I have no idea what I will do next (after June). The most practical and probable option would be working as a nursing assistant in town for a while and applying to more schools next year but that doesn't guarantee anything considering my track record for impulsivity and impracticality.

For the sake of continuity consider yourself updated.

Recently I have had a lot of time on my hands. Aside from school, I spend a lot of time running and reading. Lately I've rekindled my interest in cultural/economic geography and in particular marxist geography. Geography of this sort is a synthesis of all of my overtly academic interests. If practicality were of no importance to me I would consider pursuing a graduate degree in it.

I was talking to a friend last night who told me about recent happenings in the economy on Dubai. Apparently they are bankrupt and many of the people that live their are massively in debt. Recently a phenomenon has started within the immigrant population where people will fly back to wherever they are from to start over and just leave their car parked at the airport. It seems in that corner of the world the financial system is not so integrated into daily living as to make evasion impossible. I wish it were that easy for those of us in this corner.

I sometimes have fantasies of the entire economic system collapsing to the point as to erase my debt. Perhaps a hyperinflation scenario that inflates the cost of a loaf of bread to 100,000 dollars like in Zimbabwe. Then being in debt for 75,000 dollars would just be an economic setback equivalent to losing your day pass on the bus. Of course I am probably being short sided here because the mass suffering and social strife that would accompany it would not be a good trade-off for feeling absolved of my student loans but assertions of reality such as this one do not have a place in fantasy.

There is a definite prejudice towards men who use femininity as part of their palate; their emotional palate, their physical palate. Is that changing? It’s changing in ways that don’t advance the cause of femininity. I’m not talking frilly-laced pink things or Hello Kitty stuff. I’m talking about goddess energy, intuition and feelings. That is still under attack, and it has gotten worse.

--RuPaul

So... going on three months and I've managed to find a job. Its at the starbucks at the airport. I know, I know. Right now my goal is to quit no matter what by the time the weather goes south in the fall and that's being generous. That is all.

Idling away hours...

A nice day. My old landlord called me to tell me that he was sending out my security deposit, which is enough to live off in Portland for two months. I celebrated by getting a gym membership, hopefully I will actually use it. I am certain I will in the short term seeing as I have very little else on my plate for the moment. I have an interview on Thursday that I am really hopeful for. I would be delivering the mail. Last week I got my guitar back from my old house and I have been playing it whilst wearing giant headphones before going to bed. I want to get better. It's embarrassing how low my skill level is considering I have been playing pretty consistently for nine years. I definitely don't take it seriously but it would be nice to excel at at least one of my hobbies. I can only knit scarves and I can't follow a pattern. I bike on the slow side. My bread is always a far too dense. All of these things are far from being consequential.

Today I noticed that I have been unknowingly paying 12 bucks a month for a credit monitoring service. I called the service intending to cancel service and got suckered in. I guess it's good insurance to know where you stand on these things. I found out a few things about my finances:

1. (-) I have a little over 50,000 out in student loans (I had guessed around 30,000... I don't keep track of these things.

2. (+) My credit is now 769 ... my income is dismal and I have so much debt... How the hell is it so high? I think I might have to go draw up a ten year plan to buy a shack out by Foster. Although it's going to take a while to pay off 50,000 bucks on a mail man's salary.

I am enjoying my lack of responsibility for the moment. I have fennel wild-rice pilaf on the stove and no particular plans until Thursday.

If this were a vacation I'd be home by now. School has resumed and I am still getting up at noon and doing nothing of note. Watching Youtube videos about the RFID chips. Trying not to stir myself into a nervous government fearing paranoia. Some days thats it. That being said.

I AM SO GLAD I DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO A TELEVISION. It would be a disaster. I would divvy up my day between Montel and Golden Girl reruns and in five weeks time I could stand before you a mere shadow of my former self. Not to be dramatic but the last few days have been painfully empty. The room I am renting out is quiet and the carpet softer by the day. I know I should enjoy these days more than I do because I know they're numbered and one day either by luck or an outfall of desperation I will be working and I won't have so much time to think so much. Hopefully.

I leave town in two days and I've packed everything up in boxes. I am writing this from the laurdromat down the street from my house.

The other day a man in a car almost killed me on the way home from Westwood. I was so angered by it that I followed him home. When he got out of the car he was stumbling. I made a scene and all of his neighbors came out. It was in a rich neighborhood in the Cheviot hills. I called the cops to report him, which felt weird considering how many friends have driven me home drunk, but he almost killed me so any qualms I might have about hypocrisy went out the window. Three cops came and even though he was looking at us from his bedroom window he wouldn't come out. The cops said he seemed obviously drunk even from the fleeting glances they could steal but there was nothing they could do. I didn't really mind because all I wanted to do is to shake him from the idea that he could go around driving drunk with impunity. The cops were nice except that the first thing they said when they saw me was, "you should be wearing brighter colors". I had lights, front and back and a helmet. They gave me a ride home. It was the first time I had ever been in the back of a cop car. It was uncomfortable and smelled like puke.

I woke up the next morning with a cold.
Today was spent cleaning. I hate moving but this is a lot simpler than it could be if I had a lot of stuff, or kids.

we have ice

Will be leaving town on Tuesday night. Feels weird. Like I'm ending some sort of extended vacation. I know Los Angeles from a different angle now than I had had known just by growing up (around) here. Nonetheless I am excited to be moving on to greener pastures. Some days here feel so isolating and hollow. Like there is nowhere to go that doesn't involve acquiring garbage. One giant highway.

I have been really sore ever since the night that I went to see Shearing Pinx play at the smell. I raced there really fast and I had tried doing this thing called "ladders" that my friend Kellie showed me over Thanksgiving. Ladders involves doing a series of push-ups in sets that increase incrementally by one to a number and then decrease back to one. I'm out of shape and my arms feel like they are going to fall off days later.

Yesterday I went with my friend Athena out to Pasadena to the vegan drive thru and we ate burgers and shakes and rode are bikes a little and then ate at vegan house. We like to eat.

I am now officially done with academics at UCLA but I still have business here until tomorrow. I am proctoring an exam for the class I am a teaching assistant for and I am grading the exams tonight, and returning them in the morning to meet a deadline set forth by the professor. By Friday I expect to be able to cut the strings and focus on getting my shit together in boxes by Monday. I will have the weekend to try and erase any visible artifacts of my 6 months of residence. Toothpaste in drywall, scrubbing a spot of turmeric from a patch of beige carpet. Defrosting my mini fridge is going to be a fucking pain.