You have been told that even like a chain, you are as weak as the weakest link. But this is half true. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by its foam.
-Khalil Gibran

[cue soundtrack from the movie "Heathers"]

NO.

Oh dear god, no.

My high school reunion is November 5th.

Very few people can understand how completely this sucks, in so many many different ways.

I got fired.

I got fired from the worst job ever.

I got fired from a job where in order to keep myself sane I had to re-arrange all the shitty inspirational posters on the wall.

It was really funny. My boss closed the office door and said, "You don't seem very happy here. I don't really think you have the passion," --and he gestured out toward the outer office where the sad little Filipino accountant labored miserably away, muttering under his breath like Milton from "Office Space," and doing the work of four people who'd quit--"I don't really think you have the passion for the job."

I stared at him in silent dibelief because, while he was completely and utterly right, he was not saying this because he'd actually *sensed* any unhappiness from me. I know how to put aside that stuff when I walk into work: I'm getting paid to do a job, crappy though it may be, and I never let it get me down. I was the most positive, uptone and enthused person in that office.

He was lying.

He didn't really think I didn't have passion, he didn't really think I didn't like the job. It was just that I wasn't willing to work like Ramon in the accounting office, coming in on weekends, never taking a lunch, working from 7 am to 6 pm without a break, and meekly, submissively suffering my boss's abusive and browbeating verbal assaults. For the first time ever, in this job, when my boss yelled at me, I yelled back.

And he wasn't going to take that kind of flak.

So, fine. I was a little ticked off initially, but it was just stung pride--"Hey, I was supposed to dump you first!" But then I came around, because now that I've been fired, I can collect unemployment. I used to be so against collecting unemployment, but that was when I thought it was everyone's taxes paying for my lazy ass. But it's actually my own money, so I now feel okay about it.

ANNNND....then I checked my e-mail, about ten minutes after I was informed that Friday would be my last day at the Crappy Day Job(tm). And there, in my inbox, were two e-mails from editors at Whole Life Times and the LA Alternative Press respectively, each saying they wanted to take me on as an intern.

I'd applied for the internships because, while freelance writing is fine, if I ever want to find financial success in writing I need to know the publishing cycle and the editorial side of things, and I can't get that experience as a sideline while working a "day job." I have to take a risk and leap in with both feet. An internship is the best way to start.

So while I intern and maybe work a part-time job, I can collect a little unemployment (hopefully) and prepare myself for a new phase in my career--one where I no longer work a day job and marginalize my dreams to the sidelines, but instead one where my hopes, dreams & goals take center stage.

For those familiar with whence I've come--I've come a long way.

It takes a lot outta you, too. Right now I'm going to go eat some nachos.

life is but a dream...right now


Good things are in the making, but day-to-day life seems like a ball of yarn constantly unraveling as it rolls--overhand. Out from underneath, from within itself, so the ball rolls and transports itself from place to place, from city sidewalk to grass to broken blacktop, with no way of knowing which way it will veer, or even what intelligence is guiding its motion. And the upcoming good things are all in the abstract, unknown, uncertain.

I feel like I'm stumbling my way in the dark, feeling in front of myself with my hands--able to navigate each thing as I encounter it, but with no idea of what is looming in the blackness.

So there was a fire in the trailer on the way to Burning Man.

Lost:

1 corset, hand-dyed blue, with gold beaded appliquéd arabesques & leaves, hand-sewed, zip-front

1 midnight blue corset, hook & eye front

1 Christmas red corset, hook & eye front

1 black vintage corset

1 hand-dyed vintage corset, two-tone, old-west style

1 longline black brassiere

1 waist-cincher corset, hook & eye, metal boning

1 satin garter belt

1 lace garter belt

all my underwear, thongs & panties

1 pair black jeans, perfectly worn in

1 old pair black jeans w/ holes I planned to mend

a bandanna I bought especially to patch the holes in the black jeans

1 pair patchwork black jeans, handmade & cut on the bias, one-of-a-kind from Aardvarks’

3 black brassieres, the only ones I have

1 Bollywood-style chain-mail silver brassiere

1 hand-dyed blue and green slip dress

1 hand-dyed blue and green tank top

1 pair arm warmers I made by hand out of grey & brown fun fur

1 pair leg warmers I also made by hand

1 orange tulle gown, floor-length

1 print gown with silver cinched draping

1 pair gray legwarmers that I use as arm-warmers

1 pair lavender legwarmers that I’ve had since elementary school

1 concert t-shirt from the Romanian electropunk bank Sunshine, hand-altered to fit me, slit up the sides & draped

1 concert t-shirt from the prog-rock band The Fire Show, now broken up, hand-altered & fitted

1 long-sleeve warm sweater top, grape-colored, which I’ve had since high school & love because it keeps me warm without making me look fat

1 black leather duster I found for $40 at Aardvark’s in 1999 and lost for a year at a May Trip, which then spent a year at Kevissimo’s, then which was returned to me by K’mo, and which I was very happy to have back and loved very much because it fit my frame, right down to arms the correct length

1 long gray wrap sweater

3 pairs black leather gloves

1 pair ecru leather work gloves, in a kids’ size that fit my hands

12 pairs of socks

1 pair tall black leather boots w/fur trim, with four-inch platform heels that fell apart at BM ’03 and that Skynyrd fixed with six three-inch screws in each platform

1 pair patent pleather boots w/ three-inch platforms

1 pair leather lace-up boots that were my last purchase with my credit cards before I closed them all & went into credit consolidation

1 fire-performance sword with inlaid Kevlar, melted

4 brand-new solar garden lanterns

the desire to every go to Burning Man again



Found:

More friends than I knew I had, and boundless kindness from those I knew...