This may not sound like a very socially acceptable thing to say, but I hate the part of my brain that makes me attracted to women. Nature wants me to procreate, and my body wants to procreate, but my logic about these things is completely contradictory. I think that girl is hot, and my body wants to get it on, my I don't want to get it on. Yeah, doing that stuff is fun, and procreating is necessary for the species, but why the fuck DO I have to have these thoughts? Why are we slaves to testosterone?
I have to deprogram myself. I have to make myself stronger, more subjective, more unique.
This part of my brain I'm speaking of is the same part of my brain that describes a man walking down the street as a black guy instead of a guy in a red shirt. He should not be the black guy, he should just be the guy. The fact that he is black doesn't matter to me, but that is the first thing that my mind recognizes. This part of my brain wants me to instinctively kill the spider I saw in the shed yesterday out of fear or dominance or masculinity. I didn't kill the spider, and I won't kill the spider. This part of my brain has been programmed by a combination of society and nature. I have to defeat society- I have to become myself as a whole instead of part of a group I never volunteered to join. I must create my own system of judgements and assessments instead of those that society has imposed upon me. I know I can defeat society. I know that defeating nature is possible too. However, this will be a daunting task if there ever was one. This is where the deprogramming reaches its pinnacle. Procreation, isolation, protection, selfishness, survival of the fittest- all these things must be abolished in my mind to win. The ultimate test will come when that hypothetical girl walks up to me and talks to me for the first time ever, offering herself to me. I would like to think that I am strong enough to turn her down. If I am successful in my endeavor, I will have the will power. I will be able to control my desires and urges and be able to send her packing.I absolutely hate the fact that I am sexually attracted to you, because I hate you. Physically I want you, but mentally, I will have nothing to do with you, and I value my mind above all else.I will accomplish this conquest of my mind. You could too, if you wanted. Few people know that there are not many things stronger than the sheer determination of the human will.
I'll describe the way I feel, weeping wounds that never heal.
Can the savior be for real, or are you just my seventh seal?
Gravity, no escaping gravity.
I fall down, hit the ground, make a heavy sound.
I'll describe the way I feel, you're my new Achilles heel. Can the savior be for real, or are you just my seventh seal? No hesitation, no delay, you come on just like Special K, just like I swallowed half my stash, I never, ever want to crash. No hesitation, no delay, you come on just like Special K, now you're back, with dope demand, I'm on sinking sand. Gravity, no escaping, gravity, I fall down hit the ground make a heavy sound every time you seem to come around.
I had hated my job for years, hated the whole profession (not telling; it's something I'm ashamed of, because it's so worthless and useless), and wasn't contributing anything to the world. But what could I do? I was well paid, far better paid than I could conceivably get in any other field. So I was stuck with that and dreams of being the next Joan Aiken cum Douglas Adams cum Joanne Rowling. The almost total absence of my writings on E2, however, shows that I'm not a very fast or persistent writer. I can't think of plots. The rest, I'm good at; just not plots. Now a comic novel doesn't have to have a brilliant and watertight plot, if the jokes are good enough, but it does still need a serviceable one.
Latterly, for perhaps as much as a year, it wasn't just the usual useless timewasting, but I felt more and more strongly they were trying to get me to quit. Or it was the incompetence typical of the company and they just hadn't noticed I had so little to do. Anyway, what could I do: resign? And have nothing. Finally, last month, they either gave up trying, or noticed, or just had a bright idea of sacking staff to help the budget; and they made me redundant. Seen this every couple of years: three or four go, often people who've been there years, it's quite routine. So I tried to look sober and not squeal in glee when they called me into the office with long faces.
Skipped and danced for a while, once safely outside the building. Bought some Australian champagne for immediate quaffing. Started making plans. Worrying period of a week or two when I didn't actually know how much redundancy money I'd get; the statutory amounts turn out to be disappointingly small. A book said companies usually top it up with ex gratia payments to reflect your real salary, but my ex-company was not exactly rolling in it. In the end it turned out to be a lot, better even than the maximum I'd hoped for.
So now I had enough to live on in comfort for two years, even with nothing coming in. Of course I don't want to use up all my savings, but the point is I could do two full years of study, if I had to. I've been looking for jobs over the last few weeks but this is a hollow mockery to satisfy the dole people: I know none of them are going to want me, because I'm not qualified for anything. Clearly courses were what I needed; editing, publishing, technical writing, something of that nature, so I sent off for those amid the pointless job applications.
Somewhere in there crystallized the idea that I needn't restrict myself to job-oriented courses. I could enquire about postgraduate studies in linguistics, which, while it doesn't pay, is unquestionably what I should really be doing. Something must be supporting those who do it for a living. The key thing about the redundancy money was that it made enough to support me for two full years, if necessary: one M.A. in linguistics, and one a vocational qualification in bookish pursuits. In reality I hope to pursue linguistics ever after, Ph.D. and mummification in some comfortable old department with a good supply of port, where I shall spend my days and nights making crabbed comments on cobwebby manuscripts, and pointing out other people's mistakes, and finding exceptions to generalizations, and debating the philosophy of language. Having decided this, I ought to have applied to Oxford and Cambridge too, and other institutions with a high reputation for the subject, but really, UCL is so convenient, half an hour by bus, and if I can't get in I might as well give up.
Well, today was the interview. Made a fool of myself, of course, but I can't help that. I might need to get my parents to go through all the papers in their house trying to find my actual degree to convince the bureaucrats it's not just an artefact of the other bureaucrats where I was before being chary about admitting what they'd awarded long ago (in the early 1400s, roughly).
I'd sort of expected my claims would be tested viva voce. So I can write on linguistics here, but how much of it is what I actually know? (Most of it, is the real answer, but it's by no means self-evident from reading a few nodes.) But no, no tricky questions about tense marking in Swahili, or syntactic typology of New Guinean languages, or evidence for phonetic shifts in pre-classical Greek.
Came home, en route buying nutritious things like smoked tofu, tempeh, brazil nuts, figs, mixed sprouts, port, and Guinness Foreign Extra.
This is all going to change in the next few days as I load all of my earthly possessions into a U-Haul trailer and caravan with one of my very good friends out to San Diego, California. I'm excited, but scared too. You see, I've never lived outside of Kansas in my life, but have always wanted to. I'm going to be 1500 miles away from my family and most of my friends, but I'm going to be living in a new place with all kinds of new people. Life is full of trade offs. I'm looking forward to all of this, well, with the exception of finding a job. If you haven't noticed, the economy is not so hot. Things are improving, yes, but the job market is always a little behind everything else. I'm not picky, I'll do anything that will pay the rent, at least temporarily. I would prefer to do work that will give me some sort of good experience, even if I have to do it for peanuts.
I will also be applying to graduate school this fall, a doctoral program at UC San Diego in Cognitive Science. I didn't discover this interest until my final semester as an undergraduate which explains why I have to take this year off and work--I missed all my deadlines. But my GRE scores are great, my GPA is acceptable, and I have some good letters of recommendation lined up, so I'm crossing my fingers.
Everything in my life is up in the air, but I'm actually okay with that. I have a lot of great people around me, and as long as I have that I think I can deal with just about anything. Jon, who I've known since we were eight year-olds in the same third grade class is going to live with me. Jack, my boyfriend, is also moving to San Diego which makes me very happy considering how much I love that boy. My roommate, Kim, will be in Omaha, but that's just a phone call away and I know we won't lose touch. My mom will always be there for me because that's the great thing about parents.
Updated contact info is on my homenode. I accept advice, encouragement, death threats, and virtual hugs. Thanks for reading this far.
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