The End Of The Beginning

I know I finished the last class that I needed to earn my associates degree in December, but I had been waiting to write a blog post about how I felt upon completion of that phase of my life until I actually had the degree in my hand. And now I do.

After calling the school in January and being told that I would receive a letter in February informing me what the next step would be, I finally received said letter Wednesday. It said to pick up my degree in the registrar's office by some date in June or else it would be mailed to me. I picked it up the next day. I even bought a frame and put it in already, even though I have to buy some nails in order to place it on my wall. It doesn't read any different than any other degree I'm sure, but it's my fucking degree, so I will type exactly what it says:

"City Colleges of Chicago Harold Washington College

The Board of Trustees of the City Colleges of Chicago, Community College District No. 508, County of Cook and State of Illinois, by virtue of the authority vested in the Board, and upon recommendation of the Faculty, confers on ANDRE JAVELL ROSS the degree of ASSOCIATE IN ARTS WITH HIGH HONORS

This award is issued in evidence thereof. GIVEN AT CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ON DECEMBER 13, 2008"

Yes, I'm a little proud of my achievement. Although I would love to know why the date has to be printed as if I received the thing on that day, which is certainly not the case.

I didn't know exactly how I would feel when I put my hands on that degree, whether I would be proud, emotional, overwhelmed, nonchalant. As it happened, I was texting my fiancee while waiting for the worker at the registrar's office to bring it out. She was a little upset because, while sitting in a class to learn how to improve her skill set in order to find work (she was recently laid off), some guy was sitting in front of her clearly not interested in the proceedings. The moment they brought my degree out to me, I was texting her, "That guy, like all of us, will get out of life what he puts into it." How perfect was that? I was receiving the fruits of my labor right at that very moment. And it wasn't so much emotional as it was very, very gratifying. The emotional part came this morning when I put my degree in its frame and kind of looked at it for a second as if it wasn't real, like I was just having a dream. I said to myself, "Is this really mine?" I guess it had not hit me until that moment.

And so ends this part of my life when I decided that I shall either start doing things for me to try to improve my quality of life or I might as well just lay down in six feet of dirt and end it right there. It started, as you can read in my blog archives, in the spring and summer of 2004, when my personal life exploded like a Molotov cocktail, and I was left with glass shards all over my psyche. "Karen" wasn't giving me any answers concerning why she lied to me the entire six months we dated, "Sarah" cared for me, loved me, then dumped me, and there I was, all alone, coming off a week in a psych ward, and feeling like there was nothing left for me. In a split second, I decided to take my swollen toe, gout having set in due to the stress in my life and my bad diet, and go downtown to Harold Washington College. Two days of frenzied registration followed, and just like that, I was a college student, living for me, working for me, taking my life into my own hands instead of leaving it for cold-blooded whores to step all over. I actually had a long-term plan for myself. I actually had some goals that didn't involve which fat white chick I planned to move in with. And, five long years later, I achieved the goal of college graduate.

Now that I'm no longer living in the apartment or working in the same job or surfing the singles sites or chasing the tail that I was during the period leading up to the 2004 explosion, Harold Washington College was the last link that I had to those days, and that was only because those women indirectly pushed me into school as a last resort for me to stop ruminating about the things they had done to me. That's why it's the end of the beginning. Community college was the beginning of me seizing control of my destiny and making something of myself, and completing community college is the end of that beginning. But it's certainly not the end of my journey. By hook or by crook, by FAFSA or by scholarship or by student loan, I plan on being at Columbia College this fall, continuing my education, striving towards a bachelor's degree in broadcasting, and having fun along the way. But that's in the future. I just want to take a moment and thank Karen, Sarah, "Adrienne," "Torrie," "Laurie," The Co-Worker Who Shall Remain Nameless, "Jane," and a few others, all whom displayed some level of disrespect and betrayal to me in the months prior to and beginning months of my education. My family and friends and other co-workers had pressed me constantly to go back to school, but it's funny how certain motivational factors work better than others. You all combined to slam home the point to me that I had better start taking care of myself because no one else surely will give a rat's ass about me, no matter how much they may say otherwise in the heat of passion. You may not have meant to have that effect on me, but you did. I will forever be grateful.

Smelling The Fresh Air...Of My Apartment

The school semester has been over for a couple of weeks now, and I have been enjoying my free time. "Jacob" and I will play video games on a typical morning until it's time for me to go to work, then when I come home we might go get something very unhealthy to eat and settle in with some late baseball thanks to the DirecTV MLB Extra Innings package. When I'm not working, like today (I still have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off, which I hate), I'll make myself useful by cleaning up or doing the dishes or laundry, and in the evening I'll cook the only thing I know how to cook, pre-prepared chicken breasts, and veggies and pasta or Rice-A-Roni. I'm not worried at all about my grades because I definitely got at least a B in physical science, and maybe even an A, and I'm fairly sure I got an A in psychology and media. The psychology class came to a very curious end. From the beginning, we knew we would have a ten-page paper due at the end of the semester, and the syllabus says, verbatim: "The topic is to write a paper describing exactly how you will apply learnings from this class to your own life objectives." There's nothing in there about it being specifically a research paper, but during the last class before the paper was due, I decided to ask the teacher if I was on the right track doing a paper on major depressive episode (basically a recounting of what "Karen" did to me). She expressed to me an expectation that the paper would be more of a research paper, with medical explanations of what depression was, citings from the book of diagnoses, etc. So I had to turn around and put together a ten-page research paper in two days. However, I didn't do much research. I only used two sources, and all those were good for were listing symptoms of depression and major depressive episode. The rest of the paper was a little of my childhood as background, then what happened with Karen. I hope it was good enough to keep the A that I had earned through the tests. The psych teacher pulled a typical psych job for the final exam, too. After telling us that the test would be 100 questions, no essay, she told us the morning of the final that something went wrong with making the copies of the test, so she made up an "impromptu" final consisting of seven essay questions that she scribbled on the board. I was not ready for an essay test that day, especially since I had been up until 1 the previous night rewriting her damn research essay. I think I did okay, though. Besides my girlfriend coming up for the Sick-A-Cell Walk-A-Thon weekend in June, the other interesting event coming for me is some sort of catered dinner with the new boss at my job. Everyone who works there will eventually be invited, from what I understand, but we have to do it in clusters because otherwise it would be impossible. My cluster goes on June 12. I'm debating what I should bring up with him. Do I complain about the methods by which I am determined to be working at less than 100% productivity, even though I am consistently near the top of actual documents processed per month? Would that sound like I'm whining? What else do I talk about? I'm not very good at brownnosing. It's not my personality. I'm either reserved and introverted or confrontational and irritated, but I'm no good at submissive and eager-to-please. Unless I'm trying to get laid. I have a couple of weeks to figure out a strategy to get in the boss's ear, and if that doesn't work, I may not have long after that to find a new gig.

(GRADES UPDATE, 5/22/08, 10:50A--It's an A for media and physical science, and only a B for psychology. Guess Mme. Daramus didn't like my paper.)

Finals Week! Run Screaming!!

Ah, the excitement and pandemonium of Finals Week. The syllabus for my psychology class wasn't very clear about the 10-page paper due at the end of the semester, so I thought that my final project would be a detailed analysis of my bouts of depression over the years. The teacher informed me that, no no, she expects this to be a research paper, with sources and shit. So I have to spin that gold out of yarn today, as well as prepare for the 100-question final exam. Then Thursday is the finals for media class and physical science class. Because I got an A on my last physical science test and I've done all the homework, there's a chance I can sneak an A out of that class if I perform on the final. The other two classes are virtual guaranteed As. Wow, it's all coming together. With only one more class left until I get my A.A., I can actually see a finish line. But in typical self-deprecating fashion, my gut reaction is to dismiss it all and claim that I haven't done anything yet, lest I start to feel satisfied. I still insist that I'm not walking across the stage for my A.A. I feel that's like taking public bows for finishing my sophomore year of high school. I won't do it. But I am proud of what I've done thus far. Psych class didn't quite teach me why I feel the need to shit all over things that I do, but hey, that's part of my "charm." Well, off to work. Wish me luck.

Rubbed The Wrong Way

Thursday was one of those days where I'm amazed that I don't turn to coffee or endless amounts of caffeine to get by. I had two midterm exams, the first one starting at 9:30A, so my day started when I woke up about 7:30A. I had a two-hour class that my supervisor enrolled me in once I got to work (and what do you think that was about--yup, increasing speed of production), and I got off at 10:30P like I do every night. I then came home and played a video game before crashing into my bed about 2A. Now, that's not to say that I went caffeine-free the whole day. Several people, including my girlfriend, have had to convince me that harmless, heavily-sugared iced tea actually contains some caffeine too, and I had a 44-oz. cup of that at 1P with my chicken-strip lunch. I don't know if it really affects me, though. At least I don't think I'm more wired than usual. I just like the taste of heavily-sugared raspberry iced tea. I think I did well on both midterms, though. Now we have spring break, and after that's over, there's seven weeks left in this semester. I don't believe that I will be able to go to Columbia College this fall, however, because I've been too lax in starting the application process, as well as searching for scholarships, and I think I would be too late if I started now. That's okay. I still have one more class to take in order to graduate from Harold Washington College, and I'd have to shove that in this summer if I were to go to Columbia in the fall. It's probably for the best if I chill and try Columbia next spring.

I wanted to talk about the New York governor, Eliot Spitzer, who had to resign this week after his predilection to pay upwards of $4,500 for call girls was revealed. I don't think I've ever had reason to reveal my stance on prostitution in America, but I'm about to get on my soapbox now. Why the fuck is hooking illegal? If I want to pay my money for a grown human being to do something that's in no way illegal if money didn't transfer, I should be able to. I will never understand why I can pay for someone to massage my feet, my legs, my shoulders, my temples, my glutes, my hands, and my biceps, but not my cock. What's the difference? And don't say it's because you can orgasm from a dick massage, because I can introduce you to some ex-girlfriends who could cum very easily from a good neck rub. And, truthfully, everyone has a set of erogenous zones on their bodies, so there's some people getting off from shoulder rubs and leg rubs every damn day. I'm too lazy to research the countries where prostitution is legal, but I'm sure that their STD and HIV rates are lower because their workers, being legally governed, have to be medically cleared to work. But I've always had a problem with anyone telling me what I can and cannot hire someone to do to my body. And the funniest part is how the governor had to be forced out of his job for this. How many politicians have women on the side, paid for or not? But Spitzer is evil and must go? Please. Someone didn't get paid enough or had a vendetta against him, that's all. And at this moment, the other call girls are raising their fees because they have leverage, and their clientele knows that if they don't keep the ladies happy, the whistle can be blown. I tell you, there's just no accounting for what we accept and don't accept in America. I'm off my soapbox now.

And If You Thought That Last Post Was Full Of It...

...I'll be taking psych class as part of my load next semester at the esteemed Harold Washington College, where I sit four mere classes away from my associates degree. So get ready for more armchair mental games from moi. Hey, maybe I'll finally find out why "Karen" did what she did to me, since she never got the guts to tell me herself, or as she put it in a letter once, "I don't have to explain myself to anybody." This semester that just ended last week was difficult for one reason--biology class. Not only was this a topic that I had no interest in, but the teacher insisted on making her students tie bits and pieces of information together with cognitive thinking, and after dealing with the jackasses at my job for forty hours a week, I wasn't always up for that. Okay, I was never up for that. I had to walk out of a couple of her classes because I just didn't have the desire to sit through another hour of her voice pushing me closer and closer to sleep. I had a B at midterm for that class, but I did so bad on the cumulative final that I bet I got a C as a final grade. Oh well. One science requirement is dead, and the second and final science requirement will be on the schedule for next semester--Public Issues in Physical Science. Hey, it's not a lab at least. The computer class was a breeze, and the speech teacher was open-minded enough to disagree with nearly everything I talked about, yet still gave me nearly perfect scores on all three of my speeches. She was fun. I wanted to take a TV/radio class she's giving next semester that would seem perfect for what I want to do after I get out of Harold Washington, but she's only offering one time frame, Monday nights, and I have to work Monday nights. So instead I'm taking a mass media class someone else is teaching that she says is very similar, in addition to the psych and the physical science. That will leave me one elective that I'll gobble up in the summer, then I'm done with the associates classes. I already visited the Columbia College website and asked for information to be sent to my house, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of contact with them as I try to arrange my records to facilitate a smooth transition there. As for the next few weeks before the spring semester, I have to clean house and get ready for my girlfriend, who will visit for New Year's. It would be nice if I got Christmas presents before next week. And there's laundry and grocery shopping as well. But I'm actually glad that I'm keeping busy like this--less time to sit around and let my brain ruminate about dark things or, worse, get bored and gamble. Or think about my 32nd birthday, coming up Saturday. Where does the time go. I'll be spending it working, which is actually fitting because that's what I've been doing seemingly nonstop the past two years. And the world keeps turning...

No Gnus Is Good Gnus

This post dedicated to Jrbour Jump. (Why is his profile missing from Wikipedia's Great Space Coaster page? Or did I imagine him being on that show when I was a kid?)

I'm putting out a general post on my life even though there's no actual news to report. But as busy as I am at work and school, I know I could easily go without making a blog post until the semester ends in December, and the 3 people out there who read my blog may get worried if I wait that long.

• At home, the animals living above me continue to be on a rampage. A few Saturdays ago I turned on my bathroom light, and I heard a sizzling noise for about 5 seconds followed by a burning smell. It took a while for me to figure out that some water had made its way into the globe that covers my light bulb and the sizzling was the electricity burning off the water from the bulb. If that globe had not been there, the water would have been all over my floor. Apparently they haven't been trained to bathe in the actual bathtub, but rather anywhere in the bathroom will do. Later that night a boy who looked to be about 15 banged on my window and asked me to buzz him in because he had accidentally locked himself out upstairs. Thinking that this wasn't unusual considering who my neighbors are, I buzzed him in. A second later, feeling uneasy about my decision, I called my aunt, who owns this building, to basically ask her if I should have done this. Her son said that she and her husband just left. The reason they just left is because my other first-floor neighbor, a fat white guy who may be even nerdier and more introverted than me (complete with cat), had called my aunt complaining about some menacing-looking young black guy banging on his window. Oh, and he called the cops. My aunt explained to me that no, I shouldn't have buzzed him in because technically no one needs to be in that apartment that late except the two people on the lease, an old woman and her old man. Their kids are the problems, and they're not supposed to be there. But call it a hunch, I don't think they will leave anytime soon. My aunt told me at the beginning of the summer that they were about to move. They're still there. And I bet everyone will know when they actually leave because of the property damage they will cause to the house as a parting gift. Speaking of the house, I will get a little help in keeping cold out as well as (hopefully) hundreds of flies on a random evening invading my kitchen. My place as well as every other apartment in the house will be getting brand new windows. This was supposed to happen last Saturday, but instead it will happen this Saturday. But I won't be home to oversee it because...

• At work, The Powers That Be decided to move my off days from Friday and Saturday back to Tuesday and Wednesday. The explanation I was given was that they need more people working from Thursday through Monday because that's when most of the mail we process arrives, and since I have hardly any seniority, I had to go. I'm not happy about this at all because Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays just feel like off days more than the other days of the week, and it seemed to have a negative effect on my attitude to have to come to work on weekends. The streets are desolate, the other people I commute with seem to have dead souls like me, and the people I work with aren't happy either. No one, not even a homebound grump like me, wants to work weekends. I had already conceded missing most of the football season working Sundays. But now by working Saturdays, I can't watch college football either, nor can I watch the handful of Saturday night NFL games at the end of the season. Plus, my girlfriend was using her free weekend minutes to talk to me on Saturday mornings, when we're both alert and awake, as an alternative to talking when I get home from work at 11:15 every night. But now we will have to cut off our Saturday conversations because I have to get up around noon and get ready to go to work. Sigh. Life ain't fair. The only positives I can take is the fact that now Tuesday and Wednesday after class, instead of hustling to work, I can come home, chill, study (if I feel like it) and talk to my girlfriend that evening at a much earlier time than usual. The folks at work are also on my ass about my productivity numbers, but I feel that since I'm error free and don't waste time yapping with other co-workers, they should take it easy on me. It's not like I'm trying to be slow, but I am trying to be meticulous. I will not screw up trying to go faster thanks to their pressure. If they hate how slow I work, they need to stop giving me bonus money for being error-free. Also at work, they had to send several people down to the Dallas office a couple of weeks ago because for some reason they were backed up. It was a 2-week stint, all expenses paid, hotel, 3 square meals, and I believe a $70 per diem. I would have loved to go just for the adventure aspect. Alas, I am in the middle of classes. And speaking of classes...

• At school, I'm performing better than I hoped I would. The biology class is where I thought I would really get creamed, but the 2 major tests we've had, I've pulled a B out of both of them. If the teacher hadn't posted an online study guide for those tests, I would have gotten Cs at best. The lecture with this teacher is just dreadfully boring, and the teacher is kinda hot, so it must really be bad for me to be nodding off every single class. She's really thin and likes to wear shirts that are short-sleeved to show off her guns and are too small for her so that they raise up a little at the slightest movement, showing off a peek at her abs. And she just had a kid, so she's really anxious to show off her abs. Even when it's been chilly, she just happens to have a shirt on a size too small. And I'm still one step away from snoring during this class. The computer class is a breeze for now because we haven't gotten to the real hard stuff yet, like Excel and lite Web design. That teacher doesn't care about anything, man. He starts his lesson on time, he ends it on time, and if you missed something, tough shit. But that's cool for me, because I can go in there and study biology and surf the net and do whatever I want. The speech class has been fun, not because I like standing in front of a room full of people I don't know and speaking, but because the teacher in that class is a world-class goofball and she keeps things light. It's scary sometimes how much she reminds me of "Sarah" because she's also from Kentucky (Sarah spent a lot of time in Kentucky as a child) and has that same accent and off-the-wall sense of humor. On top of that, she drifted off one day talking about a good-looking black guy she saw on a TV program, so just like Sarah, I bet nothing gets her off like a big black cock up her ass. But since I'm pulling an A in that class, I won't have to resort to that to get a good grade. Oh yeah, and I'm taken. Speaking of my girlfriend...

• She has wondered why I haven't made any posts about us lately, and I was proud to tell her that it was because since she's not psychotic and I'm not nearly was whacko as I was, there's just nothing to make a post about. It's not like we have a big issue to resolve and I need to post and figure out which way to go. (I mean, besides the possibility that we'll decide to get married next year. But that's a little issue, not a big deal at all.) Everything's going well with us, as well as a long-distance relationship can go where we sometimes don't find time to talk to each other until midnight or 1 in the morning. The next big deal on our horizon is Thanksgiving, when I travel down south and meet...her family!!! (Cue screams of horror.) And speaking of horror...

• My football picks against the spread so far this year: 38-43. That's under .500, and that's pathetic. If I were still gambling, I'd be crying in my cream soda. And speaking of sports, I don't know whether to be impressed by the Colorado Rockies making the World Series by winning 21 of their last 22 games (or something like that) or sickened that they happened to get hot at the right time and win a very weak and winnable National League. One thing I do have to chuckle at: that's somewhere around 50 years now that the Cubs haven't won a National League pennant, and now the Rockies join the Padres, Diamondbacks, and Marlins as expansion teams since then that have won a NL pennant, and I might even be missing a team or 2. And next year will be 100 years without a World title for the fuzzy Cubbies. Lovable losers? Well, that's half right.

What You Need Is An Adult Education

Me quoting bad Hall & Oates songs must mean one thing--I'm gearing up to return to school. I'm sitting in the computer lab at Harold Washington College waiting to speak to an advisor and figure out what three classes I want to take this fall. I'm only taking three because four was killing me back when I had temp jobs or no jobs at all, and now that I'm working full-time, I don't want to wear myself out. Also, I would be angry at receiving a free bus pass for the duration of the semester, which everyone taking twelve credit hours is eligible for, knowing that I can't take the bus home from work at night because the bus route a block from my house stops running by the time I get off work. A train system called Metra has a stop three blocks from my house, so I'm able to come home at a decent hour every night, but the Metra system does not acknowledge that free student pass. C'est la vie. (More bad 80s music references--blame that damn iPod of mine. And if you even remember the song "C'est La Vie," then you're as disturbed as I am.)

I was planning to return to school after I got used to my new work schedule and settled into my house, but I'm inspired also by my aunt's oldest son, my cousin Thomas, preparing to attend the University of Illinois this fall. His family threw him a congratulatory bash a few weeks ago. I kept glancing at him throughout the party, amazed that the same little boy who used to play "bat and ball" with me (what he called baseball) and kept bursting into my bedroom when my first girlfriend and I would be getting it on was now three inches taller than me, sprouting facial hair, and going to college. And man, is he smart as a whip. I tried to tell him at the end of the party in a private moment that if he needed advice on anything that he could always give me a call, and I added that my first piece of advice would be: "All women are evil." Without missing a fucking beat, he turns to me and softly says, "Except (my girlfriend), right?" "Of course," I responded. I'm very excited about what becomes of him after he spends a few years out from under his mother's thumb. He's got the potential to destroy the world in whatever area he wants. Unfortunately, despite his size (he's close to 300 lbs. and about 6'4"), it won't be football. He never played in high school. He's much more interested in using his brain. He could have made a tremendous left tackle, in my opinion, but whatever he winds up doing, I have a feeling he'll be great at it.

I will have more free time to blog now that I'm back in school because I can use a computer that actually works well, unlike the one I have at home. Plus, I do all of my fantasy sports stuff when I'm on the computer at home, and by the time I finish that, it's time to jump in the shower and go to work. So I'll return with another post soon, certainly sooner than the one a month I seem to have been doing this year. I visited my girlfriend in Memphis a couple of weekends ago, so I'll talk about that. She and I don't have a lot of issues, and boy am I happy about that, but we had something during my visit that could be a sign of a major problem down the road. You'll have to wait to find out what's going on, but if you're insane enough to still be checking in on my blog, then you're certainly used to waiting by now.

One More Personal Education Tidbit

I forgot to add this in last night's post: I am no longer a straight "A" student. I got a B in Social Science 102. I cut a couple of classes around the time the White Sox were winning the World Series, but I turned in every paper due, got great scores on them, did OK on the midterm and final exam, and even did an extra-credit paper. But it wasn't meant to be. Guess this makes up for the "A" I got in Social Science 101 by making up the data for the major survey paper. C'est la vie, as Robbie Nevil once said.

The Good Ol Days

There's the good ol' days of childhood for me, and there's the good ol' days of early adulthood before I moved out on my own on Halloween 1996, and they both tie in as I sit here. Either way, I'm longing for a time where adult responsibilities like rent and bills and employment were not concerns of mine like they are now. The childhood days are on my mind for no reason whatsoever. I found myself humming "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie in my head, and it reminded me of 1985, when I had a serious crush on Tangela Green, a little curly-haired black girl whose mother was friends with my dad at the time. Didn't know what that feeling was that I had in my heart when we were driving away from their house after a day of playing around, but I remember "All Night Long" playing in the car and a distinct yearning to go back to Tangy's house and play with her some more if I didn't do anything else ever again in my life. What can I say--I had a major thing for curly hair back then. Plus, Tangy was very nice to me, and as it is today, a female treating me like a human instead of something toxic has always made me feel a yearning to spend all my time and attention on her.

The good ol' days of early adulthood would be when I moved in with my uncle and started doing adult things for the first time, like dating and socializing. I was still very green--actually, I'm still green today--but I was happy to live a life while having a roof over my head and not having to worry about bills and such. I am very close to going back to those days. I officially gave my 30-day notice that I am leaving this apartment by February 1, and because I haven't found a job yet, the leading option by a wide margin is for me to go back with my uncle. There's a reason I moved out of his place eventually--a man's gotta have his space, so I'm not ruling out changing up and finding a place to live if I can find a permanent full-time gig within the next couple of weeks. I'm going downtown tomorrow to talk to yet another temp agency, and I'm e-mailing back and forth with a couple other employers trying to feel them out. But when I start attending college again in two weeks, I'm going to have to have a job firmly in place at that point, or else I'm going to let my uncle know that I will definitely be coming back. January 17 is the date that the spring semester starts, and it's a perfect point in time for me to decide exactly what's gonna happen. My uncle will need a couple of weeks to empty one of his sons' bedrooms for me, and I am not going job and apartment hunting and attending classes four nights a week, so if I don't have a job by then, it's adios to having my own place for quite a while because I'm not moving all the way there just to get up and move again in a month. It's the best thing I can do for myself, letting someone else worry about those adult problems while I study and earn a degree. I've resisted it all this time trying to keep my apartment in order to please the women or potential women in my life. But that's part of this new me that I'm trying to be--not worrying about doing what makes women happy and doing what's best for me. Believe me, I shook in horror last year at this time when CBOE fired me and I wondered how it would look if I chased after these internet hos while living with my folks. But right now, women are the last thing I need to worry about. It won't be easy to know that I can't host 3-day FuckFest weekends, but in my mind I am well aware that it shouldn't be a priority anyway. And hey, maybe I'll meet someone who wants to get to know me regardless of my living situation. What a wonderful scenario that would be.

A few personal education tidbits: It appears that this full-time schedule of classes for the upcoming semester costs more than the financial aid that I was supposed to receive covers. It looks like I owe $300 more. I'll have to talk to the school about it. Nothing is clear as far as this aid goes; all of the correspondence that I have received calls the aid an "estimated amount," so I don't know exactly how much money I should be bitching about. As for the classes, you can go back to last spring's semester and read about my adventures in English 102 with this faggot French-Haitian teacher who thought, with a few exceptions, that the entire room of students was beneath him and his standards, and you can go back to the fall semester of 2004 and read about the math teacher who was pleasant enough but had such a thick Hispanic accent that I found it nearly impossible to understand him. Well, I didn't care whose classes I signed up for when I made my upcoming schedule, just that it fit my preference of two night classes on Monday and Wednesday and two for Tuesday and Thursday. My creative writing class? Yep, Mr. Gay French-Haitian 2006. My statistics class? Yep, Mr. Incomprehensible. Should be very interesting to say the least. But really, I'm not going to care. It's 17 weeks, and I am so focused on completing this second half of my associates in the next year plus and moving on to my bachelors studies that I'm not going to let anything get in my way. Bother me and piss me off somedays, sure. But when that happens, I'll just have to break out my vinyl records and play some "All Night Long" and some Prince and drift off into the good ol' days for a while. That, or play some Madden and pretend that the New York Giants are really the Gay French-Haitians.

Happy Singles Awareness Day?

Just heard someone describe Sweetest Day, which is this Saturday, as "Singles Awareness Day," and that couldn't possibly be more accurate. I usually feel alone and desolate sitting here every night by myself, but tonight I feel downright sick, and Saturday is partially to blame. My family wants to drag me out of the house Saturday for some bowling outing, but not just any outing, a twosomes outing where apparently the couples showing up, in a twist, will have to team up with someone they draw out of a hat as a bowling couple. How cute. I haven't totally decided to go on this outing yet. The only thing worse than isolating myself in my apartment for Sweetest Day is being out among a bunch of kissy-face couples while I sit there, so I have to decide if the lure of bowling and seeing a few people I used to bowl with every Sunday is worth the pain of watching everyone around me enjoy life with a loved one, which it seems I will never get to do again. Melodramatic I know, but it sure feels like I'll never be with a woman again. Usually you're either kinda close to starting something with someone or actually in a relationship at all times; I don't feel like I'm even close with anyone.

You know the last time I spent a Sweetest Day with a loved one? Fucking ho-bag "Karen" two years ago. "No one ever gave me flowers for Sweetest Day," she wrote me in an e-mail the next morning, thanking me for a great time. I've been thinking about her again lately, wondering who she's fucking now, if she's giving him the same quiet little innocent girl act in bed or if she's actually making a sound with him during sex, whether I'm ever going to run into her again. The changing of the seasons from summer to fall may always remind me of her because that's when we started dating in 2003. At least I have not gone back to her fake Yahoo profile to see if she's updating it still. I've been tempted of course, but I feel like that part of my obsession is behind me, probably because I was so powerless to do anything while I watched her live her life. Unless I was going to go up to Wisconsin and do something about it, it did no good to stay abreast of her every move. I'm still curious, but it's not as bad as it used to be. The two-year anniversary of our first date passed several weeks ago, and I didn't even realize it. But I knew that with time the hurt from being screwed by her wouldn't sting so much. In five years, perhaps, I won't wonder at all who she's fucking. I'll always think about her, but I won't always care about her.

Very brief comment about the controversial call in Game 2 of the ALCS between the White Sox and Angels: The ump blew the call, the ball never hit the dirt, and it pisses me off because the Sox were playing so shitty those first two games that it now seems to the world like they can't win a pressurized playoff game unless the retarded umpires help them out. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't win a game this weekend while they wait for another horrible call to take the pressure off. They haven't executed in eighteen innings of baseball so far in the ALCS, and they've wasted one and nearly two excellent starting pitching performances to boot, and now they get to play the next three games in Anaheim, where they have never played well. Oh well, it was a nice run. (The above passage can be interpreted by sports geeks only. If you're confused, it's sports, don't worry about it.)

Small piece of good news finally: I got a letter seemingly indicating that I will be receiving some assistance this semester and next semester from financial aid for my college classes. The letter said that the figures shown were "estimates," so I still don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm going to wait a couple more weeks for them to clarify what this "estimate" thing means, and if I don't hear from them, I'll go up to the financial aid office at school and try to get some answers. I'm having no problems at all with my two classes, and when I pass them, that will make 28 credits so far, or as Cassandra says, the end of my freshman year, which makes perfect sense because if it takes 120 credits for a bachelor's degree, then 28, give or take a class, is about one-fourth of the way through. And I'm so desperate to find something to be proud of in my pathetic life that I'm almost welling up sitting here thinking about being one-fourth of the way to a bachelor's. Maybe it's a good thing that I'll never get another date again--I've always gotten so nervous before meeting someone new, and if it worked out well enough that a wedding date would be set, I'd be so anxious leading up to that day that I might not make it. I'm an emotional mess when it comes to achieving my goals. That's how my desire works, always has. When I want something very badly, I can hardly handle receiving it or coming close to receiving it. The 1990 spelling bee saga--I labeled a 30-second video tape of the local news coverage of my city title win "My Greatest Achievement"--is a perfect example of how I handle succeeding at something that I badly want to succeed at. I'll talk about it in my next post.

A Fellow Temp's Sympathy

My workplace has a reputation. Last week I described to my literature teacher the circumstances of my job--shitty people, ignorant higher-ups who don't know what the fuck's going on, one person telling you one thing and someone else telling you the exact opposite--and apparently I was overheard. Ten minutes ago, when I left said lit class, a classmate who I've never met before stopped me in the hallway and asked if I still was dealing with the crappy temp job. I said yes, and it's getting worse. He told me that he's had success and better jobs with his temp agency, Lakeshore. I told him that we have some Lakeshore people working with us. Then he startled me by saying, "You're not at CEDA, are you?" I sheepishly smiled and showed him my CEDA badge, which he couldn't have previously seen because I put that thing deep in my pocket when I come to school because I'm embarrassed by it. He informed me that he used to work for CEDA in a prior temp position (probably the exact same one I'm doing, now that I think about it) and that was why the job sounded so familiar when I described it. But I never said where it was or who by name I was with. This random guy out of the blue simply heard a description of a really fucked-up gig and figured that it must be CEDA. How pathetic is that? Well, I told him what I told my temp agency, Smart Resources, when I went there to drop off my timesheet last Friday--if they can find me another job, let me know ASAP. I'm ready to get out of there already. And to think, this is only the beginning of the week. God, please, just kill me now.

Livin' For The Weekend

I am very tired as I sit here typing this entry. I had forgotten how hard it is to wake up early in the morning and, instead of lounging around in the bed until the urge to use the bathroom becomes immediate, have to get up and start my day. As a result, I was technically "late" my first two days on my new job. I showed up three to five minutes after the 8:30A starting time. Of course, it has not been a big deal yet because this place is so disorganized, we did absolutely, positively NO work our first two days, then lost the second half of yesterday to a crashed computer system. All I can say is, I now understand why there was practically no interview process when I went to the agency that hired me for this job Monday. They just want warm bodies. You, the reader, could send a 4-year-old up there to bang around on the computer, and he or she would be asked if an actual paycheck would be fine or whether direct deposit would be preferred. (And the agency failed to tell me that they were charging a $1 processing fee for direct deposit--I read it on the brochure way after the fact--or else I may not have chosen that option.)

As I said, I was a few minutes late arriving for my first day Wednesday, but I caught the group of temp workers as they headed up one flight of stairs from the 19th floor, where we were told by our temp agency to come, to the 20th floor. Once there, we were led into a snazzy-looking conference room, where we sat in stone silence for about a half-hour. Someone named Janet informed us that the training materials were still being worked on and that we would start training shortly. But we would not be trained for the data entry position that we all thought we were there for.

My attempt at a brief description of what this place does: It's called CEDA, and I don't remember what it stands for, nor do I give a fuck. It's located on the 19th and 20th floors of the Federal Reserve Bank building, 208 S. LaSalle, a block and a half from CBOE, my place of employment for ten years. It's a place that gives out assistance to low-income and disabled people in Chicago. They have two programs. One is called a cooling program for people who don't want to go through a Chicago summer without power. The counter to that, the heating program, just started this past Thursday, September 1, and will last through the end of December. In both cases, people who want assistance provide proof of income, proof of Social Security numbers for everyone in the household, proof of disability if they're disabled, and a current energy bill, and those that fit whatever the requirements are receive credit directly to their People's Energy and/or Commonwealth Edison accounts. I only put the monthly income into the little boxes on the computer, I have no idea what the cutoff is as far as how much income is too much.

At least that's what my job is supposed to be. This place is tremendously understaffed, which was punctuated by the several long periods my temp group had sitting in the conference room or the lunchroom waiting for someone to come speak to us about the importance of the program, which is all they could do because, since the computers were not ready, we couldn't do any actual work. But when Janet finally finished preparing our training packets, she explained that we were being trained to do intake, which means we were being shown how to take the applications of those wanting assistance, which is not what we were hired to do. She explained that some people may be asked to do intake instead of data entry, and of the twenty or so temp workers in the conference room on Wednesday, she was even taking two of us with her to the emergency intake area, which is where people who have not paid their energy bills for so long that they have been cut off go to bitch and moan about such lovely things as why they can't get assistance because their proof of income is not acceptable. (One woman was chosen to go to emergency because she spoke some Spanish; I don't know who else was chosen, but I was doing data entry yesterday with everyone else, so thankfully it wasn't me.) Janet also explained that we had to pay attention to the intake process because we needed to know what to look for to verify the applications before we put them into the computer to be processed. That's what made up the bulk of the training packet--different examples of paychecks, Social Security proof, official income documentation...it all seemed like a lot for temp data entry workers to have to learn, and it was. We learned from other temp workers that worked there before that this was the first year that they were asking data entry clerks to verify before they entered the applications; verifiers in the past were separate workers, and the data entry clerks would receive the apps only after they had been verified. So they combined those two jobs this year to save a buck, presumably. Hey, they can't get too upset with me screwing a file up while I try to verify it; they only gave me a two-hour training session on what to look for, and not only that, but many scenarios came up yesterday when I actually received some apps to put into the computer that were not covered in the training, and it was hard to find anyone in charge to ask what to do because they were all busy running around performing other tasks. And even then, some advice from those "in charge" was different than what other people "in charge" advised.

Then there's the flak over hours. Janet, who's not really in charge of anything but was our trainer so she tried to tell us what she thought was going to be the deal, said that 8:30A to 5P sounded correct, which is what we were told by the temp agency, Smart Resources. Everyone else that spoke to us, even the vice-president, a Botox-looking blonde, said not so fast, it all depends on what kind of production was happening and what was desired. Vice-president means only one person in the whole organization is over you, right? So you should know small things, like, I don't know, what hours and days we're working. But when I asked her as late as 10A yesterday morning if we were working Monday, Labor Day, she told me that she didn't know and that there should be an answer to that question hopefully by midday. About an hour later, a woman who spoke to us Wednesday and was recognized as someone employed full-time by CEDA but who isn't really in charge of anything announced to us while we attempted to do our best to enter these boxes and boxes of apps that, according to the vice-president, we were being told to work longer hours today (Friday), until 10P(!), and that we were to come to work the next day, Saturday, from 10A to 4P, and that all of this was "mandatory." I laughed. CEDA does not employ me. Smart Resources does, and they told me 8:30A to 5P Mondays through Fridays when I was hired. I knew that I was leaving at 5P and that I wasn't showing up Saturdays, no matter what CEDA thought, and I knew that if they had a problem with it, they would have to speak to Smart Resources about it. A fellow temp worker actually called Smart Resources and confirmed over the phone that 8:30A to 5P was as long as we had to stay there. CEDA passed around two sheets of notebook paper, one for how long people were going to be able to stay Friday on such short notice, and one for how many hours people would commit to the "mandatory" Saturday workday. I put down 8:30A to 5P for myself on the Friday paper. I didn't put my name on the Saturday paper at all.

My thing was this: CEDA seemed to be so hungry for bodies that they would walk all over and ignore someone's special requests if that someone tried to be cooperative and give them extra hours. And I don't have Mondays and Wednesdays to give them because my college classes are at 5:30P on those days. So I'm not going to cooperate at all. It's the principle of the thing. They don't need to know that I had extra hours to give them yesterday and today. They appear to be the type to take advantage of the knowledge that I have no life and I have extra hours to give them. And if I allow them to take advantage of me on such short notice once or twice, then I run the risk of them assuming that I can do that for them at any time. I don't want to tell them about my school hours because then they can assume that I'll be available to them for all other hours, and that's my time to chill. I am not giving these people 60 or 70 hours a week. They don't seem to be the type to appreciate it. And because they don't employ me, I don't have to. There's countless single mothers in there as temp workers that have to run home and take care of their kids. They don't have those hours to give. But it's okay because they were irresponsible and fooled around and got knocked up, so let them go, they have to take care of the little ones. But because I'm responsible and I'm not having kids until I get married, I should suffer and take the extra hours? FUCK THAT. Pretend I'm a slut that got knocked up and I have to go home when I was told I could go home, at 5P like I agreed to when I took the damn job. Pretend that I don't have extra hours to give because my choice of a baby daddy is an asshole who was hot when I met him at the club, but he doesn't give a fuck about the kids, so I gotta run and get them at the time that I said I would because he won't. Do not punish me because I chose not to have those responsibilities until I was ready. And anyone who takes offense to that can go to hell along with their baby daddy.

The Botox blonde vice-president was not there to annouce these new hours, but the woman announcing them said that these orders came from the vice-president, which made them mandatory. She did say that Monday was a national holiday and that the place would be closed, but I just know that if the place were open it would be "mandatory" that we would be there for that as well. Whatever this woman was in charge of, she was also the person to go to in the morning and evening to sign in and out. But it was a long day for her yesterday, so long that when those of us who intended to leave at 5P lined up to sign out, she eventually yelled, "Everyone just go! I'll sign all of you out! Just go!" What would worry me about that is, if I'm staying after 5P, how can I be sure that she didn't sign me out as leaving at 5P, robbing me of my extra hours of salary? Is everyone that didn't sign out at whatever time they left going to be assumed as leaving at 5P? And if that's the case, what would have stopped me from leaving at 10A if I'm being signed out at 5P? That's the kind of place this is--poorly run, disheveled, desperately in need of people who care about such things as organization and order. As for the mandatory Saturday, literally seconds before we 5P'ers left, the skinny white woman in charge of the data entry area announced that the computer problems that resulted in no processed applications by me the last three hours I was there were going to be worked on all weekend by the programmers in downstate Springfield, and as a result, working Saturday was not only not mandatory but not an option anymore. Enjoy the three-day weekend after all. By the way, I can't label the girl in charge of the sign-in books as the tall, tattooed black girl because there are many tall, tattooed black girls working for CEDA, some of them in "supervisor" roles. Take that for what it's worth.

Some other points of interest about my new workplace:

• Someone in charge of giving all of us temp workers our own user I.D.s and passwords for when we log on to the computers took all of our names down for that purpose Thursday afternoon, but we still didn't have our own I.D.s yesterday, so we were all signing in using the I.D.s and passwords of people that were employed by CEDA but happened to be absent yesterday. I was Adam Grenier along with about four others. They better get our own I.D.s ready soon; how else will they keep up with the 100 apps that each of us is expected to process per day according to Janet?

• This goofy fat black guy who's dressed every day in shorts even though the dress code is supposed to be business casual came into the conference room late Thursday asking all of the men to volunteer to show up at 7A Friday to help move boxes. He heard Janet talk about me, Andre, being one of the men in the room, and noticing that I was big, he waddles over to me and puts his hand on my shoulder and bellows, "Well Andrew here can show up I'm sure." I looked him right in the eye and said, "I can. But I won't." That made the room chuckle. That was an easy decision for me to make. I could make a lot of money as a mover, more than the shitty $10/hr I'm getting now. But I'm not a mover. That same goofy guy was in charge of taking everyone's pic for their I.D.s a few hours earlier. Some hot girl had her pic taken right before me, and he was so busy staring her ass down as she left that he didn't even notice me line up for my pic. When he finally did look at me and my expressionless face, he lined up the shot and muttered, "There's always one." I have no idea if that was referring to the hot girl or my ugly mug, but if he was talking about me, he had absolutely no room to talk. He walked into the lunchroom where everyone had been funneled after the pics were taken and informed a white fellow temp guy that his name was illegible, and when the guy rewrote his name, the goofball checked it out and, satisfied, raised a fist and told the white guy, "Peace out" and left. I stuck up a fist and sarcastically yelled out, "Word to your mother," eliciting another laugh from the room. Yes, I'm getting a kick out of being the class clown. No, I don't like the goofball black dude.

• The men's room...what can I say. It's a motherfucking 10K run to get to it. You have to go out the door, make a left, go down a hallway that's only about 30 feet long, no biggie, then make another left and go down a hall that seems to be a city block long, and I'm not exaggerating. You also need a key from the front desk to get in, and all day yesterday, that key was missing. The women's bathroom is right outside the door. I made the walk twice yesterday without a key. What did I think was going to happen when I got there? I don't know, maybe I thought I could magically make a key appear with my mind? Maybe I hoped the door would be unlocked? Maybe since I couldn't go to the women's bathroom, I just went to the men's room with no plan whatsoever and hoped for the best? Anyway, it worked out both times. Someone with his own private key who worked for one of the other businesses on the floor happened to be standing there the first time, and he opened it for me. The second time, someone was already in there and I caught the door as he left and snuck in. The toilets are not made of gold. The building is very accessible, to be sure, but it's the 20th floor. It's not like bums are going to pass the word to go to this place on the 20th floor that has great bathrooms. Why the fuck does there have to be a lock?

At least I got some good news financially this week. My financial aid could be processed by the end of the month, meaning I could get reimbursed for my classes. That's assuming that they accept my declaration for my income this year, which did not include the severance I got from CBOE. I actually intended to show them that severance check stub and hope for the best, but that stub got caught between my notebooks when I took them out of my bag before Thursday, and I didn't discover that it was missing before I went to the school, so I just decided to lie and tell them that I had declared all of this year's income instead of having to come back up to the financial aid office at a later date. I don't know if they have a way of finding out that I was lying, but I do know that the woman processing me almost gave me a heart attack by bringing up the $2,000 I have in my savings account, which she knew because it came up on her screen when she tried to send my application through. Guess I'll find out what they know soon enough. Cassandra met me Thursday morning and gave me $200 of the $1,500 she owes me. I called her Wednesday and arranged to meet her outside my new workplace at lunch, but she managed to miss me even though I weigh about 6,192 pounds, and I wound up burning my entire half-hour lunch standing outside. But on my lunch break Thursday I called a dude who owes me $500 from a football bet and still works at CBOE, and when he met me he had $300 in cash waiting for me. My man. I didn't even ask him for money on such short notice, all I asked him was to come down and meet me outside CBOE so we could talk. And he hit me with a roll of bills as soon as he saw me. And the coup-de-grace: The fare box was broken on the bus home yesterday! I saved $1.75! (It's the little things in life.)

This weekend makes two straight cancellations by women who wanted to meet me for the first time. Last weekend, a Latina from Boston came to Chicago to go to court for child support, and she wanted to have someone who knew the city to hang out with. But we never exchanged phone numbers, and she didn't e-mail me once she got here. Then this weekend, a redhead from Seattle who briefly lived in Aurora was going to visit a friend on the south side, and she wanted to meet me, so I was going to stay at my uncle's last night and hang out with her today. But the last time I spoke to her was Thursday, and at the time she expressed doubt that she was going to make the drive due to the astronomically high gas prices. Next weekend is supposed to be the big meeting between me and "Laurie." But I haven't heard from her in a couple of days. That has me very nervous, but even if I do hear from her and confirm that she is still coming, I no longer have the free time that I thought I was going to have. I actually have a job. So my planning of things like hotel accommodations and activities will have to be very crisp, no wasted motion. Can't I get online at work and plan these things, you ask? This balding, weasly white guy was asked by Janet during intake training whether he agreed with previous assessments of the validity of a paycheck, and he said he did. When she asked why, he actually said the following words: "I'm taking a gamble that the people before me guessed right." Janet is a nice girl, but she didn't take kindly to that. This same guy sat there surfing the net (I clearly saw the Yahoo home page on his screen from where I was sitting) once the system crashed yesterday, prompting the tattooed black girl in charge of the sign-in books to come running up and announce to everyone that surfing the net is not allowed and that the IT guys downstairs can tell when someone's on the net and that you'll get a warning about it once if you're caught, but the second time would probably be your last day. So that's why I won't be getting on the internet at any time during my tenure at this job. But now that I think about it, if they still don't have our own user I.D.s for us by Tuesday, how would they know who's surfing the net? If they can tell by user I.D., well, I was Adam Grenier yesterday, but so were a bunch of other people. If they can tell by computer IP number, if you can't tell exactly who's on what computer, unless I'm caught red-handed by someone, how can you say that it was me on that specific computer surfing the net? It could have been anyone. It's just one more example of how completely screwed up this place is. The next four months are going to be absolute torture. Call it a hunch.

Manic Monday

Well, tomorrow is going to wind up being a much busier day than I figured a few days ago. First, I made the deadline decision to sign up for a couple of classes at Harold Washington College for the fall semester, which starts tomorrow. I did not go to the school and sign up, because I didn't feel like going there unless Whitney Young High School had sent my transcript to them, and I found out over the phone that they haven't yet received my transcript. My application for financial aid will not be processed until Harold Washington receives my transcript. So how did I sign up for classes? Online. Anyone who had a Harold Washington I.D. last semester can use it to log on to their computer system and register for classes in that manner, and you can even pay for them online if you have a few grand on your credit card and you trust the security of the server. I had to do it by Saturday at 6P though. If I didn't sign up by then, I would have to wait until Monday for late registration, and there's an extra fee for late registration. It gets more interesting: There's a 48-hour grace period for paying for the classes, so I decided not to pay for the classes with my credit card yet in case they receive my transcript tomorrow and they can process my financial aid. But if they don't receive my transcript, I'm going to have to pay for the classes now and have them reimburse me later after they determine how much financial aid I will receive. Boy, I just can't do things like normal people, can I? It's funny how much this past week standing in line at the school and running around trying to get proper documentation reminds me of last year at this exact same time. Still stinging from being dumped over the phone by "Sarah," and desperate for some kind of purpose for my pathetic life, I decided to sign up for classes on the last day of open registration, hobbling along the way due to a gout attack I was having at the same time. A year and 22 credits later (and hell fucking yeah I'm proud of those 22 credits, even though it takes about 120 to receive a bachelor's degree), here I am again, rushing and trying to beat the deadline and not completely sure that I know what I'm doing. I think I get off on doing things spontaneously like that. If I planned things out in advance, I'd have all that extra time to be afraid and convince myself that I'm a loser and I'm not going to do well and I'm never going to amount to anything. This way, I don't have time to think about it. Just do it, like Nike.

So tomorrow would be hectic anyway, what with me intending to go up to the school early before my literature class starts at 5:30P in order to find out the status of my financial aid. (My second class follows immediately afterwards, social science 102 at 7:05P, and both classes are Mondays and Wednesdays.) But I received a phone call today that made tomorrow downright apocalyptic. It's a job interview! It's just a temp job, but I'm still excited because I haven't been able to get anyone to even acknowledge receiving my resume when I apply to all these jobs I see online. And finally, someone called me back. I applied in an e-mail around 5:00P, and they called me a couple of hours later. It's a data entry deal on Madison and LaSalle, four blocks from where I used to work for ten years, as well as five blocks from school. I don't know much about it except it's a temp job that will end around the holidays and it's $10 per hour. The person who called initially told me that the hours were M-F 8:30A to 5:30P, but when I explained that my classes start at 5:30P, he assured me that I would be able to get out of there around 5P and get to class on time. So they seem friendly and not hardcore, but of course I won't know until I meet the gang. A potential problem is that he told me to dress professional for the interview, and my best clothes aren't what one would call professional. I don't own a suit, so it's going to be the same slacks and tie and painful suede bucks that I wore to that sports marketing interview way back on January 24. In addition, I had already charged my electric shaver for eight hours in order to shave my head today, before I even knew I had a job interview. So I start the preliminary trimming process, and the battery sounds like it's ready to die immediately, so obviously I need a new battery. So I'll have a nice furry head for this interview, but I'm used to having a clean-shaved head to go with the clean-shaved face, so I'm going to be self-conscious and hope that the hair isn't a bad impression even though there's nothing weird-looking about my hair, it's very normal looking black man hair, still very short, now complete with slightly receding hairline as a reminder that I turn 30 in December. The 839 pimples on my face are something that I can't take care of before tomorrow, so I'm not going to think about them.

It's been a weird week as far as my dealings with women. I've suddenly become popular in the MSN online group that I met "Torrie" on, and I do mean suddenly, out of nowhere. A 40-year-old New Jersey blonde e-mailed me out of the clear blue. At first she was commenting on a message I had posted, but at the end of the e-mail she informed me that if I ever found myself in Jersey, I would be "a mountain she would love to climb." Um, okay. One of the managers of the group, a 30-year-old Texan BBW, all of a sudden started flirting me on the message boards, one of the messages being simply "Will you marry me?" I'm as honest and straightforward on those message boards as I am in my blog, so I must have said something that made her take an interest in me. I think I mentioned a dominatrix whip called cat-o-nine tails in a post as an aside, and she perked up to that because she fancies herself a fictional mistress. I've played along with her because it's harmless fun, and because I'm flattered by the attention, although I don't find her attractive. "Laurie" is in the same group, however, and I don't think she likes it that much, but with the amount of flirting she does there, I don't think she has a leg to stand on. She's going to Florida in October, and she has told a member who lives down there that she would want to see him. She claims that she doesn't do hook-ups, and I tend to believe her because she's been celibate for two years, so she could have already hooked up if she wanted. But she made me promise that I would tell her if I hooked up with a Boston Latina who posted the message to me that she would be coming to Chicago this weekend and wanted to meet me (not for a hook up, and I haven't heard from her so we didn't meet anyway). I promised, then I made her promise the same thing. A different woman privately e-mailed me and told me that she would be in Chicago next weekend and wanted to meet me. She's 35, Seattle BBW and a redhead, and I've never had a red, so I admit that when I told her okay it was with the intent of hooking up. I've since decided that it wouldn't be worth lying to Laurie, or worse, telling her to her face that I couldn't wait two lousy weeks for her to come to Chicago and fuck me. The redhead woman and I talked for forty minutes Saturday morning, and she seems cool, so if nothing else, I'll make a new friend. To top things off, Torrie stunned me by sending me a text message Friday morning saying she missed me. I told her that I missed her too, and for no other reason than I didn't know what else to say to her, I told her if she needed anything let me know. Her response: "What I want from you I can't have, you're too far away." I told her that I wished I could help her. What I didn't tell her is that I could help her by flying up there and fucking her brains out right this second, but I won't do that because I'm holding out for a shot at a hotter, non-smoking, not-a-bisexual-slut woman, and losing myself in the great sex and good times we always had could ruin that shot at the hotter, non-smoking, not-a-bisexual-slut woman. It's incredible, that may have been the most popular week I've ever had with women...and save Torrie, I've never met any of them. Wondrous invention, that internet.

Anyway, gotta run, I have to spend an hour or so screwing around with fantasy baseball stuff before I get some sleep and get ready for my big day tomorrow. To think, I signed up for classes so that I wouldn't have too much spare time on my hands. Tomorrow might be the beginning of a crazy couple of months where I have no spare time on my hands. Wish me luck.

Life In Limbo

I feel like I may be on the verge of breaking through and living each day with some kind of purpose, even if the purpose is something as small as not overeating and attempting to turn one of my bad habits over. It's just a matter of me realizing that I am worth waking up every day with a purpose. I usually wake up cursing about how fucked up I am. But right now, I'm waking up in limbo, because I still have zero income; I still can't find an interview, much less a job; the tentative date for "Laurie" to come to Chicago and meet me (and hopefully pay me what she owes me, but she's claiming car problems now, so I'm not optimistic) isn't until the weekend of September 10; and I can't even go after financial aid to take more college classes until my high school transcript makes it from my high school to Harold Washington College, whenever that happens. They wanted to reject me outright for financial aid due to my relatively high salary last year, but since I'm unemployed now, if I can make a hardship claim gooey enough to persuade them to give me assistance, then I'm in. The problem is, I can't make a claim until my high school transcript is in their hands, and time is running out because fall classes start Monday. So, exactly like last year, I am against the wall trying to sneak in and register for classes before the opening bell. At least I'm not dealing with pain from gout arthritis while I'm running around this time.

I was actually offered a gig but I turned it down, and because they apparently were willing to give me the $15 an hour that I was making at the Chicago Board Options Exchange when they brought the guillotine down on me in January, a part of me is really regretting it. But the job was a bad situation all around. I applied online for a data processing gig at some scientific lab, but the description didn't say what shift the job was, where the job was, or what the compensation was. The people taking the application were actually a hiring firm, and somebody from that firm called me Tuesday afternoon, one day after I submitted my resume. He described the job to me--taking body parts(!), scanning a code on them, and entering assorted data into a computer, very boring and isolated but I actually prefer isolated rather than be around a lot of people trying to be social while I do my job--and then he asked me what shift I would consider. I said I didn't care. He said, "Even third?" I said that I didn't necessarily want third but I would take it. So of course he said that it was a third shift job. I wasn't thrilled about that, but then he asked what salary I wanted, and I said I was making over $15 an hour at my last job. He asked if that would be good for this job. I held my composure while saying sure. I was wildly happy about that because all of these other jobs I'm applying for are ranging between $9 and $12 an hour. I honestly don't expect to make more than about $10 in my next job because the market in Chicago just isn't very good. He brought my spirits back down by telling me that this gig was in some suburb out past O'Hare Airport. I don't have a car, so any job I get has to be accessible by public transportation, and because I did not know whether a Pace bus (Pace is the bus service for some of suburban Chicago, but not all) went to this place or if the bus even ran late enough for me to get to a third shift job, I started to worry. I realized that if a Pace bus didn't get there, then I'd have to take the train to O'Hare and then hail a taxi, which might destroy my take-home pay. Then this guy told me about the taskmaster boss, a woman who didn't tolerate tardiness or slacking off, and I realized that tardiness would be a big-time problem at least early on while I figured out the best way to get to this place. By the time this guy started to basically beg and plead me to hang in for the four-month duration of the contract for this job since it would come out of his ass if I didn't, I was souring on this gig big-time. Of course I didn't want to hang in for the four-month contract, no one takes a third shift job intending to turn down regular jobs that he may get later. It took all my restraint to resist telling him, "Hell yeah I'm leaving that place when I get another job! Are you fucking kidding?" I asked him how long I had to decide whether I wanted to do this. His response: "Orientation is tonight." Uh, sorry buddy. I thanked him for his honesty and begged him to keep me in mind for other jobs with his firm closer to the city. He said he would. He was probably lying.

I just couldn't up and run out somewhere I didn't know on several hours notice. It would be like having a day or two to decide whether to take a gig in another city. Different logistics for sure, but the same principle--a shit job, in an unfamiliar place, and you gotta decide in a very small amount of time. I couldn't do it. Eight months of unemployment I guess have not rendered me so desperate that I would drop everything and deprive myself of a semblance of a regular life for a decent salary. I still don't understand why I can't get a job during daylight hours. Ten years of work experience and performance in a pressurized environment doesn't mean shit to anyone unless you're white or a slut. To say I'm frustrated by this point is a gross understatement.

As I alluded to earlier, the excuses are starting to form as to why I'm not going to see the money that I loaned to these two women, Laurie and Cassandra. When I brought the subject up to Laurie during a conversation yesterday, she almost feigned a car accident up there in Detroit trying to show me how bad her brakes are. Okay honey, I'm not getting my money back, I get it, you don't have to kill yourself. Meanwhile back in the city limits, Cassandra chose last weekend, when she told me she would be giving me the first installment of what she owed me, to "lose" her cell phone, and she claims not to have a home phone line, so, you guessed it, there's absolutely no way I can get ahold of her. Imagine what went through my mind when I waited until Sunday to call her and find out where she was, only to hear a message that the owner of that phone number has requested that no incoming calls be accepted. Excuse me? I figured she was halfway to Acapulco by now. She called me Monday from her job and explained to me that she had that done once she knew her phone was missing so that messages wouldn't be backed up once she found it. So when I asked whether she would be able to spare any money for me now considering how much a new cell phone is going to cost, she laughed in my face and exclaimed, "No!" So I could actually call her at her job if I wanted to talk to her, but why? I already know what the deal is there. But hey, I bring all of this on myself, being so desperate for love. No, I'm not involved with either woman, but if they were men, chances are I wouldn't have loaned that kind of money.

So rent's due in a week, bills come in steadily as always, and I have nothing coming in as far as money. It's all dependent on my savings account right now, and that's dwindling. Over $8,000 in cash as a severance in January, and it's almost all gone. A lot of people like to criticize me and say that I need to toughen up, especially when I was whining about that fat whore "Karen." All I can say is, life might suck for everybody, but not everybody deals with it the same way. My way is to bitch and moan for a little while, maybe for a long while, but I always try to keep my eyes open for ways to improve the situation. And I just don't see a solution right now other than continuing to wait for one of these companies that has my resume to go ahead and give me at least an interview. Or rob a currency exchange or something.

I feel compelled to comment on a website called BeautifulPeople.net, which I came across the other day because a local newspaper did a story about it. BeautifulPeople.net is a singles site, and you can only join if you're hot enough. I'm not making this up. Your picture gets a 3-day judging period by the opposite sex members of the site, and if the majority think you're hot enough, only then are you allowed to join. In their own words, the site is "...reserved for people, who because of their attractive appearance and personal qualities, stand out from the majority." Well, I'll be damned. It's bad enough that no matter how fat, ugly, or slutty a woman is, she gets to have the highest standards for what kind of man can respond to her personal ad...now there's a site where guys like me are automatically eliminated before we even get a chance. Sure, the women on that site aren't fat or ugly, theoretically, but my point is, no matter how disgusting the woman is, she always has high standards for what kind of man she wants. Where the hell are fat, ugly guys that aren't rich supposed to go to find some companionship when the fat, ugly chicks who aren't rich won't even consider them?? So I guess BeautifulPeople.net is just a snapshot of society, where looks make all the difference. But it just made me shake my head, because in a world where all the ladies, from prime cut to Mickey D's grade Z beef, are joining hands and singing, "I don't want no scrubs," now the websites are excluding people if they don't look like a fucking movie star. And the websites, the internet, really is my only shot, you know. 350-lb. black dudes with size 7 3/4 hat sizes can't walk up to girls on the street and spit game without a wad of hundreds, not in this world anyway. I want to patent the rights on UglyFolks.net, where guys like me can hook up with women who don't think their pussies are made of gold and who want to go out with guys who don't look like The Rock or have million-dollar bankrolls and yet--gasp, shocking!!--might still have something to offer. I think this idea might make me a lot of money and allow me to have lipo and a facelift, so that I don't have to be in that category anymore and I can actually have a shot at getting married someday.

And I'm only half-joking.

Lost

I'm sitting here at my computer on a day off from school, and I feel completely lost. I'm trying to see a side of my life where things are going okay, and I don't see one. I already know my personal life is shit. "Karen" keeps updating her Yahoo profile with meaningless stuff like "I got extensions...lol," teasing me as if to indicate that I have no business still checking her profile, which I don't. "Torrie" and I are about to have The Talk, because a long-distance relationship where only one person makes the effort to see the other can't continue without The Talk to see where everyone stands exactly. And considering my past luck with dating, I don't expect The Talk to have a happy ending. And where will that leave me? Checking Torrie and Karen's profiles until the day I die?

The academic side of my life I suppose is going okay, but it's going very slowly and it has no future for now because I don't have the money to take any classes this fall. My friend Cassandra explained to me how much she's paying in student loans and how long she has to pay it, and fuck, there's no way I'd be able to pay off that kind of money. She tries to make it sound okay by telling me that she would never have her $41,000 per year job if not for her degree, so it's paying for itself. I remind her that this is me we're talking about, so a job paying that much ain't in my future no matter what degree I have. And as further proof, I present my dad, proud owner of a business degree for over 30 years and still living like a homeless person. Success just isn't part of my makeup, unfortunately. That's part of why what Karen did still hurts after 16 months. Stupid me finally thought that I had succeeded in finding a good quality woman that loved me and found me attractive. I should have known better.

My unemployment benefits are about to run out, so I attempted to bring in some income with online gambling. No surprise that didn't turn out well. I deposited $1,000 into my sports betting account from my credit card over the past month, and I won a few bets and built my account up briefly, but soon enough my usual bad luck caught up to me and wiped me out. Even worse was my poker luck. I finished ninth in a 700-person tournament online a few weeks ago, and that turned my $5 entry fee for that tournament into about $110. There's nothing in that account now either. All the tournaments that I've entered since I've been bounced early from them, even the ten-man single table events that theoretically would be much easier to win than a 700-person marathon. I mean I have been knocked out with some great fucking hands too. For instance, and this will sound like a foreign language for non-poker fans, but in one tournament my two down cards were a pair of 7s and of the four community cards out there, one was a 7 and one was an 8, and the other two were lower cards. That means that I have three of a kind. So when I go all-in, putting all 1,200 of my chips on the line, and two different people with more chips than me also go all-in, I figure I'm screwed because to go all-in, these people must have good hands, and if either of them have a pair of 8s, then they have a better hand than me. They both had the same two down cards, a 5 and a 6. That means that they went all-in not because they already had a good hand--they actually had nothing--but because they hoped that the last card in the community would connect their 5 and 6 to the 7 and 8, giving them a straight, which beats my three of a kind. The 4 or the 10 would do it, but if neither came, then they would both have lost all of their chips and been knocked out of the tournament by betting on a straight draw that didn't come. That's insane, to put all your chips on the line even though you don't have so much as a pair! Of course, they were playing against me, so the last card was indeed a 10.

So, here I am, still trudging along but completely lost as to where I'm going to end up. Even those who aren't where they want to be at least have a sense of direction. I feel like I have nothing right now. I spent the last year with a doctor trying to find a way out of the maze that is my mind. The only thing I found was my money missing after every session. So fuck that. But I'm feeling more and more desperate for something to change as I approach 30 years old. I feel like I should have something to show for making it that far. But I won't have a wife, I won't have a family, and unless I knock off a bank, I won't have anything of substance. I might not even have a job or a place of my own. And every night I go to bed, I'm wondering: When does it get better? Or does it ever?

Grade A Product

Much to my surprise, it appears that I am going to swing an A out of each of the four classes I took this semester, which just ended this past Thursday. The general math was a breeze, and the social science was no problem once I made up the data for my research paper and wound up getting a perfect score for that. I still needed to get 22 questions right out of 50 on my final to get an A based on raw percentage, but since I showed up every class and participated, I'm sure the teacher would have given it to me even if I had fallen short on the final. But I got a 44 on the final, so I didn't have to beg. But the English grade and the humanities grade were up for grabs. I was averaging a B+ in humanities before the final, which was all about architecture. We were shown twelve slides and we had to identify the landmark, where it was, and the creator and style. But the teacher was nice enough to make the test where the creator and style were extra credit points instead of mandatory, and as a result, my score on the final pushed my final grade just barely into the A range. The English 102 was the most nail-biting. The teacher was a French-Haitian man who was the epitome of arrogance the whole semester. Our first paper was back in February, and he actually told the class that out of the close to 30 papers, only five were passing quality, meaning D or better. My B was the best, according to him, but I refuse to believe that only four other people in that room could write a passing paper. Needless to say, there were less than half of the original students left by the time this final paper was due Thursday. I was averaging an A- on the three papers we were assigned before this final, so I needed to get a great score to secure the A. It was an eight- to ten-page research/argument paper, and mine was nine pages and tight enough to get an A, in my opinion. But this teacher couldn't bear to give me an A on this final paper because he thought it would be such a bear that it would break even the best writers in the class. It didn't break me. I even turned it in Tuesday so that he could grade it by Thursday so that I could pick it up and walk out of his office and never see him again. 90-100 is an A. My paper's grade? 89. He just couldn't stand to give me an A on the final paper. But it's okay, because that 89 wasn't low enough to drag my overall average under 90, so he's going to have to give me an A for the course whether he wants to or not. The rat bastard.

I'm celebrating by flying back to Minneapolis next Thursday and spending two days and nights with "Torrie." I'm still giving serious consideration to moving up there this summer, despite the loud protests of my aunt, and the rest of my family and friends when/if I ever tell them. I may just run up there and not tell anybody just to avoid the yelling and drama. It would not be a situation of moving in with Torrie and trying to get married to her anytime soon, like I intended to do with "Karen" in Wisconsin. I would not accept moving in with anyone unless something happened where I wound up unemployed. There's not exactly a job waiting for me there, but Torrie's job is taking calls at a call center for a company that's expanding, so they have been hiring at a good clip, and it's over $12/hr. to start. Not Sunshyn money, but not bad. ;) So I'd go up there for that job, I'd go to school next fall during the hours that I wouldn't be working, day or night, and if things go great between me and Torrie, fine, but if they didn't work out, if these different internet groups are any indication, there are many more women in Minnesota wanting a big black man in their lives. And I'm willing to gamble that they aren't nearly as stuck-up and arrogant as the Chicago women, so I might actually have a chance with them. BTW, I'm even less optimistic about me and Torrie having a future because she just informed me yesterday that she's pulling a "Sarah" on me and making out with girls, but it's not a cheating situation because "playing with girls" has nothing to do with me. She didn't volunteer this information. She asked me if I had fucked anyone since I last saw her because she wanted to protect herself from my potential promiscuity, but when I told her I had not done anything and asked her if she had, this woman that's so concerned about protecting herself and being responsible told me that she sucked face with a total stranger at a gay bar, but it was okay since no bodily fluids were swapped besides saliva. Yep, I sure can pick em.

I'll spend some time with my family this holiday weekend before I spend time with Torrie next week. I'll be able to determine which scenario is more desirable for me: Living with my family, living near Torrie, or continuing to live alone, hiding from the world. Or, since my decision making has sucked dick the last few years, maybe I'll draw an option out of a hat.

Interesting Week

I actually got out of the house again last weekend. I went to a Ring of Honor wrestling event in Chicago Ridge last Saturday. The night before, I met my friend "Drew" and his girlfriend downtown and took the Metra to his house in Park Forest, IL. Usually we stay up all night and play poker with Drew's mother and brother, and "Ronnie" if he decides to come there. We did play poker Sunday, but not Friday or Saturday because Drew's mother was comped a room at Trump Casino and she, his brother, and his brother's family were spending Friday night there. So Drew, his girlfriend, and I had dinner Friday night at Buffalo Wild Wings, then I won $100 playing online poker at Drew's house. Saturday Drew and I got Burger King, and let me tell you, I never appreciated BK more because there were two of them near my old job and I could go to either of them right now since my school is near my old job, but they both closed. And I can't eat McDonald's because that shit is just toxic. If my stomach can handle White Castle and Taco Bell and all the other junk food I eat, it should tell you something that it can't handle Mickey D's.

Then Saturday evening, Ronnie continued to try to impress his current girlfriend by telling the guys going to the wrestling match (me, Drew, and his brother) to wait until he got to Drew's house so that he could drive us the 40 minutes to the match even though he wasn't going, then he and his girlfriend would perhaps go to Navy Pier and wait the three hours for the event to end, then pick us up and go somewhere for dinner. There was no reason for him to do that other than he was trying to show his girl what a magnanimous guy he is. If the pussy wasn't there I guarantee he never would have made that offer because there was nothing in it for him. As it turned out, Drew called him to come pick us up when the steel cage was being constructed for the main event because we figured it should be about 15 minutes for the cage plus about 20 minutes for the match. But Ronnie arrived fairly quickly, and there were problems with the cage, so when he got there, the main event had not even started yet. Ronnie made the mature decision to not wait for us and took off for Mokena, which is near Park Forest. I can say he wouldn't have been that much of an asshole if he didn't already know that Drew's brother had driven to the wrestling match by himself and therefore could drive us back to Park Forest, but I'm not 100% certain. We met Ronnie and his girl coincidentally at the same Buffalo Wild Wings, had a late dinner, and made plans to get together the next day.

Ronnie and I used to be in a bowling league together, and we're very competitive when we bowl against each other, not yelling at each other competitive, but silently concentrating on the game like it was a PBA Tour event. Since he will never admit that I am a better bowler, he never asks me to go bowling with him unless he's feeling like he has to build his self-esteem, and having this new girlfriend certainly qualifies, so at his suggestion, Sunday evening he, his girlfriend, Drew, Drew's girlfriend, and I all went bowling. The last time we went bowling was before I met "Karen" or "Sarah," so almost two years ago. And Ronnie had another advantage: He knows that I generally don't do as well bowling with a house ball and shoes as opposed to my own bowling ball and shoes, which were back at home on the North Side of Chicago, a good hour plus away not counting traffic. He was going to leave it up to me to bitch about not having my gear and look like I was a wuss. But I went anyway. I had not bowled myself since late last year, so I started very rusty, and as a result, Ronnie actually beat me the first two games. I even offered to bet him the second game, since I finished the first game pretty well, but he declined. But after the second game, feeling full of himself, he waited until I had pried off the rental shoes before announcing, "Okay Dre, it's time for you and me, one on one, the main event, what everyone came to see." He then bet some money on himself, but he bet with Drew, not with me. I wasn't about to put money against him after losing the first two games. But I should have, because I forgot how tight his asshole gets when there's money involved and the score is close late in the game. I beat him 150-99.

The night wasn't over, of course, because Ronnie would not let me win a contest against him in front of his girlfriend. That was the point of going bowling, not to have fun, but to show his white girl that he was the bigger nigger. So despite everyone being tired, we went to Drew's house to play an '80s trivia game, which he won by one question over me after I had a big lead. And I guarantee you, if I would have won that game, a long night of poker would have followed, anything to prove that he was better than me. But finally, after the game was over around 3A, everyone left. I got about 4 and a half seconds of sleep before Drew's crazy-sounding alarm went off, and we hopped on the Metra, he to go to work and me to go home. And boy, was I sore. Just imagine two 340-lb. black guys heaving bowling balls as hard as you can, competing in a silly tug-of-war, the latest in a ten-year rivalry. I would've soaked in my tub when I got home, but I was too tired to run the damn water.

I was on track for a regular week of night school when I was met by the head of the English department Thursday on my way to math class. Just like last year when he surprised me by telling me that I had won a scholarship for an essay I wrote, he surprised me again by telling me that the teachers union banquet where I would have received my award last year was canceled at that time because the union was on strike and had more important things to worry about, but now the banquet was the next day, Friday, and would I like to come and stand up and be announced? I said sure. So I made a trip to Greektown yesterday, at a restaurant called the Parthenon. I had a great meal, several courses of authentic Greek cuisine, gyros, rack of lamb, Greek salad...I was stuffed. And when the announcement was made for my award after several other students had received theirs, I guess the people involved with the scholarship did not want me to come to the stage and receive nothing, since they already awarded me the $500 prize last year, so they had another envelope ready for me this time, with a check for an extra $100. Fucking awesome! As with the first check, I was honored and stunned, and I couldn't thank them enough.

That doesn't solve my problem of what I'm going to do with myself this summer though. I'm still wrestling with my sensible option of moving back with my uncle and not having to pay so much in rent, but sacrificing my independence, my less-than-sensible option of staying here in Chicago and continuing to look for work, and my "OH MY GOD, ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH?!?" option of packing up and moving to another part of the country that I've never even visited just as a change of scenery, since I can't get a job or get laid in Chicago. I have to make a decision soon, as my unemployment runs out in July. But no matter what, receiving this award from school and receiving the compliments I've received about my blog (hey Keish!) means that I will continue to write and continue to go to school and work towards a degree some day. I may have low self-esteem, but apparently I can write my ass off.

Peaks And Valleys

Some good news and some bad news came my way this past week. First, on Tuesday when I showed up for class, the head of the English department took me aside and asked, "Would you be (insert my full name here) by chance?" I said yes, very warily. I didn't know who he was when he asked. But he introduced himself and informed me that my exit essay had been chosen as the best out of all the students at my junior college, which is a little like saying that I was voted best looking man in a room full of hockey players. But I was still pleasantly surprised, especially considering that I didn't write the essay thinking that there was any kind of prize attached. He asked me to come back to school the next day to receive a prize for achieving this feat. I wavered, because Wednesday is not a school day for me and I was not interested in showing up for whatever "honor" was being bestowed on me...until he informed me of the $500 prize. Of course I was there with bells on the next day.

I walked into a room full of teachers. The English department had gathered in a room for their Christmas party, and this was the room I was told to come to when I got off work. It was a very humbling scene. All the teachers congratulated me one by one, some telling me that my essay was so good that they were passing it around to the other members of the faculty. Then I found out that the money was actually a scholarship in the name of a former English teacher at the college who died, and his sister, tears in her eyes, told everyone how much her brother meant to her and told me how proud he would be of my work. Then an empty envelope was given to me in the name of presentation, because the actual check had not been signed by the proper authorities. I said a couple of words, mostly how speechless and honored I was, then I shuffled back to my seat as if embarrassed by the attention. The check should be waiting for me when I come back after the Christmas--oops, winter--break. By the way, the essay was my answer to the question: "How does physical appearance affect how you look at yourself and how others look at you?" I had so much to say about that subject that I went through the five sheets of paper originally given to me and asked for one extra.

The award made me wonder where I would be if I had tried to attend college right out of high school. My grades were atrocious and my concentration was the same, so I honestly don't think I was ready for more school when I graduated high school. So I have been working at the same job for the last ten years while basically waiting to win Powerball so I wouldn't have to worry about education. But that never happened. Now that I have started school, it has been fun and rewarding. The three credits I received for passing English 101 may not seem like much, compared to the 60 I need for an associate's degree or the 120 I need for a bachelor's. But because I actually enjoyed the 17-week journey while I earned those, I am looking forward to what else I will learn while I pursue more credits. I will not be expecting more rewards for my writing, however. Perhaps I am a good enough writer where I will receive more accolades in the future. But for now, I need to enjoy the experience and make sure that I keep my concentration level high.

Speaking of that job I've had for ten years, that's the bad news. As you know if you read my previous post concerning what happened between me and "Karen," I have known that my position was being eliminated since October 2003. Friday morning, I learned that the end should be coming on January 7. Of course, me being the lazy fuck that I am, I have nothing lined up after I am let go. I have heard of receiving unemployment, but I know nothing about it. From what I hear, it won't pay nearly as much as what I'm making, not that I am making a lot now. This leaves me three options: Stay out here by myself and try to find work, get a roommate, or move back to my uncle's cramped house, where he, his wife, and their two teenage boys reside, in order to save money. I don't think I am moving back to my uncle's house; it's just too difficult to adjust to living with those many people after living alone for seven years. Plus, where would I host the houseguests with bags of dildos who blow me twenty minutes after meeting me? I don't think I want to look for a roommate; all the people I know I wouldn't want to live with, which leaves the rest of the world, who are all strangers. I don't deal with strangers well. Guess that leaves wasting my settlement check from my layoff on rent.

Notice how I did not consider moving in with "Jane" as an option. Yes, everything is still going well between us. We still talk every night, and usually every morning. But I have learned my lesson from Karen and "Sarah." I am not going to make plans to share a place with a woman until I feel like I really know her. This may take a few years of long-distance dating. Oh well. I'll be damned if I get screwed over again like those other women did to me. It's less than two weeks to the first meeting between me and Jane. I want this more than anything else in the world right now. We seem to be separated at birth, our personalities are so similar, and I absolutely cannot wait until we spend that weekend together to see how we mesh in real life, not just over the phone. But I will not expose my heart to Jane, no matter how much I think I am in love with her. It may not be fair to her, and it may hurt her that I seem to keep an air of distrust when dealing with her. But I swear the next woman to lie to me or let me treat them well all summer only to dump me because I don't apply clamps to her nipples and humiliate her, I don't know what I will do. I have to protect myself. No one else sure the fuck will.

Speaking of Sarah, she sent me a birthday card and wrote that she hopes I get all that I wish for. (My birthday is December 22.) It's taking all my self-control to not call her and curse her out. All that I wished for was one woman to treat me right and let me treat her right. And for several months she was okay with being that person. Then she started longing for those wonderful nights handcuffed on someone's kitchen floor with a ball gag in her mouth.

By the way, I heard that she is supposed to be moving up here to a suburb near me. I wonder what master she met that lives up this way? Stay tuned...

And if I don't get a chance to do it personally, happy holidays to all of you. I hope you all get what you wished for.

I'm going to go hang myself now or swallow some bleach or something...