jacktellslies

Everyone has this moment, I think. I was six, and I realized that, at the very earliest, I'd be in school for the next two lifetimes. It has been almost a third since then.

I did not graduate from high school. I broke up with it. There were tears, and there was rage. My father was starting to die, so I got mad at the school for leaving me when I needed it, and for not getting it, and for going easy on me then, rather than when I'd needed it more. I suppose I got mad at the school so that I wouldn't be angry at him. I felt the proper self-satisfaction, though. I thought that I was brilliant. I wanted to live in words.

I'm graduating quite soon, and, although I'd not felt it this fully before, because I was still in it, or because this is what people who graduate do, I regret having gone to college. I must admit that I appreciate the books I've read. But my academic writing is terrible. It has gotten me wonderful grades, to be honest, but it is nothing that anyone would, or should, ever want to read. I don't feel particularly intelligent. I don't think that I deserve my grade point average. I've met a few professors whom I adore, but I think, perhaps, that I could have learned more by having had lunch with each of them a few times. And I've spent quite a lot of money on this.

I'm better than I was when I started this. But that has more to do with what I was doing when I wasn't in class, like having weird jobs, and talking to people, and reading, and teaching myself things, and traveling, and trying to make sense of all of this. I could have run away to London and made terrible choices, but I had to go to class, you see. And I earned a piece of paper that I hope I'll never have to use. Well. This is likely only a pang of regret, and not a lasting emotion. (I deny having lasting emotions, anyway.) And there is the future to which I can look. Places to go, real things to learn. But I hate busy-work, and I cannot seem to shake the feeling that I've been doing it for nearly five years. I only finished it because I'd started.

At least I managed to spite Alex. That is something.

The basil plant, Basil, died. The time of death was probably sometime last week or month, but Megan disposed of the body today. I told her that some time ago I'd decided that as the only living progeny of our relationship, Basil should probably die. I continued caring for it, but my ill will most likely led to its demise. She did not seem pleased. Nor should she have been. Our love didn't even live long enough to make pesto. What sort of love is that?

I've started with my classes, the last two I'll have to take as an undergraduate. Both of them look to be better than I thought they'd be. The education course is about classroom technology. I am more shocked than I can say to discover that the professor appears to be intelligent, and that the course will require more effort than I had thought it would, but that it will actually teach me something, and something useful at that. This is only the second course I have taken as an education major that could claim such a thing. I am also even more impressed with advanced Shakespeare than I thought I'd be. The professor is an older woman, and she is brilliant, obviously. The neat part is that we will only be reading four plays. I've not had the opportunity to spend so much time on any given work in all of my time as an English major, as I recall. The promise of depth is exciting. Also, we watched a bit of Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing, and the entire class, including the professor, laughed every time Keanu Reeves was on screen, even moreso if he was on a horse. I shall enjoy this.

The shape of my life changes this week: I'll be working four days a week and going to school for two, with one full day to myself, most likely Wednesdays or Saturdays.

My dark secret is that I am one of those children who actually does zir homework, and does it fairly well. I do not want to allow it to eat my life this semester, as I am wont to do. I do not want work to devour me, either. Half of my team is leaving, including one of the best fishmongers with whom I ever expect to work. I appreciate the added responsibility, as the sort of work I have been doing lately is more challenging and more interesting, and as it will come with a raise. And I do like to work. However, I am too much of a socialist to think that I should have to work all of the time, even if I do enjoy it. I adore both work and school, but I need and demand time for existing and living.

(None of this would be such a problem, by the by, if I weren't required to work four days of the week in order to get health insurance. In other words, please note that the lack of universal healthcare in America will be preventing at least one queer from having free time and idle hands. Bush wins again.)

I watched one of (there is more than one!) the musical episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess today. It was the single gayest thing I've ever seen. I'm gayer than I've ever been before for having seen it. The truly scary part of all of this was that the venue through which I watched it was Aiden's Tenth Anniversary Edition fake-leather-bound Xena DVD. I hid in my parents' basement with the volume low, changing the channel every time I thought she was going to do the battle cry or I heard someone coming down the stairs because they'd know, over ten years ago. I've been this gay for more than ten years. Do you even understand the kind of stamina that requires?