I woke up in a closet.

On Tuesday, February 26th, I quit the job that I’d had for three years straight. I quit because I had a personal relationship with my boss which was a huge mistake because she is an alocholic and she started to yank my chain. Now that I’ve quit and I’m looking for new jobs, I’m fully realizing what I’ve been quietly regretting ever since I agreed to work for her: I’ve wasted my fucking time working in a business that I don’t even like, and now all the jobs that I see posted on craigslist and mediabistro for copywriting — something I’m genuinely interested in — are out of my league because they’re going to the little bastards that are fresh out of their four year writing programs with internship experience under their belt. FUCK YOU RESTAURANT INDUSTRY. FUCK YOU, THREE WASTED YEARS OF MY PROFESSIONAL LIFE. FUCK YOU EARLY TWENTIES, IT’S BEEN A REAL CHALLENGE “FIGURING MYSELF OUT” DURING THIS TIME!

When I graduated from college I was so afraid that I would fail and that I would find up shipped back upstate to live with my parents or that I would wind up a destitute crackwhore living in a box under the BQE. I wanted to make money to take care of myself and I wanted to exceed my expectations and my family’s expectations. I definitely did that. I went above and beyond. I fucked myself over in the long run just to have the temporary satisfaction of paying my student loans right out of college and being able to afford rent for a studio apartment in a tenenment building. There are certain things that I wouldn’t trade from the last three years, and I know that there is nothing to be changed, but if I could give advice to myself after I graduated college, it would be to ignore those stupid circumstances that cause me to want to work to earn money instead of wanting to work to learn something that I’m interested in.

Yesterday I stayed in bed until 4pm. This morning I woke up at 7am and filed an unemployment claim. After that I started applying to craigslist ads. After that I went to my volunteer job at the Brooklyn Public Library — which I love and which makes me feel so satisfied with what I can do and so happy. I read stories to really cute little kids who showed up to the library hoping for story time. I did that. And they were happy. And I was happy. And that’s what I want my life to be about. Making people happy with such a simple thing as reading to them or giving them something that they need. After I got back from that I applied to more jobs on craigslist and I did a small copy editing job for the wife of one of the co-owners of the restaurant I used to work for. I researched the items in the writing clips, I used the thesaurus. I used my brain god damnit. I used my brain for something that it was actually totally interested and invested in. 

I LOVE WORDS. I LOVE THE VALUE OF WORDS. I LOVE THE COLD SHOULDERS OF WORDS, THE WARM EMBRACE, THE GESTURING TO YOU TO COME CLOSER OF WORDS, THE HOT TEARS OF WORDS, THE DAMP MARK THEY LEAVE ON THE PAGE, I LOVE THE CONDENSATION OF THEIR BREATH, I LOVE THE INDENT OF WORDS, THE WOUNDS INFLICTED BY THE SHARP EDGE OF WORDS, THE RUBBLE LEFT OVER AFTER THE BOMBING OF WORDS. I LOVE WORDS IN THEIR UNFAMILIAR, UNBOUND AND NAKED FORM, I LOVE THEIR FULLY FORMED, HUMAN LIKE OPINIONS BOUND UP IN THEIR OWN CONFUSED, NONSPECIFIC, COWARDLY, CONTRIVED, CONTROVERTED, MISUNDERSTOOD, INDIGNANT, FRENETIC WORDS. AND WORDS THAT CAN’T QUITE DEFINE THEMSELVES, WORDS THAT NEED HELP LIKE I DO. I CAN’T FINISH ANOTHER SENTENCE WITHOUT AN INTERRUPTION FROM THOSE WORDS BURSTING AT THE SEAMS OF MY VOCABULARY, WORDS NAMED AFTER SOMETHING THAT THEY THEMSELVES CANNOT CONTAIN, WORDS LIKE AN IMAGINARY FRIEND ONLY I KNOW THE MEANING OF BECAUSE YOU SEE IT DIFFERENTLY, AND I KNOW YOU WILL, THERE’S KNOW WAY WE BOTH KNOW THE SAME WORD. I LOVE WORDS THAT DEPART THEMSELVES FROM I AND WORDS THAT BECOME LESS VOWEL OR CONSONANT, WORDS THAT BECOME NAME, WORDS THAT BECOME LOVE, WORDS THAT BECOME THE FINGER THAT PULLS THE TRIGGER ON THE WORDS WAITING TO BE SPOKEN, WAITING TO LOVE THEIR OWN WORDS. WORDS OF PEACE. WORDS OF CONDOLENCE. WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT, FOR ANOTHER DAY, FOR THE RIGHT PLACE, FOR THE RIGHT OCCASION, THAT COULD NEVER BE SPOKEN, THAT I WANT TO SAY, THAT I SHOULD FORGET, THAT YOU SHOULD’VE KNOWN, THAT FALL FLAT, THAT MUST BE SILENCED,THAT FALL ON DEAF EARS, THAT EXPRESS CONCERN, THAT GET THE POINT ACROSS. WORDS WOVEN INTO MATERIAL, A NET, WORDS CAST OUT AND TO CATCH PREY. THESE WORDS, THEY POUND. THE WORDS THAT WON’T LET THEMSELVES STOP, THEY ARE BRIMMING, THEY ARE THE VERSIMILITUDE OF REALITY, THE ONLY EVIDENCE OF REALITY, OF PAST HELD DOWN, OF PAST MEDITATED LETTER BY LETTER.

Lately I’ve been tired of living in Brooklyn.

I do this thing everyday where I work for about 9-10 hours — and yeah, it’s work, so of course it’s not always the most invigorating way to spend my day — then I ride the subway home before I get to walk fifteen minutes from the station to my apartment. I don’t mind public transportation because I have no other choice but to use it, however there are some days when the public I share rapid transit with make me want to pack up and leave those god forsaken tunnels of filth forever.

I’ve complained about the G train before, but that had to do with the range of smells to be disturbed by while riding it. Here I have a short list of the awful awful sounds that make me grind my teeth into nothing.

1. The sound of someone singing along to their iPod.

2. An already low-fi recording of New York State of Mind blasting out of someone’s pay-as-you-go cell phone. Clearly no one wants to listen to this song on Wednesday at 7:30pm when they’re on their way home from their dead-end job.

3. Children screaming “mommy, no” when their mother deprives them of snacks.

4. Gum snapping/lip smacking/crinkling bags — anything food related goes in this category.

I started this blog when I was a student. I was mostly still afraid of the future and felt like there was a good buffer between my thoughts and how they might be applied to the real world. I wasn’t part of the real world because I was still a student and anything I had to think was influenced by whatever peer pressure I felt from my friends and whatever my favorite professors were saying.

Well, months and years late, I am here and no longer a student. I graduated and wrote a small book of poetry. I wrote a useless introduction for the collection of poems, then I got a job at a restaurant in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn as an Office Manager.

I aspire to become a cat.