brainstorm like whoa

What do I want to do?

• Something that will help me narrow down what to go to grad school for
• this means something in public health, LGBTQ rights/anti-oppression/healthcare, social meanings or consequences of the biotech industry, or women's health/rights (maybe youth?)
• something that is in Rochester
• something where I can meet and network with people in my chosen field(s)
• something where I can meet other youngish feministish queerish people to be friends with, or at least one that doesn't completely prevent me from doing this elsewhere
  

Things I can do:

• Write and edit
• Speak and present information/teach
• Communicate between groups, mediate, explain
• Design/layout/make presentation materials
• All the things I do at my current job
• Understand biochemistry, or read and learn about pretty much anything technical
• critical thinking?
• plan, problem solve, organize events, be responsible

Things this could be:

• sexuality educator
• work at AIDSCare?
• other nonprofits--lab work or something, administrative assistant or something else entry-level, some kind of consumer advocacy organization
• health foods store? like local business
• planned parenthood
• GAGV? 
• in a hospital? like a patient educator or something
• could be a tutor to earn extra money
• what organizations in rochester are working to improve schools?
• intern for a politician or something? (ugh)
• PFLAG?
• magazines, newspapers, someplace that has or needs publications
• research assistant for someone doing public policy or healthcare stuff, etc. before applying to grad school

I can't fight your battles and mine. we both need to let go.

sad.

Today I don't know if my back or my heart is more sore. Some combination of hours of badminton (which was an embarrassment to my years of backyard competitions), my crappy mattress on the floor, lugging my laptops around and around campus, and sitting around typing all day has turned my back into a mess of knots. yes, laptops plural. although generally i try not to carry them both at once--ouch. My forearms hurt, and my shoulders.

As for the rest of me, there are only so many times I can be told, "it's not you, it's me" (in every flavor) before I start to wonder. i wonder whether i'm picking them wrong. i wonder whether i'll ever be enough. i wonder why nothing ever, ever goes my way in this department. I wonder how many more times I can hear that before I never want to try again. 

I suppose I'm still stung by what happened in September, but mostly this is about the first week back to campus, culminating in this weekend. 

I want so badly to believe what she said, that she'd meant all of those things. it feels the way a shovel scraping on gravel sounds: raw, urgent, not loud, but grating and unsettling. painful like trying to scream on a sore throat. 

I sort of feel like women trying to date each other is like middle school girls trying to get themselves a best friend. It's supposed to say something about your entire person, like they're judging you on every merit from your clothes to your body image to whether you can pay for dinner.

In sum, I feel a little bit like shit. utterly exhausted, and a little more toward worthless.

peace and love.

one-shot, as always

my body however small is a garden of land mines
mostly ticklish leaving all muscles taut on high alert
a compost pile of sad ones that smell of what i didn't do and what i can't forget, or who
and the others hidden dark look like nothing
they didn't make me cry don't let them make you walk away

I am really not having a good few days. Actually taking my meds on Thursday before leaving for work would have been a good idea. This would have prevented my day (complete with talking to the boss and also trying to get hired full-time after graduation) from inducing quite so much shaking.

Also, I really think I want to be in Rochester for a few years. Judge me all you want, people, but I don't want to throw everything I've made for myself away. By this, I really just mean my friends and knowledge of all the awesome coffee shops, but it's still important. It's the first place I really felt like I belonged in.

butterflies

I could fall for you, I really could. I get giddy when I'm driving and a snatch of a song reminds me of you. I want to show you around my room and take you to Thanksgiving dinner and laugh in the back of movie theaters. I want a tour of every millimeter of your arms and of the songs in your head.