Keeping Up the Fight

Hopefully this won't be me soon

I’m starting to get genuinely scared about my short term future, and potentially my long term future, as well. I almost didn’t cover my rent for the month, as my family couldn’t manage to send me the full amount that is due. Unfortunately, my apartment complex won’t allow a partial payment, even one which is only $20 or $30 short of the total. That means that if things don’t turn around soon, I could conceivably miss my rent for the next month, and that would mean I would be on the street with nowhere to go by my birthday, which is in the middle of May. I spent most of last weekend in a deep depression as I struggled with that realization. I wish I could say that the thought of suicide didn’t appeal to me at some point. However, since I have lived with depression for the majority of my life, I suspect that suicide will never fully leave the list of possibilities that I consider whenever I am faced with adversity. At least, I can report that, since graduating college, I haven’t been fully overwhelmed with emotional anguish. The feelings of depression didn’t completely overcome me, and a walk around the lake on Sunday afternoon helped me to break free of the painful, obsessive thoughts about homelessness or suicide which had grounded me on the previous two days.

On the other hand, I suspect that my gas will get cut off soon. That means I won’t be able to cook food on the stove, and I will have to endure cold showers. Luckily, the temperatures have now warmed up, so I don’t have to worry about being too cold during the day or night. As an odd consequence of my tendency to ignore some things, such as money, I had built up a credit over the last year with the electric company, as I set up my bank account to just send a regular monthly payment which was apparently slightly more than what was owed each month. That means that my electricity is still up and running, and current, for now. It will probably be another couple of months before my electricity will be turned off, assuming I haven’t been kicked out my apartment before then. I do plan to talk to my property manager at the apartment complex, when she returns to her office this Tuesday, to see if there is any way that I can negotiate my apartment rent downward for a few months while I continue to look for work. I am hoping that since I have been living here steadily for nine years that they will be willing to give me a little slack. Living in Raleigh, the lowest rent these days, which isn’t in a slum, is $600, and those are student apartments not far from where I am currently living. My rent, right now, is $700.  If I could get a couple hundred knocked off the price for a few months, it might make a world of difference for me, not to mention my family. Though, to be fair, that is probably more wishful thinking than anything based in fact. But, I don’t have much other choice than to try.

A Change of Scenery

NCSU Belltower

There's the old saying that the more things change the more they stay the same. Well, things have definitely changed. Since last November 1st, I was accepted to NC State, lost my car due to a broken timing belt, road an Amtrak train for the first time to Charlotte, experienced what can only be considered a clusterfuck of a college orientation, registered for classes, and began to make a name for myself in the new environs of a major four year research university. It is sort of surprising how NOT overwhelmed I have been thus far.

I've been attending classes for a month now, and I find that the work load is, so far, about even with what I had come to expect at Wake Tech. Gone are the expectations of a written paper and an oral presentation for every class, only to be replaced with an expectation for a lot more reading and independent homework assignments. The biggest adjustment has been the relative claustrophobia which I've experienced. The buses to school and back have been packed, as have been the 200 seat auditorium classes, the campus food courts and coffee shops, and even the library.

Getting Caught Up

I think I've mentioned before that this semester has been about making up for past mistakes. Well, now that the semester is finally nearing a close I am finally starting to feel like I am getting caught up.

I just made a 93 (A) on my second paper in American Literature. There is still one paper to go and the final exam, but I'm sure I will make at least a B in the class. I'm probably also on target to make an A in my other classes, as well. I am still waiting to hear back from NC State about my acceptance, but I went ahead and registered for next semester at Wake Tech, just in case. I've already taken all the required classes that I need, so next semester is just to raise my GPA. I'll take Ethics, two sociology classes, and French. Several acquaintances from school have already gotten acceptance emails from State this week, so I should hear something before too long.

Earlier this week I had my license plate confiscated because I had some longstanding fines for late renewal that I never paid. I had tried to pay them a month ago, but DMV had to make it more complicated than necessary (they needed to see some documentation that I had not brought) and I just didn't get around to returning. Well, I got it taken care of after experiencing the humiliation of having a cop take the plate off my car. The asshole had the nerve to ask me for a screwdriver to take it off! Have I mentioned that I don't really respect authority?

One thing I've learned throughout this semester is the need to attend to your priorities. In the past it was always easy for me to say something was a priority, but not apply any effort to ensure that it was accomplished (like finishing my novels). This semester I had to drastically cut down on my web surfing, blog updating, online chatting/forum posting, and get into the habit of staying on top of my reading and homework. That's not to say there hasn't been some downtime, but I never allowed it to get in the way of getting schoolwork done. Honestly, I have no idea how people work jobs and find time to make good grades.

Another thing I've noticed lately is that I really seem to thrive in a school environment. I always enjoyed high school back in the day. But, as I have been earning good grades I have noticed that my self-esteem has increased noticeably. Consequently, things don't seem to be bothering me as much as they might have in the past. I think I enjoy getting regular consistent feedback. Of course, I sometimes wonder if this leads me to coming off as an obnoxious know-it-all, but that has been a common complaint of my personality since childhood... so perhaps it's just par for the course.

Have fun and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Too Much Information...

Are you comfortable in your own skin? I'm not really, but then you probably already figured that out if you've been following my blog for any amount of time. I try to be comfortable in my skin, but then I invariably do something which is apparently socially unacceptable.

The thing about me is that on some deep level (okay, it ain't that deep!) I really enjoy saying whatever is on my mind and seeing how other people react. For some reason, most people don't seem comfortable with the level of honesty that I'm willing to convey. For instance, about a decade ago, while at a party, I was talking to a bunch of people I'd never met. I confessed that I had once dated a girl who wasn't really that into me purely based on the fact that I enjoyed giving her oral pleasure. The group went totally silent. I thought it was hilarious! I mean, they had been sharing stories about people they had dated, so I wanted to tell my own story. It seemed like the most amusing story I could tell at the time. Hell, I still think it's amusing!

And there was the time in General Psychology when the professor was discussing the mental and physiological processes involved in hunger. She mentioned how the pains of hunger go away and re-occur after a certain amount of time until you actually eat something. I chose to reveal, to an auditorium of at least one hundred students, that she wasn't correct. I then proceeded to recount my personal experience of starving myself as a form of personal punishment, when I was experiencing severe depression, and how the feeling of hunger would only return once or twice in the first twelve hours. Then I wouldn't feel any hunger again for at least three or four days, and once went a full seven before feeling anything. However, once I started to eat, my hunger hit me like a truck! Well, half the auditorium turned around and stared at me like I was crazy. Even the professor was flabbergasted for a moment. I was just sharing personal experience... I'm not sure why everyone was so freaked out by it. And in a psychology class, no less!

I wish I could feel comfortable being who I am, but it seems like a given that if I want to be socially proficient I have to be willing to wear a mask of some kind 99% of the time. I can't even be my true self around my friends or loved ones as evidenced by the people on Facebook who have threatened to de-friend me or have otherwise complained that my updates or comments have been a bit too revealing.

It's hard to tell the world to go fuck themselves when I feel such a desire to become socially connected with people. I don't want to have hundreds of friends, but I want five or six who really GET me and have fun with me while letting me be me. What good is being close with people if they don't see you for who you really are? And if you are only my friend so long as I hide behind a mask, what happens if and when the mask breaks?

Perhaps it is a fault in my logic to want everyone else to adapt to me rather than me adapting to everyone else. But I guess it speaks to how uncomfortable I am in my own skin. Maybe the mask has to be there as much for my own protection as for yours.

Have fun and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

Days of Futures Past

After aiding Chris with his girl problems our discussion somehow turned to my writing. I informed Chris that I currently have two unfinished novels sitting on my hard drive. He asked to read them, so I emailed him the files. Of course, after I sent the files, I immediately began to re-read them for myself. What I read both impressed me and troubled me at the same time.

The longer of the two unfinished works, Pair Bonding, is 94 pages of dense, elaborate, and dark storytelling. I haven't worked on it in earnest for almost a decade. The bulk of it was written during long nights at Waffle House through numerous periods of depression throughout my early 20s. It, along with the second novel, is a part of a time travel series based on a character I created during my junior year in high school.

The second novel, Lessons to Learn, is much more current. In fact, I originally came up with the story after my break up with Ex. I've only written 20 pages of it so far, though the goal, as with Pair Bonding, is to have between 200-250 pages at completion, as I've never been a fan of books longer than 300 pages in length. The tone of Lessons to Learn is far more hopeful and upbeat. Unfortunately, the writing, as a result, isn't at all as good as in the writing in Pair Bonding.

I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I've long observed that some of the best writing comes from depressed people. Authors like Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway wrote literature which will be read for generations, all while being depressed alcoholics. And I've read psychological studies in recent years which point to a correlation between depression and hypersensitivity to minute details which could explain how depressed writers are able to paint such vivid pictures with words. So, does this mean that as long as I'm not depressed I'll never be able to write as well as I did when I was trying to escape my pain by withdrawing into my own creative universe?

Of course, that raises a whole other proposition. Is the loss of my best writing ability an equivalent exchange for improved self-efficacy, self-esteem, and overall happiness? I used to think that true happiness could only come from exploiting your natural talents to their fullest. Granted, I can be happy without writing, but there is something special which comes from knowing that people enjoy my work and having them offer validation of my talent.

Nowadays, validation, for me, comes in the form of good grades and new friendships. It's a validation of me as a whole person rather than simply a validation of a specific skill. And perhaps that is the way it should be, because it is too easy to pass my writing off as something separate from me as a person. I can say that writing is a "natural" talent as opposed to something that I am personally responsible for through my own deeds. But good grades and relationships are something which I have to cultivate with my own actions. And each new step is rewarded with a greater sense of personal achievement for which there is no equivalent exchange.

And let's face it... I'm still a pretty good writer!

Have fun and keep living life... and exploit your talents to the fullest!

Another One Bites the Dust

I had to make a hard decision today. I chose to drop my British Literature class. I'm not sure why, but rather than feel like I made a good decision I feel like I failed somehow. This is the first time I've ever dropped a class even though there were several in the past that I probably should have in order to protect my GPA. By dropping the class I insure that a low grade will not lower my already injured (2.54) GPA.

Part of the problem comes with the fact that, in order to drop the class, I had to get the professor to sign off on the form for me to drop. I've mentioned that I wasn't really in love with her as a professor (Okay, so, without ANY evidence whatsoever to support this, I called her a Dick Cheney-loving dominatrix... but not to her face!), but when she asked me my reason for dropping the class I actually felt bad for her! I didn't want to hurt her feelings for some reason. Now, understand that I had already planned out that I was going to just go ahead and tell her that I felt she was condescending and that if we were in the corporate world her teaching style would be equivalent to that of a micro-manager who picks at every little detail of his underlings tasks, and how I don't appreciate that level of specificity because it insults my intelligence and gives me the sense that my work and talent isn't being respected, and if she doesn't like how students write papers at this level she should just feel free to give them Ds or Fs rather than laying out every single point that she wants presented in a paper. Instead, I meekly commented that I wasn't enjoying British Literature as much as I had hoped I would, and that I just didn't think her teaching style meshed with how I like to work as a student. For her part, she politely recommended I take a literature course taught by a professor who by coincidence I've had before and is, according to her, "less structured" in his teaching style and looks at everything from a "communist" point of view! I have to admit, the professor in question DOES sort of look at things with a communist point of view, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing!

I've been trying to figure out why I backed down from telling the professor how I really felt about her. Some might say that I'm "maturing" or "becoming more sensitive to the feelings of others" in my old age, but I think that's a load of bullshit! I think it has something to do with the power differential between us. You see, in normal classroom situations (ones where I feel glad to be there) I am incredibly outspoken with a mix of insightful comments and wry sarcasm. In those environments, I feel as though I'm an equal (perhaps even occasionally superior) to the professor. It would be completely natural to let those professors know EXACTLY how I feel about them because I didn't hold anything back during standard class time. Unfortunately, I never felt at home in my Brit Lit professor's classroom. Rather, I would sit there quietly staring at her PowerPoint presentations, rarely making eye contact, trying to avoid being called on, absolutely never interjecting my own thoughts, and just trying to pretend that I wasn't there while still showing up enough not to go over my allotment of permissible absences. The assignments I did turn in all made As, but I just didn't want to be there. I didn't want to work for her. I didn't want to impress her. And I didn't want to connect with her as a human being.

I guess that's why I feel so bad about dropping her class. In that one brief minute that it took to get her to sign the form I was forced, for once, to consider that she was a person with feelings and a life outside of the classroom. Granted, by tomorrow (certainly by next week) she will likely have forgotten all about me as a student. And perhaps that's the way it should be. Because for her to remember me beyond next week would have meant that I had to make an impact. And to make an impact, at least in that moment, would have meant that I had to be rude and insensitive and try to take away, for a time however brief, another person's sense of self-esteem. In doing so, ultimately, I would have gained nothing but a fleeting sense of ego-inflation. I can get that somewhere else.

By the way, I got my first test grades back from all my other classes and I made an A (90) in Philosophy, a B (88) in Environmental Geology, and a C (76) in Human Development, though Dr. Mike will drop our lowest test grade and I expect to make an A on my paper in the class so I'm still in okay shape there, for now.

Have fun, and keep living life... or some approximation thereof.

You're So Money

Why can't we see ourselves through the eyes of others? I wonder what life would be like if we could. So often, it seems, the "me" that we see isn't the same as the "you" that is the view of the outside world.

Take, for instance, my Brit Lit Professor. I can almost guarantee that her self-image and the image she projects are not even close to parallel. Why am I so sure? Because the image she projects is that of a vaguely sinister, highly condescending research librarian who splits her time between stacks of antiquated literary tomes, her basement dungeon where she dons skin-tight leather, fishnet stockings, and thigh-high stiletto boots while wielding a cat-o-nine-tails as she forces unassuming men to submit to her will and call her "Mistress Kitty", and her blog where she coordinates the Dick Cheney Fan Club because, after the things she's made men BEG her to do to them, waterboarding could HARDLY be considered torture!

All too often, our self-image has a tendency of holding us back from the things in life that we want, and the things which we are capable of achieving. I've mentioned before how I used to see myself as basically helpless to the things which inevitably would happen to me in life. It was a sort of learned helplessness which came from years of being told, as a child by a mother who never won any awards for parenting, that men were only good for sex, and even then weren't that great half the time. I saw relationships as an economic transaction -- I had to spend something in order to get something that I wanted in return. Most of the time, I never thought I had anything of any value to spend. For some situations, I'd spend what money I had, for others I'd spend what sexual ability I had to trade, and for still others I'd trade my natural skills as a counselor. In situations where I didn't have enough money, sex wasn't a tradeable commodity, and counseling wasn't required, I had absolutely nothing to offer. Or, at least that's what I would tell myself, repeating things I'd been taught as a boy.

Of course, the world is filled with examples of people who see themselves in ways different from the objective reality. There are people who stay in abusive relationships because they don't see themselves as capable of existing independent of the other person. There are people who think that their attempts at humor are well-received when, instead, they make everyone around them uncomfortable. There are the young men and women who, after looking at fashion magazines and television and movie stars, feel as though they don't measure up to some imaginary "ideal" of appearance and must starve themselves in order to be accepted even though they were perfectly attractive to begin with, and their attempt to satisfy their self-imposed body image is what actually becomes the horror show. I wish I could tell everyone the truth of how they are REALLY seen by the people around them in a way that would actually make a difference.

I've referenced the movie Swingers before. In the movie, Trent, played by Vince Vaughn, is fond of telling Mike, played by Jon Favreau, "You're so money and you don't even know it!" By this, Trent means that Mike, a down-on-his-luck wannabe actor in LA who just broke up with his fiancee in order to pursue a career which doesn't seem to be going anywhere, has so much to offer the world if only he would wake up and see it for himself. In many ways, despite the cool veneer that Trent projects, Mike is the real deal, a guy with all the qualities that Trent can only pretend to have.

We all have something to offer the world. We all have an inherent value. I know that sometimes it is hard to believe it for ourselves, but it is true. And we don't need to go looking hard to find it, either. We just need to look at the people who really care about us: our family, our friends, our acquaintances. Would we miss any of them if they were gone? What do they offer us that we would lose if they disappeared? Isn't it feasible to believe that WE give those same things BACK to the people we care about? And if, for some reason, we don't, is there some way we can start? Because the value of our lives doesn't have to be measured in dollars, or favors, or sacrifices of ourselves that we make to hold people tight against us like glue. The value of our lives can be measured in how happy the people we care about make us, and how readily we exchange that joy.

Have fun, and keep living life... and remember that you're money, baby!

Reality Sets In

Painting entitled "Screaming" by Louisa Giffard

It always does... Reality manages to creep itself back into everything I ever attempt to do. There's no way around it. Life just simply NEVER goes according to plan. It's such a pain in the ass!

My Financial Experiment tanked. A couple weeks ago I was all set to double my initial investment, and then some. If things had gone according to plan, I would already have over $3000, possibly closing in on $4000. Well, as I already said, nothing ever goes according to the plan. Instead, my investment dropped back down to $1000. That's not a big deal, you say. At least you didn't lose your initial investment. True, except I was counting on having at least $3000 by now so that I could take out my initial $1000 and have some money to live on (and still leave money in my experiment to grow and take out as needed) while I wait for my next batch of financial aid money to roll in sometime in February. Now, I'm forced to take out the whole $1000 so that I have money to live on, which will not, by itself, stretch until February.

That's not the only bad news. I am not going to pass College Algebra. It isn't possible. Perhaps if I had bothered to really do the homework diligently, and ask for assistance from my friends in class, I could have done it. But, that ship has passed. And an F on a transcript really fucks up your GPA. Little known fact: Do you know that's why they call it an F? It helps to reinforce the idea of just how truly FUCKED you are! Now, my recourse is to either take the class over again (in which case I would need an A in order to balance out the F so I could get a C) or take another math course (possibly Statistics) in which I would still need to make an A. Also, I have a few Ds on my transcript which will not transfer over to State (you need to have a C or better in a class for it to transfer), so you might already see where this is going.

Yep... It looks like I'm going to have to spend an extra semester at community college before I can apply and get accepted to NC State. Granted, it isn't the end of the world, by any means. After all, I waited 13 years to get my ass back to school. What's an extra semester in the scheme of things? Still, it does annoy me a bit. I'd like for things to stick to the plan once in awhile. It would make life so much easier.

At least with regard to the grades, I can't blame anyone but myself. I knew going into the class that math isn't an easy subject for me. It isn't like English or Psychology which I have a natural talent for; I have to actually do some work to get by in a math class. I chose not to do it. Sure, my old Nemesis, the calculator, didn't make things easier, but if I had done the homework everyday I would have eventually gotten the hang of it. It just isn't going to work to try and pawn this failure off on someone or something else.

You know, in the past, it's always been so much easier for me to blame my problems on things other than my own choices. I would say and think things like "it's because I was abused", or "nobody ever helps me", or "people just don't understand". Even if I did accept blame, it was a value judgement on me, like "I failed because I'm a bad person", or "I'm just no good at this". None of these ideas ever really helped me identify the real problem and come up with a solution. These rationales just made me feel worse about myself. Either I was a bad person, a born failure, or I was helpless and hopeless.

I'm not sure what's changed, but I don't see myself or my problems like that anymore. Maybe I don't want to see them that way anymore. Now, I can see that failing at something doesn't have to be about me as a person. Instead, falling short of expectations can be the result of poor choices. I can learn to make better choices. I can clearly identify what events led me to this point and I can say "this worked" or "this didn't work" and I can adjust my behavior to compensate.

I think I understand now why I haven't been feeling bad about this realization, and why I haven't been beating myself up over the bad grade. It feels empowering to look at the world in an objective way and, rather than personalizing the mistakes, being able to see a better course of action in front of me. I guess this is the way that people with a healthy level of self-esteem must react to setbacks.

Have fun, and keep living life... Or some approximation thereof!