Days of Shades

I just received a little wooden box for five years working at Timberland Regional Library.

I had never intended to go this long without going back to school, but since I still don't know what I want to be When I Grow Up, I'm not really complaining. I have a house, a boy, a band, kittehs... life's pretty good. Bear that in mind, cause the rest of the post may sound a bit angsty.

In the last year I've started to realize that I want to do something to help restore the natural environment -- native gardens and restoration are a Big Deal to me. I've done some volunteering, put natives in my yard, and done a lot of reading. I'd rather do something with direct consequences -- planning projects/planting rather than education/outreach, for example. I'd rather not let years of design experience go to waste, either. I actually LOVE the hands on part -- see icon! I get a total high out of mucking around in my yard, slowly making it nicer for the birdies. I WANT to do more volunteer work like that (Native Plant Salvage, Conservation District stuff). In a perfect world, I'd love to do work-work like that for a bit.

But the world, and specifically the bits of it that make up me, aren't perfect.

My 'sloppy' right knee and fused ankle aren't good at uncertain terrain. I can work in my yard, on nice even ground, for a few hours every day ad infinitum. I've worked on a sloping revegitation site for about five hours before I had to quit or collapse, and wasn't very useful the next day. The footing in most forest situations, or forest + slope, probably cuts the working time I can get out of my right knee and ankle down to about three hours.

Now we add in reynaud's. Sitting at the computer in a cool office is enough to start an episode, but it's easily dealt with if I have access to hot running water. It IS enough of an issue that I've missed a bunch of native plant volunteer opps this year, because I didn't think I'd be able to be productive given the cold weather. (This is taking into effect work gloves + glove liners + hand warmers, and it occurs in my footses too).

This is an odd realization. My orthopedic issues are congenital, so my interests and hobbies have tended towards more sedentary pursuits my whole life. The reynaud's started suddenly when I was 20 and rapidly progressed to the point where I'm surprised medical text photographers aren't asking to document my fingers, but it's usually considered an inconvenience, and rightly so.

I have honestly never encountered a situation where my physical issues were actually a factor in considering employment I might want before. It's... odd.

I know, I know - it's my week for melodrama. It's like a pledge-drive on PBS -- it comes around once or twice a year, seems to last for ever, and there's too much talking.

( If you pledge $50, you'll receive a complimentary pair of earplugs and one of my dirty dishes as a thank-you for your support )

Last year, in december, I posted in my LJ that I'd found my purpose in life. I didn't write down what the hell it was!

Could it have been sustainable architecture for the poor? Possibly. Hmm...that's still not a bad idea.

I'm 21, I'm 24, pretty soon I'm 32
Punching in and zoning out, this ain't what i'd hoped to do
I'm 21, I'm 24, feeling like I'm 32
Laughter isn't easy
After the first time that you lose

Oh, and I have a cold.

ATTN: Bellinghamstas-
I'm going to be in Hellingbam this weekend, Friday afternoon 'till Monday morning. Saturday is designated Black-Drop-n-BS day, at least all afternoon. Sunday night is for music. Nothing else is spoken for.
/NOTE

I'm typing this from the high speed internet connection AT WORK while I wait to get my day's tasks. It's a trial-hire/internship, part time until the end of August. I'm webmonkeying so far - we'll see what else happens. I feel much, much more productive now. Unfortunatley that hasn't carried over to Butch'n'Spike. In fact, I'm going backwards - not only am I averaging a comic every two weeks, I seem to have f*d up my CSS for BOTH the bs site AND Skellingtonart. Seeing as tweaking complex CSS is what I've been doing six to seven hours per day for the last two days, I'm both getting much better at it AND kind of sensitive to computer screens...perhaps I'll fix it next week.

Aside from low spots featuring the lil' bro, this has been a great week. emony42 and I played around Portland and had fun being uncharacteristically girly, and more characteristically geeky (hooray for Powell's!). I'm now on the third day of my gainful employment. Last night I went to Rick's to paint (I met him at the Art-Store-Formerly-Known-as-Opas). Didn't get any painting done, but I worked on my sketch on the hardboard. I love drawing, but I hate transfering successful sketches to the painting surface. His room-mates are pretty spiffy, and we watched the Red vs. Blue internet special.

Life seems to be progressing from the post-graduation ennui to a much more comfortable mode. Amazing what a little interesting employment can do for a person!

Btw, the music listed today is part of a CD my employeer did the design for. Gilles Apap is a french violinist (no comments), and he's amazing, but what makes that track stand out is one of the other 'instruments' - someone who whistles and sings counterpoint with themselves. At the same time. No foolin.

Also titled: A continuation of the over-intellectualization of my current space in life brought on by over exposure to art history.

When I described myself as a student object, I was referencing my prof's quote:

"You are brilliant, but because I'm a stupid teacher object, I might not understand that. To me, you are a bad student object, so you get a C."

The idea here is that to each subject, the objects surrounding them are acting within their role. They can be good or bad according to their role, but they are always judged to that standard. You fit within your environment and situation, which other people give to you, and you are judged by it's rules.

In being a bad student object, I mean that my work is frequently too last minute compared to what I want (currently even behind), and I don't nicely fit the media/major guidelines. In being a bad student object, I nicely follow along, make myself follow along, the 'ideal' path of the student that is given me. Graduate highschool, middling to good grades. Attend University, fair to good grades. Apply for scholarships. Apply for jobs. Cram, work, sleep, but not enough. Play perky in class. Apply to grad school.

Get rejected.

Wait - BAD student object! No more 'student' label for you!

Like anything unplanned, this brings about some choices, and some opportunities. Primarily, a decision about whether to try to be subject or object. I suppose my last push to be my own subject was traveling to Europe, and it was successful, amazing, life changing - except that I came back feeling not much changed. Well, I tend to think you never think outside the box, the box just gets bigger, so even if I wasn't 'freed' I at least added some windows to my box. My travel, though, was neatly planned around school, and being, again, the student object.

Next year - and by that I mean end of this school year to beginning of the one after next, which shows you how used to the education system I am - I have a choice. I can go back home and become the object of one of my parents' sentences, looking at interim life while I wait to try to redeem myself as student object, or I can go back home, attempt to make myself the subject of my own sentence, and search for the best experiences I can have while keeping an open mind about the future and awareness of what I will eventually have to do to get where I want.

Assuming I know what I want.

See, that's the other bit - As an object, subjects direct where you're going. I'm frequently my own object AND subject, in that I've directed where I'm going, and occasionally forget to stop and question myself. I have a tendency, especially when denied something I thought I wanted (in this case grad school), to what my father accuratly termed 'Target Fixation.' For those not interested in aerospace, 'Target Fixation' would be a serious problem pilots occasionally have, frequently just before suffering a 'controlled impact with terrain.' Never be so fixated on your target that you forget to keep an eye out for where the ground is.

I've been wondering what I *really* want a lot lately. I have goals, lots of goals, but what do I want, what would I want, say, if the superego weren't involved? This applies to a lot of things - career, home, relationships, etc. Over the past week and a half the last category has seemed pretty worrying, but the first one's always in the back of my mind. What I decided just now is that I don't need to answer the question of 'what I want' definitivley at this moment. I have before, as a way to seek clarity, but hence, target fixation. What I've found is the resolution to be aware of the question and to continue trying new possibilities on for size. Example - if I can find a great job, I might hang onto it for two years, not one, before looking at grad school. If I find a foreign travel opportunity, I should consider it a chance, not a missed chance. I should attempt things that don't fit the plan, because the plan won't always work, and can almost always be pushed back into shape later, anyway. Without realising it I made the first start on this the day I received the first rejection letter, when I cold called 15 different design firms just so I'd be doing something proactive. Proactive? subject. Bingo.

There - anyone who made it through my second self-reflexive spurt of the day deserves a gold star and a hershey's double-dip milk & dark chocolate kiss (collectable if you get to my appartment before Friday).

Y'know, that felt good. I'm even feeling some other psychological-sociological philosophising coming on. Perhaps something on my trip to Europe, and learning about pleasure - all of it, and specifically taking it, and joy, where and when given. We'll see.