecked any minuscule benefit by having a fast food dinner. I thought about going somewhere that serves real vegetables instead of something fried, but I couldn't justify spending 10 dollars or more on a meal that would only be marginally better. Overall, I think that I am making some small changes in the right directions, but I've got a ways to go. Plainly stated, I am sick of hamburgers.

I spent most of the early evening in the MAC lab at school finishing up some homework that is due on Thursday. Using Adobe's Photoshop and Indesign, I laid out nine photos of vases that we took the week before. I then printed it out on the fancy professional printer that probably costs a couple of thousand dollars. Hardly anything when you think about the print industry as a whole, but way, way, way more than I could afford.

I have to say that my photography is getting a little better. I've discovered that I have a shutter finger made of heavy marble, so when I click the shutter button, I jostle the camera just a little bit which, of course, makes the image blurry. That, and the fact that I couldn't get the internal sensors to focus on the part of the vase I wanted, made today's assignment really hard. We were also supposed to adjust the images using "levels" to approximate with the camera what we actually saw with our eyes. You can't imagine how fussy a process that is; and, the patience I had for overcoming teeny changes in tones in the original photographs that were slightly out of focus to begin with drained away quickly. Still, I know my way around the camera a lot better than I did three weeks ago.

By the way, the picture above is not one of the recent ones from class. I really haven't had much time to play around with the scanner or any other digital imaging programs on my laptop. Maybe I can do something on one of these weekends, but right now I feel a little drained of creative energy. My confidence in my artistic capabilities is waning somewhat.

Registering for Classes

There are about 40 people trying to get into a photography class in which there is only room for 20 students. And, I am one of the unlucky half that is not registered. The instructor spent most of this first class assuring everyone that if forty people truly want to take the class, he will be able to open up a second section. Then, he went on to explain how everyone will need to buy a new camera that will cost upwards of 300 dollars, or for the students enrolled in the visual communications program: 600 dollars. He further delineated all the tick-tacky accessories that one will need in addition to all of that. I could tell a wave of uneasiness swept through my fellow students. The consequence of his lecture on costs mean that several students will drop out, so there isn't likely to be a second class after all. And that may mean that despite the pleasant talk of everyone being able to get into the class, everyone probably won't. Personally, I think my chances of being able to get in are pretty good because I spoke with the instructor back in the beginning of December, but I won't know for sure until next week.

Once I got on campus today, which was about noon, I was expecting to stay well into the evening. The computer lab is normally open until 9:00 p.m., and I had some computer homework I needed to finish on one of the Macs. After all, even though I have been lucky in being able to afford most of these school expenses, I am still not rich enough to afford the $1500 it would take to buy an adequate Mac and the necessary software. I can get by using the computers at school. Or so I thought. After a dinner off campus, I was surprised to discover that the computer lab was closed because the work-study student who runs the labs in the evening did not show up. Disappointed, I waited around for a bit before accepting the fact that my homework is going to be late tomorrow.

It worked out in the end because, once I was home, I spent the rest of the evening cleaning out my room. Too many books, a messy cat, and a few piles of dirty clothes were starting to take over, and it was getting rather difficult to maneuver without stepping on something. The biggest accomplishment of the day, however, was not cleaning things up, but the fact that I called in a refill for my medication. It's not good to run out of the stuff because one can build up a resistance to it, or even become immune to it (so I have been told), and if that happens, it does me no good.

I also spent part of the day thinking about life back in the apartment and city back where (and when) I was attending graduate school. These beginning design courses can be so mind numbingly boring sometimes because concepts that are easily grasped are bluntly and repetitively hammered home, apparently in order to ensure that the beginning college students get it. Nothing like the free form discussions of theory in the small graduate courses I attended just a year and half ago. Yes, those classes were pretentious sometimes, and yes, some of the graduate students could be completely clueless or slightly snobbish, but the information was always interesting and challenging, and above all--the assignments were more self-directed which is something I enjoyed. That is: when I had the ability to do those assignments. My mood has been a little low lately, but I have to remember the days when it was struggle to get out of bed.

Clearing of Vision

The cord on my power supply for my laptop is internally weak, so I have to adjust the cord "just so" in order for the computer to get power. It takes a delicate hand, much like balancing a quarter on its edge. The battery I use for it is the original, at least over three years old, which means that it doesn't hold charge for very long. It is not anything that is terribly bothersome, only disappointing in that I may have to purchase yet another power supply, a power supply that will be the fourth one for this computer. Money used to come more easily, but now it seems harder to hold on to than normal.

On Monday, school begins again. I've signed up for three classes, one of which is digital photography. I'm looking forward to that class because I would like my photographs to be more artistic, more compositionally sound--if that makes sense. My mood has been somewhat below normal in that I am still grappling with the consequences of losing the previous graduate school opportunity, fighting to remember to take my pills on a regular schedule. The solution to the second part of that problem is to program my cell phone alarm to go off every day at the same time, a reminder to take my medicine.

The solution to the first part of that problem--my low mood--is quite a bit harder to resolve because everything I think about, every consideration I have, even the solutions to my mood problem, has an extra film of negativity on it, a cold and sticky layer that effortlessly coats my thoughts. Sometimes that film is slight, and sometimes heavy. And, honestly, I see it and counter it every time I can. But it all takes added effort, an extra step that is hard to take. And it must be nearly impossible for anyone to understand how sticky and cold this mood can be unless they themselves have felt it for some time and become comfortable with its presence.

In college, I often studied people and the culture of the nineteenth century, and just as often, one would read about the lives of notable people during that period--how they failed to achieve something important to them and could never come back to that, how that failure became a central part of their lives even as they lived beyond that moment of failure and established new lives afterwards. Those lives lived after failure, to some degree, have a feeling of superfluousness to them. In a sense, they are second lives, additional lives that exist side by side to the life before.

I think about these people often and compare myself to them. The classic story is about the unhappy child of an educated, well-to-do family that, try as he might, can never become the lawyer or doctor he aspires to be. Of course, the individuals one reads about manages through their special genius to succeed in other ways. They are extraordinary, so their lives are deemed worthy enough to be written down and preserved. But for every one extraordinary person who succeeds, there must be an army of the ordinary, the merely mediocre, who don't, or can achieve what they aspire to be. And these lives are not written down. They fade in history and evaporate.

I worry that I won't meet the demands of my ambitions: the ability to pay my debts, to comfortably earn a living or collect a savings ample enough to provide for friends and family, that I won't ever feel completely self-possessed, secure, and moderately happy. Perhaps these things are too much to ask for, a little too selfish or even the wrong thing altogether. But then again, perhaps not. Honestly, I don't really know, so I spend a lot of time thinking about it, going back and forth until I am tired out from my own internal questioning and just want to lose myself in a mindless television program or a handful of junk food. Tonight, that program is Star Trek. I'll be going to bed as soon as it's over, which is in about fifteen minutes.

My plans for the future seem somewhat simple: practice my art as best I can on a regular basis, try to do my best in school and finish as quickly as I can, develop better self-discipline which includes eating better foods and exercising regularly, and live life a day at time until I can develop a complicated new plan for the future that is not so deeply rooted in the previous plan of graduate school.

Days of Change

Taking an inventory of my trajectory through life, it would be accurate to say that where I am right now is precisely not what I thought I might be doing at this point. I feel like a messy closet overfilled with out-of-date clothing with a tumble of brown shoes spilling out the bottom. As an earnest and naive youth, I had been planning a little arc through the changes that I was working for and expected to occur. Really, "planned" conveys something too deliberate--it was more of my actively "supposing" where I might be because I also pessimistically and unconscious believed in fate, a type of monolithic stone golem. I accepted it as a reality, but I also tried to ally myself to it in order to lull it into going my way.

But I am not sure if pure randomness, my own mistakes, or a combination of several things, but something happened, and something did happen, to where what I thought and what occurred became like alienated lovers, intense longing between the two that cannot be realized with simple companionship. And the stupidity of this process, this living with what you want but can't have, is something that I know happens to nearly everyone. You can be warned again and again everyone goes through this process, but until it happens you can't really believe it, not really. It's an evolutionary denial rooted in the soil of self.

So, in the larger sense of "right now," I would be comleting my PhD thesis and in my third year of teaching freshman composition, if things had gone my way. I can even picture the afternoon classroom filled with nervous students, roughly half eager to learn the material, the other half already bored. In the larger building across campus is an office desk filled with drab books, "texts" in this official world of theory, books maybe only twenty people have ever read. In ratty folder or notebook are loose-leaf papers filled with half written research paragraphs filled with awkward sentences auditioning for the final work. On this detached and unreal stage of academia, I would be actively perfecting the role of professor. And, as pretentious and arrogant as that world can be, as shaped by cultural expectations as much as actual job requirements, I miss it.

Instead, I have nearly no money and am trying build up my life to a place where I can hang a wholly new, but similarly complex, set of expectations of a future life actively supposed. I am blessed to have a family and a support system left to help me start over as I know many don't. In a parallel universe, with the same circumstances but the absence of family, I would be living on the street, or a tent in the woods, perhaps near the edges of an urban shelter. And I am learning how to be healthier, a difficult process of trying build a meager but actively practiced wisdom. But it is a difficult process, a process that I hope will put me back on the rails of a stable life that is a bit more protected from the random chances and my own mistakes.