A Question

I was looking online at pictures of lockets because I have a coin I'd like to put in one, and was looking for one of the appropriate age/size/style, etc. Through my browsing, a question formed in my brain, one I can't quite shake: Why the hell am I working in a hotel when I should be out designing jewellery and writing books? Worded another way: What the fuck am I doing with my life?

Don't get me wrong, my job is great. I mean, I've been here for an hour and I've spent half of that looking at pretty things online. In a few minutes, I'll do about ten minutes of work, then I'm free for another couple of hours - so I don't mean to make it sound like things are bad... but really, what am I doing? What are any of us doing? Why do we reach adulthood and discard that mantra of you can do whatever you want in favour of doing what's responsible or expected, or, hell, let's just call a spade a spade, whatever will make us the most money. I'm a capitalist to the core, but doesn't capitalism give us the inherent right to be poor - to try doing what we want to do, and to fail if we must?

Me, I've been poor my whole life. I'm sure that most of my childhood (and certainly all of my adulthood to date) were spent well below the poverty line. But that's the thing: poor is relative. If you took me and my living situation and dropped us in the backwater of some third world country, it would blow the people there away. What? Clean drinking water? Heat (usually)? Hot water (most days)? Electricity? A TV that works if you smack it really hard (or sometimes sit on top of it)? Sounds like Heaven. So I've been poor, but life hasn't been hard, not really. So why is being poor taboo? Why is there this stigma, like, Oh, you're poor? You must be kind of stupid and lazy and suffer from an inferior education? I'd love to know where that comes from. Actually, I'm not stupid, thanks. I've made some poor choices in my life, sure, but I'm not stupid. Lazy? In my day-to-day life, sure, but since that day-to-day has included working full time since I was 15, in an overall sense, by Canadian standards, I'm pretty badass - and yeah, my education wasn't great. I dropped out of university three years in. Why? Because I wanted to write. If I had to do it over, I don't know that I would do the same thing, but I stand by my decision. One book in four years isn't terribly impressive, I guess, but when I think of all the people who never finish that first novel, who are so hung up on writing a best-seller that they never write anything, I think that maybe I've done pretty well for myself, busted-ass TV and all.

I guess it's all about expectations - our own, our friends' and families' and society's. Unfortunately, I think too many people (myself included) let society's expectations shape their own. Society expects that I will fail if I don't make a plan of some kind, a template for how my life is supposed to play out - and in our little cookie-cutter land of lifetime blueprints, my life, all our lives should have gone something like this: Elementary school, high school, university, crap job, slightly better job, Kids, marginally OK job aaaaaand, plateau. Retirement. Death. Somewhere in there, if we can, if it's convenient and responsible, it wouldn't hurt for one or two of us to go backpacking in Europe, so the rest of us can live vicariously through them. This is the kind of life we're supposed to content ourselves with, be happy with even.

I don't mean this as a rant against The Man. I'm actually more angry with myself right now than with the retardedness that is our society. I don't understand how I keep convincing myself that I can be happy with a mediocre life. I can't. Maybe I can't be happy with any kind of life, who knows? But I do know that this daily grind, working week, make-ends-meet kind of bullshit isn't for me. I want out.

So rather than ranting, in an attempt to be proactive (and, unfortunately, a little bit responsible), a list of things to get, in order, with the money from the job that I won't be quitting until I have something better to go to:

1. A Netbook for writing. Should have it by the end of the first week of November.
2. A decent point-and-shoot; good SLR to follow.
3. Supplies for jewellery (specifically: damaged or incomplete antiques from EBay, pliers, various types of wire, glass beads, strong glue, lacquer, a sketchbook just for my designs, some books about various techniques for manufacturing jewellery)
4. Supplies to build a desk (I may have do do this after the netbook and before the camera; we'll see how my back holds up during NaNoWriMo.

And actually, for right now, I think that's it. Four things, and I think I'm on my way to a happier me.

The Other Shop

I forget how I found Skreened.com. Something I read on Twitter, I think. The FU, BP design was something I came up with while looking for components for a design Rhiannon had come up with and as soon as I thought of it, I had to try to sell it. So far, I've sold two, which considered my limited marketing, I think is pretty good.

Apparently, the guy on Twitter who started BPGlobalPR is donating the profits from his BP Cares shirt to clean up efforts (this is what I've heard, I don't want to put words in his mouth). You'd think that the world in general would be making more noise about the BP SNAFU, but it seems like an angry (albeit hillarious and informative) Twitter account and a few BP-hating tee shirts are about it for the Anti-BP movement.

That's all I have about that for right now. In a couple of days, my big brother and Clayton will be taking off for parts unknown (well, unknown to some people. I know where they're going). They're hitch hiking there, which makes me nervous, but they're going to be together which makes me considerably less nervous. Also in a couple of days, my little sister and her boyfriend get their first apartment (FINALLY). Also, my older sister is the maid of honour in an upcoming wedding and my youngest brother's elementary school graduation is in 8 days, so it seems like everyone has crazy fun stuff going on for the next little while. I'm tired from the activity going on around me and wishing I had fun stuff like this to look forward to at the moment.

On the other hand, Spoy and I have plans that end with us in Vancouver for a chunk of the fall, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much... of course, our plans are contingent on getting in to some medical studies (hooray for human guinea pigs!), but what can you do?

Ok, I think that's really it. Funny how most of this post has nothing to do with the other shop.

Losing My Faith

I've lost my faith in Happily Ever After.

This is partly because people are total morons, and partly because I think I've been damaged beyond the capacity for happiness. I'd love to blame it all on the fact that men are idiots, but I can't, in good conscience, do that.

Men are idiots, true. I mean, I'm sure there are men who aren't, but there can't be many and those that are out there tend to get snatched up at the first chance some woman (luckier than me) gets. Out of the men I've been really close to (excluding family members), I've been treated well by... lets say four and a half of them (the jury's still out on the half). Of those, one is an ex, one is married, one is madly in love with his girlfriend and one is married and has a son who's older than I am (I should mention that I'm talking about all men that I've been close to, not just ones I've had some sort of romantic interest in or involvement with). The half is... I don't know. Part of me knows he's being a dick, and a big part of me is trying to convince myself otherwise - because I don't want to think that I fell for another asshole. I don't want to think I was stupid enough to be duped. On the other hand, I was never as emotionally invested in him as I used to get, there weren't any promises made, and no expectations, so other than not figuring out that it's generally considered good form to reply when someone asks you a direct question, he hasn't done anything wrong. He wasn't using me, or if he was, it wasn't any more than I was using him. We had a wonderful time together, and that's what I try to remember.

I really wish I could have a good cry and get him out of my system, but unfortunately (possibly fortunately - the jury's out on that, too), I don't think I can cry over a guy any more. I think that the guy I spent most of my teenage years and my earliest twenties pining over has drained me dry, and if there are any strong emotions left in me, they're buried so deep that it'll be a long time before they surface.

So, that's that. Maybe I should just try to hold out until some Gary Oldman clone wanders out of the woodwork and swoops me off my feet... yep, someone British, gorgeous and pro-cross-dressing. Sounds good to me.

So there's my rant about men. I really do think it's time for me to get the hell out of dodge, as they say, and head... I don't know. Anywhere.

Your Rates

So I'm in a bit better of a mood tonight. I called in sick to work, cleaned my kitchen, and for the first time in three or four nights, didn't cook dinner. After dinner we played Trivial Pursuit 6, which I came second in, which was pretty good, considering I was losing for most of the game.

Also, I've been going nuts lately, because I keep seeing signs for the real estate company Royal LePage, and I haven't been able to work out where I've seen the name before (I thought maybe it was a character in one of my stories)... it turns out that I titled a post Royal LePage because I saw one of their business cards or something on the desk where I was typing the post.

And the point of this post... I think it's time to go walk about. I really can't imagine where I'll go that I'll be happy (after the Rockies didn't do it, it's hard to think of somewhere that would), but I really think I should keep trying. Actually, I'm considering taking a two-three week vacation back to B.C. in the summer... I could bus out and bus back; I'd really just like to climb Burgess while the weather's warm... but I still have my dream of just loading up my backpack, wandering off, and hoping I end up somewhere cool... I think a lot of my problem is that I really dislike people, and most places have those.

Oh, also, I'm not going to school in the fall. The deadline for equal consideration was Feb 1st, and I didn't have (and still don't have) the $95 to pay for the application. Oh well. Can't be helped. I was already getting squirrelly at the idea of having to hang around the same place for a two year program, so maybe it's for the best.

I think that's everything for tonight. I kind of wish I could express exactly what I'm feeling, but I don't know that it's possible, and anyway, it's twenty to two in the am and I need to go to bed.