And I feel fairly disappointed that I spent all that time on it. At least I've finally scratched that itch. I'm relieved. It's that 'ahh, I have vacation time, sweet' sortof relieved after doing something tedious.

Of course, I've more or less been on vacation since June 2002. Well, 'vacation' doesn't work so much as, say, 'productive unemployment'.

And I have been productive, I think. There were the dozens of professors I emailed about a job, both before and after I graduated college. Then there were the handfuls of profs I interviewed with like this arrogant motherfucker. Then there was volunteering for 14 months under Dr. Zivago, which was good for the letter of recommendation and experience--but never panned out in terms of him getting a research grant and me getting a salary.

Come to think about it, studying for the graduate school equivalent of the SAT's--subject test and general test--took up the better part of 4 months. Choosing a graduate school wasn't easy, either. I can still remember the first time I found Dr. Crisco's faculty page, his first e-mail reply that was an actual letter instead of two short paragraphs. To this day I have no idea why he seemed to take such an avid interest in me-- with him not knowing what my grades/marks were, just where I'd worked. It seemed like fate. Still does.

----

But there's been plenty of other non-work developments since I graduated.

Like Photography. Completely unexpected. Originally, Jen convinced me to buy a webcam back in the fall of 2002. I think it was serendipity that the one I bought off e-b*y had a camera capability--all 1.2 megapixels of it. And it's come a hell of a long way, from the small thumbnails I used to post all the time to the shots I take now. It's all culminated into me having my first gallery showing in Detroit this coming December--and quite possibly another Detroit one after that. Like I said: completely unexpected.

The writing hasn't kept up quite that pace--with here being an obvious exception--but even so, I artistically reviewed mostly bad diaries for awhile, wrote a few short stories and got midway through half a dozen, and somehow meandered over to doing dialogue writing for these guys.

I'll admit, though, I did let the writing slide some and focussed more on the photography.

And there've been people. Lots and lots and lots of new people, mimicking the ocean, with one wave coming in, beaching into obscurity, and then another set coming around and finding me 'fascinating' all over again--like a rubix cube chia pet.

So far as that score card goes, it's been mostly good. The following is more for me to remember than anything.

On the positive side:

*I helped some people not do the whole massive overdose/bullet-to-the-head thing, which was swell.

*I stopped a murder and several assaults from taking place.

*My psych classes paid off in me being able to recommend medications to people, which seems to have led to less madness/wacky mental stuff for them in general.

*Doing that whole mental healing thing for people that genuinely needed help working through things. Not nearly as much of a pain in the ass as when I was a teenager.

On the negative side:

*I kinda sorta almost ended a marriage engagement and a marriage. In my defense, I was just offering comfort--ok, more than comfort, but we all reasonably got to our senses.

*I most definetely was the final reason why someone had to move out and into a different state under harsher conditions. I know it would have happened sooner or later, but even so.

*Doing silly shit that could've deeply hurt alot of different people, but for whatever reason not having any of it come to pass. I have no idea why the hammer never dropped. I'm glad it didn't, but I think I deserved it. And no, it's not drugs, prostitution, cutting, or anything else that probably comes to mind.

So, now that I laundry list it all, I feel like the past two years have been meaningful.

Coulda done much more, coulda done much less. It's all worked out decently.

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Now I should really pull the extra mile and write about Spiderman 2 extravaganza, Selene visit, The Captain, etc., but cranking out this entry was hard enough.

So, I'm gonna procrastinate and go read Sandman (which stems from Spiderman 2 extravaganza).

Yay.

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