All of the Above

There are a few things I'm positive I know about myself: I will never be five feet tall without shoes I refuse to wear because they're uncomfortable, I will always be right-handed despite that week in sixth grade I tried to switch, and I will never settle for either/or. In most areas of my life, I will choose letter D. All of the Above. And I've come to realize this is not a defect, but a feature.

A few months ago, I wrote an article for a local bi newsletter called "Now What?" The focus of the article was to talk about what I did once I realized I was bisexual, and to explain, I discussed my history of poor follow-through. I chalked up the year and a half it took me to realize I wasn't straight to thinking it was perhaps something else that was fleeting, like my half-finished short stories or half-eaten bags of frozen vegetables. 

I thought of my poor follow-through as me being unable to finish something, but now I don't think it's that at all. I think it's me being unable to resist starting something, because in reality, I want to do everything.


And just like my desire to do everything, which sometimes means I don't finish everything, I've always wanted to be everything. Growing up, I played softball, volleyball, the piano; I wrote, sang, drew, and painted. One of the hardest decisions of my childhood happened in seventh grade when they made me choose between visual arts, choir, and band. The answer to the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" changed from veterinarian to comedian to gym teacher to police officer to coffee shop owner to high school speech coach, then finally to writer. I didn't want to be one of those, I wanted to be all of them. I wanted to dabble.

But "dabbling" sounds so negative. It sounds like, "Hey you, why are you farting around? Pick something and go for it." But I don't want to pick something. Just like I don't want to pick one gender I'm attracted to, or one person to be with forever, I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing just one thing.

We spend so much time worrying about what we're going to be, which can be overwhelming for someone like me who doesn't want to choose. We think about the issues of stability versus variety, but in all honesty those things don't have to be mutually exclusive. I get asked all the time, "When are you going to get that full-time teaching position?" and I answer as expected: "Whenever I can publish a book. Whenever I have more experience. Whenever I start applying for one." When really, I want to say, "Maybe never. Maybe I don't want one."

I like being an adjunct professor: I can (mostly) pick and choose the classes I teach, how many I teach, and am flexible with the rest of my time. If I want to try and get a part-time job doing something else in addition, I can. If I want to save up money over the school year and do little-to-nothing for three months of the summer, I can. If I want to spend entire days switching back and forth between blogging, writing fiction, painting monsters, and grading, I can.

I used to feel insecure about how, as a person with writing degrees, I wasn't an expert at anything. But now I realize I can be knowledgeable in a little bit of everything, which, I think, makes me better equipped at teaching brand-new college students who might be a little lost themselves. It definitely gives me the power to say, "You don't know what you want to be when you grow up? Good! What do you want to be right now?"

There may be a time when I focus a bit more on one thing professionally, but I am almost positive I will never stop leaving the last few pages of my journals blank, hone in on one artistic pursuit, or resist opening that new box of cereal before the last one is finished. What I need to do right now, however, is stop listening to that pesky voice that keeps asking, "When are you going to be a professional something? When are you going to be more secure?"

"I'm a professional everything," I'll say to it, "I'm All of the Above. And there's nothing more secure in knowing what you are."

Podcasts Saved My Job (I hope)

Hey Strangers! 

I've been a little busy lately, I will admit. I would like to say that all of my spare time has been spent on perfecting the six short stories that make up my MFA thesis, which, in its finished form, will be about 125 pages and is due May 3rd.
 

Sadly, this is not the case. 
 

My after-work and weekend time has lately been spent doing online tutoring for Lesley, reviewing hundreds of pages of MEd papers. While this activity is definitely sharpening skills I will be using this fall when I start teaching freshmen how to write (or, more likely, how to stop Facebooking in class), it isn't improving my own writing very much. But that's beside my current point. 
 

My during-work hours, 40 of 'em a week (which are currently on the cutting table of my company's budget meeting...cross your fingers for me), are spent making sure that the over 6,000 contacts of the old database are smoothly transfered into the new database. I've been here six weeks, and started at the Zs. I am now at the Rs. This enthralling and tedious work was really getting to me, until my coworker mentioned she listened to Podcasts while she worked.
 

A little disclaimer before I continue: Yes, I am getting to this party very, very late. Call it a very fashionable entrance. 
 

Podcasts! Glorious podcasts! Back when I lived in Michigan and drove 30 minutes to work, I downloaded Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and This American Life to get me through the boring drive, and loved every minute of it, and then like many different things in my life (for reasons I haven't figured out yet), my interest with podcasts waned (probably when I left that awful job and took a better one, closer to my house). So naturally, these beloved shows were my first stop. But these shows only came out once a week each and took up less than two hours to listen to - what do with my 38 remaining?
 

I sent out a plea to Facebook (and Facebook never disappoints with my pleas...well, at least none but the one about who wanted to come over and clean my kitchen for me) and my awesome friends responded. So, armed with their great suggestions and the ingenius suggestions put forth by the iTunes store, I have discovered favorites:
 

Champs Not Chumps

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

This American Life

The Savage Lovecast

Stuff You Should Know

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Librivox (various - right now I'm starting The Odyssey)

NPR: Storycorps, Shuffle, Fresh Air, Books
 

I have many more in the wings, including some of your suggestions I haven't gotten to yet, so I appreciate everyone's imput! Thankfully now I have plenty to keep my brain occupied, which in turn makes my fingers type faster on the keyboard, which in turn will hopefully make my job like me enough to keep me on another six weeks or more, which will cause me to exclaim, "PODCASTS SAVED MY JOB!"
 

We'll see. For now, they are saving my sanity, and if you're looking for a boost and can split your attention a bit, I suggest them to help save yours, too.

Parachute Making

Being unemployed with a small cushion of school loans is like knowing that you will eventually have to jump off a cliff, and you are just trying to make a strong enough parachute that will carry you safely to the ground. Some days, you think you'll never find the right materials for the damned thing: you keep seeing nothing but netting, wool, and monkey fur. Some days, you see nylon but it's too thin, with tears and holes in it. Some days you see material that is way too good for your parachute, and you know you'd never be able to afford it.

Today was a monkey fur day. It's soft and quirky, sure, but not good parachute-making material.