Wednesday, September 2, 2015

a writer of nothing

There was a time I dreamed of being president, a grocer, an assassin, a pharmacist, or a librarian. The desire to be a writer was never a career, but a hope to release something from within that perhaps explained my existence after I was dead or gone.
My parents being teachers lead me to have a narrow mind in terms of careers being available. They had never done anything else nor regretted it aside from the poverty it imposed upon them, so I had limited exposure to careers.
Reagan was big so wanting to be president seemed obvious. I was embarrassed of the grandiose of my aspiring to such so I reconsidered maybe being a grocer like Mr. Hooper. Sesame Street seemed to only have the one store back then so Mr. Hooper had the only job. In hindsight, seems like Skid Row.
The lack of ideas towards a career bothered me. I hated people, so there came a point that the assassin gig seemed plausible when I realized nothing interested me beyond being away from the people I hated being around constantly. I forget when I realized that I had no heart to kill anyone, but I know Nathan Brooks killing his parents struck me as something I could never do.
I was relatively smart and good at everything academically thrown my way so I thought I could be a pharmacist like my friend's dad. They had money it seemed. She was a bit out of my league because she was an only child and wasn't poor.
I became a librarian because I went to library school after undergrad. I went to college to be a pharmacist but chemistry and math weren't interesting enough, and I figured I'd kill people due to said apathy. I had a work study job at a library that was assigned to me after I indicated a willingness to do such since my brother had done such. I had no desire to blaze trails. I just moseyed the path experienced by my brother. Anything he could do, I could do since I was programmed to be his shadow.
Anyways, I was encouraged in my first job and went from there not thinking about it being a female dominated profession that would be destroyed by the Internet.

Monday, May 11, 2015

In the Navy, on the road, a stranger in a strange land: alternate realities

Where 7 crosses 70, I spent my youth. Stuck in a valley along the Ohio River staring upon the overgrown hills of West Virginia nestled on a modestly kept street within earshot of an all night grease joint beacon along an oasis of fueling stations and a Big Boy. State cheapest beer and cigarettes to go with the loser's dream of scoring a life of luxury.
Hills everywhere, houses were placed precariously about the narrow side streets that were mostly steep and lacking foot traffic.
My only goal in life was to leave and not look back. I first wanted to run away when I was 8 but realized I was limited by my age and lack of means to get too far away. I was 10 when I started sitting in the window sill and contemplate how I'd most likely survive a second story fall.
Not sure when I started thinking bad thoughts of other varieties, but daydreams were just that, for I was stuck in Hell until I was done with high school.
I did well in school with the intention of getting a scholarship to be able to afford to leave, but I had no idea what I wanted to be beyond away from the place of my origin. Fate tempted me with opportunities in the Navy, abroad in South America in addition to the reckoning of getting out on the road like the Beats.
I chickened out and went to a major university where I got a minority scholarship, and nothing more towards tuition.