Updates from the Long road (long post ahead warning)
I would like to say there is much ado about nothing, but the ado is about a whole bunch of somethings, and the absence of something.
I am sure in the world of today, there is always someone getting the idea of the century, the one that will revolutionize the world. I don't claim to have anything similar to that, just an idea that may make a bit of good fortune for me and those around me. As with the usual me-ness, I took a basic idea: Open a 'family' friendly nightclub, and took it to a level beyond its previous forms and into something much greater: a new way of running the entire industry. Now to get my stamp on it before someone else steals my idea for the trillionth time (it happens often with anything i put a great deal of mental energy into, someone else puts it into a book in half assed form or makes a song with crappy music set to my poem, or some other infuriating copywrite theft). I cannot go into grand detail here: but so far the test market research on both concept/business and on the special edge have met with unqualified positive response and excitement. Now to capture a bit of that in balance with regular world needs and bring into being something never seen before in the nightclub industry. If all goes well, a business like this could become a franchised opportunity, and from there, well its summers in paris and winters in greece for all LOL. I've never felt the need for money, never liked it, but this world runs on it, and i would like the opportunity to make lives better through the success of an idea of mine.
On the mundane homefront, still no regular work here for me, been fine tuning my resume as hard and snappy as i can get it, but people are being absolutely rediculous about non-essential requirements for the job duties. Frankly, I am also fed up with the entire employment world for modifying their requirements based on negative experience, thats a bit like dating a new person nothing like anyone you've ever dated before because you are afraid of repeating any past mistakes. So instead of filling jobs, they have large vacancies that do not fill because they add requirements bordering on discrimination without reason in employment. Part of me is sorely tempted to file a class action lawsuit against the state and all agencies participating in those restrictions as unfair business practices. I knew there was a lot that needed fixing back home, but i had no idea just how much.
Between battles being won and victories celebrated, the battle for the right to a legal description for a relationship is being lost because of the insistance on inclusion of religious values in the legal wording. Frankly, I do not need a church to have a legal document OTHER than marriage/divorce, which is archaic in itself dating back to pre-victorian government styles, but now to use the words 'churches have the right to refuse' you would think would make them more amenable to the concept, but no, their very presence in the law is an affront to my better political sensibilities. Just let me put it on paper that there is a legally binding, tax status affecting relationship between my already common law Husband and myself, and lets be done with it. With california's decision to overturn Prop 8, the movement to overturn civil rights is regaining momentum. Maine has already stricken down one civil rights law already in the last ten years, and now its poised to do it again on the same issue. The problem is that Mainers think that only mainers should be involved in the decision, so they get cranky when outside help comes to keep the battle even, without realizing that national organizations exist of christian fundamentalists who have nothing better to do then tell me I cannot declair my love in ceremony upheld by law. I have had enough of this non-sense.
I return home to find the sham of a Pride organization in this area disbanded, and replaced by a group called 'Bridge alliance' in memory of a man thrown over a bridge and drowned. Now maybe its just me, but that whole connotation is contradictory to anything that will rally anyone but those directly tied to the event some twenty plus years ago. Call a spade a spade, and the Bridge Alliance is a Troll organization. They participate in nothing, have no presence, organize last minute pride events no one knows about but them, and frankly serve no purpose in fostering Pride in anyway save in memory of someone who died, quite possibly because they did really push themselves onto others. Unlike Matthew Shepard who was brutally beaten, tortured and left to die of exposure by a pair of druggie thieves, the story here is much more like a bad tv special about the evils of homosexuality, especially in light of the broader community feeling about the events that are held yearly in memory.
Where to begin with the battles that need fighting, and the ones you just want to give up on before you pick up a sword. The neighborhood as gone straight to hell, like most everything else since I left for college, and now we have heroin, meth and crack addicts ALL over the place. Shootings, knifings, beatings, drunken violence and not in regular amounts, but almost absurd levels. The rite aid has a FULL TIME security agent since they get shoplifted daily. Ichiban has a sign that reads "ABSOLUTELY NO PUBLIC TOILET" because heroin junkies need to pee frequently. ITs hard to explain but Boston, in the decliine of the Cocaine Age (the 80's) had far less trouble living out by the Airport/Aquarium than here. I am accosted at least once a week by someone FREAKING out for a smoke, one even went so far as to say 'WELL, you should start' when i told him i dont smoke. I can sit on my porch and within an hour count no less than a dozen people who are Herion Chic, or Meth Downing. (for those not familiar: the Herion Chic is the ultra thin body with kinda shakey movement and is VERY different from people with eating disorders. The Meth Down is the lethargic, difficult movements of someone coming down off an amphetamine, nearing DT withdrawl level) and all that makes for an area growing in danger, with the now strong presence of drug gangs and organizations never present before. Add on top of that mix the fact that VERY soon the mental health facility dedicated to schizophrenics is closing and they will have to discharge their patients upon closure as there is NO where else to send them... meaning that a long term institutional population is being reintroduced to a society laden with drug culture and predatory dealers. Can you imagine a Schizophrenic Meth Addict? I know i can, and its terrifying.
On the more positive swing, the return home has been a revitalization that I have very much needed, and a chance to rewind and recreate myself again. This tends to happen around every 7 years, and im starting the transition to a new self already. With this has come certain revelations that are uncomfortable and costly. How can those be positive? Because i believe every revelation about truth of your person is positive, even if unpleasant. Its much like working out really hard and the muscles ache for days, the aching is annoying but a good thing, and my heart has just learned to do this as I have discovered in me an even greater capacity for caring than I had known previously possible. I have also learned there are finite limits to caring for me as well. So in one short period I have learned that I can indeed erase from my world, even the closest to me when the offense is great enough, and simultaneously that I have a far greater capacity for love than i had conceived before. Each cloud has been followed by one of a different color with a different lining, but there are still many clouds in my sky. Despite the rejuvenation, regeneration and resurrection this period is bringing me, the new self is still in its infancy and still learning what it all means, having cast aside the rules of the past life and begun a new life within the same incarnation. This process of Self-Genesis is not new, but the variations are new every time. Each time is painful, to pass through the death of Self and into a newer and hopefully greater Self than before. Some greater mythic force is at work in me, i swear it. Either a Pheonix or a Timelord, because each time a 'life' comes to an end, a new cycle begins with the same mind, just a new twist on it again. Much like discovering that while for your whole life you believed one thing, only to find there was more too it later on after you had lived that way, I go through these periods of discovery and genesis. Now, with a degree, I understand the process better and should be able to iron out some weakspots that had developed, but all this takes energy and a great deal of it. I find, without realizing at first, towards the end of a lifecycle, i become more cycnical, fatigued and feel old all the time. Then there is an uncomfortable newness to the world, and finally after a few months I get a grip on it and explore it again with new eyes, and occasionally a new voice. Don't believe me? Check the archive of this journal and compare this to an old entry. You can see the pattern emerge from it if you look carefully. .
I suppose my break time should be over for the day, I have much to do and little time to do it in, and of course with being in a larger populatoin area and within reach of people once more, my time is divided into minuteae. I wish the world at large well, in hopes that it will do the same for me. Now I am off to battle the endless darkness with my little candle, may it always burn bright, and yours as well.
I am sure in the world of today, there is always someone getting the idea of the century, the one that will revolutionize the world. I don't claim to have anything similar to that, just an idea that may make a bit of good fortune for me and those around me. As with the usual me-ness, I took a basic idea: Open a 'family' friendly nightclub, and took it to a level beyond its previous forms and into something much greater: a new way of running the entire industry. Now to get my stamp on it before someone else steals my idea for the trillionth time (it happens often with anything i put a great deal of mental energy into, someone else puts it into a book in half assed form or makes a song with crappy music set to my poem, or some other infuriating copywrite theft). I cannot go into grand detail here: but so far the test market research on both concept/business and on the special edge have met with unqualified positive response and excitement. Now to capture a bit of that in balance with regular world needs and bring into being something never seen before in the nightclub industry. If all goes well, a business like this could become a franchised opportunity, and from there, well its summers in paris and winters in greece for all LOL. I've never felt the need for money, never liked it, but this world runs on it, and i would like the opportunity to make lives better through the success of an idea of mine.
On the mundane homefront, still no regular work here for me, been fine tuning my resume as hard and snappy as i can get it, but people are being absolutely rediculous about non-essential requirements for the job duties. Frankly, I am also fed up with the entire employment world for modifying their requirements based on negative experience, thats a bit like dating a new person nothing like anyone you've ever dated before because you are afraid of repeating any past mistakes. So instead of filling jobs, they have large vacancies that do not fill because they add requirements bordering on discrimination without reason in employment. Part of me is sorely tempted to file a class action lawsuit against the state and all agencies participating in those restrictions as unfair business practices. I knew there was a lot that needed fixing back home, but i had no idea just how much.
Between battles being won and victories celebrated, the battle for the right to a legal description for a relationship is being lost because of the insistance on inclusion of religious values in the legal wording. Frankly, I do not need a church to have a legal document OTHER than marriage/divorce, which is archaic in itself dating back to pre-victorian government styles, but now to use the words 'churches have the right to refuse' you would think would make them more amenable to the concept, but no, their very presence in the law is an affront to my better political sensibilities. Just let me put it on paper that there is a legally binding, tax status affecting relationship between my already common law Husband and myself, and lets be done with it. With california's decision to overturn Prop 8, the movement to overturn civil rights is regaining momentum. Maine has already stricken down one civil rights law already in the last ten years, and now its poised to do it again on the same issue. The problem is that Mainers think that only mainers should be involved in the decision, so they get cranky when outside help comes to keep the battle even, without realizing that national organizations exist of christian fundamentalists who have nothing better to do then tell me I cannot declair my love in ceremony upheld by law. I have had enough of this non-sense.
I return home to find the sham of a Pride organization in this area disbanded, and replaced by a group called 'Bridge alliance' in memory of a man thrown over a bridge and drowned. Now maybe its just me, but that whole connotation is contradictory to anything that will rally anyone but those directly tied to the event some twenty plus years ago. Call a spade a spade, and the Bridge Alliance is a Troll organization. They participate in nothing, have no presence, organize last minute pride events no one knows about but them, and frankly serve no purpose in fostering Pride in anyway save in memory of someone who died, quite possibly because they did really push themselves onto others. Unlike Matthew Shepard who was brutally beaten, tortured and left to die of exposure by a pair of druggie thieves, the story here is much more like a bad tv special about the evils of homosexuality, especially in light of the broader community feeling about the events that are held yearly in memory.
Where to begin with the battles that need fighting, and the ones you just want to give up on before you pick up a sword. The neighborhood as gone straight to hell, like most everything else since I left for college, and now we have heroin, meth and crack addicts ALL over the place. Shootings, knifings, beatings, drunken violence and not in regular amounts, but almost absurd levels. The rite aid has a FULL TIME security agent since they get shoplifted daily. Ichiban has a sign that reads "ABSOLUTELY NO PUBLIC TOILET" because heroin junkies need to pee frequently. ITs hard to explain but Boston, in the decliine of the Cocaine Age (the 80's) had far less trouble living out by the Airport/Aquarium than here. I am accosted at least once a week by someone FREAKING out for a smoke, one even went so far as to say 'WELL, you should start' when i told him i dont smoke. I can sit on my porch and within an hour count no less than a dozen people who are Herion Chic, or Meth Downing. (for those not familiar: the Herion Chic is the ultra thin body with kinda shakey movement and is VERY different from people with eating disorders. The Meth Down is the lethargic, difficult movements of someone coming down off an amphetamine, nearing DT withdrawl level) and all that makes for an area growing in danger, with the now strong presence of drug gangs and organizations never present before. Add on top of that mix the fact that VERY soon the mental health facility dedicated to schizophrenics is closing and they will have to discharge their patients upon closure as there is NO where else to send them... meaning that a long term institutional population is being reintroduced to a society laden with drug culture and predatory dealers. Can you imagine a Schizophrenic Meth Addict? I know i can, and its terrifying.
On the more positive swing, the return home has been a revitalization that I have very much needed, and a chance to rewind and recreate myself again. This tends to happen around every 7 years, and im starting the transition to a new self already. With this has come certain revelations that are uncomfortable and costly. How can those be positive? Because i believe every revelation about truth of your person is positive, even if unpleasant. Its much like working out really hard and the muscles ache for days, the aching is annoying but a good thing, and my heart has just learned to do this as I have discovered in me an even greater capacity for caring than I had known previously possible. I have also learned there are finite limits to caring for me as well. So in one short period I have learned that I can indeed erase from my world, even the closest to me when the offense is great enough, and simultaneously that I have a far greater capacity for love than i had conceived before. Each cloud has been followed by one of a different color with a different lining, but there are still many clouds in my sky. Despite the rejuvenation, regeneration and resurrection this period is bringing me, the new self is still in its infancy and still learning what it all means, having cast aside the rules of the past life and begun a new life within the same incarnation. This process of Self-Genesis is not new, but the variations are new every time. Each time is painful, to pass through the death of Self and into a newer and hopefully greater Self than before. Some greater mythic force is at work in me, i swear it. Either a Pheonix or a Timelord, because each time a 'life' comes to an end, a new cycle begins with the same mind, just a new twist on it again. Much like discovering that while for your whole life you believed one thing, only to find there was more too it later on after you had lived that way, I go through these periods of discovery and genesis. Now, with a degree, I understand the process better and should be able to iron out some weakspots that had developed, but all this takes energy and a great deal of it. I find, without realizing at first, towards the end of a lifecycle, i become more cycnical, fatigued and feel old all the time. Then there is an uncomfortable newness to the world, and finally after a few months I get a grip on it and explore it again with new eyes, and occasionally a new voice. Don't believe me? Check the archive of this journal and compare this to an old entry. You can see the pattern emerge from it if you look carefully. .
I suppose my break time should be over for the day, I have much to do and little time to do it in, and of course with being in a larger populatoin area and within reach of people once more, my time is divided into minuteae. I wish the world at large well, in hopes that it will do the same for me. Now I am off to battle the endless darkness with my little candle, may it always burn bright, and yours as well.