Oh, I should also note that I did spend most of today, as with most days lately, playing my RPG ... that's not exactly good either, but trust me, there is good coming. Um. Well, if you want good in that department, my main character still is leveling up nicely. Allow me a small "woot" for that. :)

Okay, reality time. The thing is, I was talking to my mom the other day. You know, I hadn't talked to her for a while, and no matter how old they get I suppose you'll always want to keep relatively aware of what's going on with someone you had to squeeze out of your body and keep fed, clothed, sheltered and safe for 20 odd years. It's funny, because me being self-centered me, my mom's almost apologizing for bothering me, after not having heard from me for so long ... I did point out to her that I'm always happy to talk with her, the silence on my part is just a continuation of that life-long habit of being wrapped up in my own head.

But the good part of talking with my mom was that I got to tell her, at some point, what I'd figured out had been bothering me most in recent times. I mean, I'd come to this awareness that really should have been obvious only a day or two previously, and it was nice to talk it over with my mom for a while, because my mom remains probably the least-pretentious smart person I've ever known. That is, she's intelligent without being over-concerned about exactly where she falls on the smart spectrum in any case ... you know, not insecure about not being bright enough or conceited about being bright? If only we could all be so ... accepting of ourselves.

So my mom's advice, really, was the same that Nixtress gave me a while back -- and as far as it goes, I knew Nix was right when she said it, I just wasn't ready to deal just yet. Not that I'm completely ready to deal even now, but more so than I was before.

This weekend I visited the ol' job sites, you know, the local paper's job section, Monster, Flipdog, all those old favorites. Found the resume I thought I'd lost when my old computer kicked the bucket last Fall. Even fully intended to apply for jobs today ... yah, that's the unresolved part. Mentally I'm starting to do fine, I just gotta stop playing the damned game. So frickin addictive.

How addictive, exactly? Without going into details, there's three different women who, at least ostensibly, would seem to be interested in gettin wild and freaky with me at the earliest opportunity ... and I spent today playing the game instead of contacting either of them. Yes, it is like a drug. Um. But just like the job stuff, I do take the fact that I've bothered to venture that far into human interaction as a positive sign. Oh, and just because I always tend to worry about the morality of such things, I should point out there is no dishonesty involved as far as the potential monogamy of any of these ... um, potential relationships. This is because these days I'm pretty clear on the fact that I consider monogamy as something you work towards, and not something that is assumed at the start.

But really, all that stuff can't be my focus just yet anyway. What my focus does need to be on is 1) job, and 2) internship, which will finish school off. You see, the difficulty of this is part of what my mind couldn't resolve, caught up as it was with other things. On the one hand, I need to do the internship, but they don't pay for those things and I need money. On the other hand, I need a job, and since I'm so close to being done with school getting a job related to my field would only make sense.

So it's simple, right? Get a job related to the field and use that as your internship. Well, that sounds simple, but for some reason it's not. That is, no employers seem down with that. And when I spoke a bit ago about screwing things up, this is at least part of what I was scared of messing with. I couldn't decide which way to jump with this -- the thing is, I just need to decide that I can do both at once, because even if it's hard it is doable, and it really just makes sense at this point.

And if I can't do it? Well, it makes more sense to get a job first, I suppose -- you know, considering the bill collectors and all. Once I have a job ... well, so long as that job has benefits, I can quit the present hospital job, and begin to look for the internship, which I need to do this summer...

Okay, okay, so I don't have all of this figured out. But, as is hopefully obvious, I'm at least starting to return to the real world, and real world responsibilities, in my thinking ... and sure, action may well come too late, but I have my thoughts on that as well.

See, when I talked about "credit in the straight world"? Well, that makes sense in one way. The whole money-property thing is serious as a heart attack in many respects, and in those respects you ignore it at your peril. Likewise, there are certain realities of the social and legal world that we live in that are impossible to get around -- much as you may disagree with or even personally disregard, they are still very real in many ways, and again you ignore them only at your own peril.

But you see, there's a third side. Okay, probably more than three, but three is what I'm thinking on now. Because I'm saying there's your mind. The mental world. And frankly, The Man may have me by the balls financially, socially, legally -- the system isn't one I would have chosen, the rules are not what I believe they should be. So as far as The Game is what it's been set up to be, regardless of what I think, the fact is I'm not doing too terribly well at "winning" it...

Luckily, I'm okay with the idea of being "crazy". This is to say, I'm aware of the realities I've already mentioned above. I'm also aware that I am not something that can be owned, bought or sold. I'm not property, so the financial-property-capitalist shit can only go so far. And certainly, I can be locked up in a prison or an asylum, I can be made homeless -- but where my mind goes can't be controlled anywhere near as easily. I have to play the game as it's set up in so many other ways -- I am thankful that I realize the degree to which I don't have to bow to the controls set above me.

I can ruin my credit rating. It doesn't ruin me. I can screw up with school. Doesn't make me a screw up. I'm saying, there's so much we don't and cannot control -- it's vital that we realize that what's reflected back to us from the outside is not what we have to keep as true on the inside.

And this is why we say getting better.

I live in a world where the color of my skin will always be the most salient factor of who I am to the vast majority of the people I interact with. How hard a fact is that to simply accept? I'm turning 33 in a couple of weeks, and I'm still working on it.