Men’s Resource Center of South Texas

Emiliano Diaz de Leon called me yesterday morning to talk about his departure from the Valley, which will happen in June. Emiliano and I met where I met most of my older friends, at the Nueva Onda Poets’ Cafe. I was a writer for The Paper of South Texas at the time and he came up to me and started talking. It seems, and I’m greatly known for this after a reading, I avoided all contact with him before hand. I didn’t do this on purpose, well, at least not to him. Most people who want to talk to me after a reading want to know my genesis and I’m not that sort of writer. At least not yet, or at the time, I should say.

After the usual small talk, Emiliano, business like, got down to the chase. He’s leaving to Austin come June and he wants to leave behind a strong board of directors for the Men’s Resource Center of South Texas. As a nonprofit organization, this means board members should not expect to get paid, which is fine. I need the volunteer work and community service because that looks better on an application to the Peace Corps. However, he also gave me the skinny that they’re looking for a grant writer. Bingo, this is what I needed for that job experience. I’ve talked it over with The Professor in the past and it’s something that I wanted to pursue, however, like with all things in life, experience is needed for a lot of grant writing jobs.

Again, a nonprofit organization who cannot, sadly, pay its staff, which Grant Writer would fall under.  Okay, fine. This added community service/volunteer work can fluff up my resume and my application to the Peace Corps. Not to mention give me the experience I need for the profession and an all paid expense trip to Indiana with Emiliano for more information on the “fatherhood” grant. This trip would happen in April with an online meeting at the end of this month, so I need to play catch up as quickly as possible.

I know it’s not the best book on the market, or even the less insulting, but I needed something to give me some sort of insight, and goddamnit! if it’s made for idiots, then surely I can understand it!

That and because it was cheap as sin, so that played a great deciding factor on my decision of buying it.

I’m going to meet up with Emiliano this morning, which means I should really be going to bed instead of writing this blog, so I can see what I’m going to be getting myself in if I take the job of grant writer (which, by the way, is only a 10hr/month job, for seven months). I’m also interested in the board of directors, no doubt, however, this just means I’ll have to find my way to Harlingen every so often.

But we’ll see. The deciding factor is tomorrow because I don’t want to waste the organization’s time with my indecisiveness and my empty wallet.

coming unglued

I wish I were a better news writer, but I’m just too self critical. That and because I think news writing is the lowest piece of literature, right below technical. Not that I look down on these people or anything, but it’s not right for me.

I took a test for teleperformance today. I hated it. Not sure if I passed. And had it not been the fact that I felt like shit, I would’ve stayed for the interview. I scheduled one tomorrow.

I saw Jyg today. I even invited her to my get-together with my friends. We’re having it this Friday at Casa de Binx. It’s not our usual stuff, but we’re celebrating the end of birthday week. Tomorrow’s Binx’s and Thursday is mine. I’ve invited his sister to our function and hope she goes. After all these years of knowing each other, I never knew she was a kindred spirit.

But Jyg coming over was big. It was the hardest thing for me to do. I mean, I love you all, my friends, but no matter how close we are, she’s the only one who has seen what I’ll call my “soul” because I’m feeling metaphorical. It’s the hardest thing to go through when you have no one to talk to because the person you trusted was the one who brought on all this pain. And my absence in her life wasn’t helping her either. I can’t imagine to be the other person right now, seeing the pain of the one you considered the closest person in your life knowing you can’t help it because it was brought on by you in the first place.

I still love her, and I think I always will. But I have to accept the fate I brought upon us. So this I ask of my friends, don’t hate her. Don’t treat her any differently. Don’t think you cannot trust her. She’s the same person she was when we were together.

I Think I’m a Lesbian, and Other Wacky Stories

Just as the title states, I think I maybe a lesbian, but I don’t like the fact that I will never again have a sexual use for my male genitalia. However, I can just be full of shit which is probably more likely.

For those of you horny guys who strolled in here, I’m so sorry to disappoint. I am a male and I do have a penis. And no, I’m in no way gay. I tried the whole let’s-see-if-I-could-write-gay-porn-reviews-for-$400-a-pop (no pun intended) life choice. I watched the porn, puked a little in my mouth and thought, shit, some guys would do pretty fucked up things for money because you know that not all guys willing to suck cock, fuck and be fucked by a guy are gay. Some of them are just as straight as you and me.

But to be a male lesbian is to be something completely opposite. You still have relationships with a female, but you just don’t use your penis to pleasure. Looks like you get the shit end of the stick, hu? I don’t advise any of you to try it, however, for those of you who proudly admit in most jockish voice, “Oh, I’m a lesbian, huh, i like to fuck girls…huh huh,” that’s what you’re proclaiming.

In all reality, I think it’s really not cool, so perhaps I’m not really a lesbian, just going through a lesbian stage so late in my life, because Geb knows that I’m not gay because, yeah, gay sex can be slightly uneasy - not that it’s bad and I prefer lesbians because I’m the almighty straight guy, but because it’s not for me - same thing for lesbian sex, by the way - and blah, I’ve lost my train of thought.

Change of subject. Today I did the unbelievable. I applied for shitty telemarketing job at Teleperformance. I did it to pass the time. I mean, I already pass the time at home, but I get paid for this. And the fact that my mother left me twenty dollars yesterday - injuring my pride - didn’t help my self-esteem for the blow that came next. (As I write this, it is still Monday, by the way.)

Besides, I think I’ve made the decision of going into the Peace Corps. I’ve contacted a recruiter. For those of you who are already thinking I went against your advice, I’m not running away from my problems. I’m not escaping Jyg. I’m not escaping at all. I want this for myself so I can figure out who I am, what I’m here for (non-godly of course, but I still believe people should have a purpose in life, and I can’t seem to find it on my own) and what I’m supposed to do. I love you all, but you know the Valley isn’t for me. I’ve outgrown it. Or perhaps, I didn’t grow at all. Actually, I think everyone around me has grown up but me.

It’s sort of like that clip from Clerks II, where Dante and Randal are driving back to work:

Dante Hicks: Why do the Go-Karts help?
Randal Graves: I don’t know, it just reminds me of a better time in my life.
Dante: Like when?
Randal : Like when we were young and the world was still in front of us.
Dante: We’re not that old.
Randal: I don’t know, man. Sometimes it feels like the world left us behind a long time ago.

Only, I don’t have a partner in the mix. I suppose that would have been the binx had he not grown up before me..

I love my friends. I love the old ones and the new ones and the ones I probably will never meet in the Valley. But you’ve all grown up.

We’ve gone from this (we were never really this stupid, though):

To this (also not really, but you know, I fucking love the Pumpkins, man):

I’m not sure if I’m making myself clear, or I’m just confusing you. I know what you’ll say, but I thought it over. It’s not about running away. It’s about finding my place. So if you don’t have words of encouragement, please just stay silent.

An Avenue Q type of moment

I wish I knew Gary Coleman, because then my life would seem better. It seems to make the puppets feel better, so I suppose it would make me feel better. So Gary, come and visit me. We’ll be the best of buddies.

My energy is running low, I suppose, and the tension that I haven’t able to acquire a job is also building up. Apathy is setting in, so I better get off my ass and start getting down and dirty for that job before my career - which, to this day, is still really unknown to me, because, as I said earlier, I’d love to be a teacher, but I’m not sure if I would be allowed to resign my contract after my first year.

I wonder if someone like Wayne will walk into my life and give me a quasi-adventure of a job like tearing out the cooper wiring of a flood ruined house, while some  red-head sails in the sky, completely nude:

“This boat was pulling behind itself a tremendous triangular kite on a rope. From the kite, up in the air a hundred feet or so, a woman was suspended, belted in somehow, I would have guessed. She had long red hair. She was delicate and white, and naked except for her beautiful hair. I don’t know what she was thinking as she floated past these ruins.

‘What’s she doing?’ was all I could say, thought we could see that she was flying.

‘Now, that is a beautiful sight,’ Wayne said.”

Though, I think I could live without the heroin.  Not mention, I can really live without the name Fuck Head.

Some times, though, I wish I had stayed in college instead of just accepting my degree and taking this much needed break. Last year went by like a flicker of a candle light. Now that I look back, there could’ve been so many things that I could’ve done differently, and I really wish I had taken that second path instead of the well-traveled one. However, it is now really too late to think of that, and taking that path now will only admit to backtracking. However, that doesn’t cancel the idea of going to college 100%.

And looking for writing gigs is killing me because, like all things in life, I only have a minimum background in that. And there’s always the waiting period, the selling of one’s soul. Journalism isn’t really my niche because it’s the dumbfuck’s writing, however, I may only be jaded by The Monitor, owned by Freedom Communications.

Anyway, jumping out of this poor man’s skin of mine, I’m going to talk about something else. Sadly, I haven’t a single though of what that’s going be.

—————-
Now playing: Original Cast - There’s a Fine, Fine Line
via FoxyTunes

Bad bad bad bad!!!

Two months ago, actually over two months, I graduated from college thinking that the world was before me. No one told me that it was traveling over a hundred miles per hour, leaving me in its trail and dust. Today, I wiped the coat of desert off my coat and went in search for a job. Most of my success of find a place is through the internet (wonderful piece of device). I’m not going through Career Builder and Monster because all their recommendations suck ass. Apparently an English degree gives you the same advantages as a high school diploma and GED in the Valley. Zero jobs. Not even The Monitor (though I would loathe to work with them) is hiring any writers or editors (which, to be frank, they could desparatedly–that’s misspelled on purpose, by the way–use the latter).

I want to be a serious writer, but in this day and age, there are no such things. I know that the informal nature of my blog proves that I might not be that great, but I don’t have much structure for something I do for free. If I was getting paid for this, I’d actually take my time to structure it in a way that would make people laugh or cry or think about better days.

I just want to be read.

So today, I waltz over to the City and drop off three applications and one resume (because they’re going to the same job listing, I really thought it was pointless for me to attach three separate resumes). I went over to the University of Texas-Pan American, and dropped off an application there as well as a resume. At this point, I just want a job, not a career. I want to return to school, so I don’t need the hassle of trying to balance homework and real work. Part-time, that’s all I ask for.

Now it’s the waiting game. I don’t like calling to see if the applications gone through because last time I did that–I gave at least a week before calling in again–I never heard from them. So now I’m just going to play the waiting game. I suppose we’ll see.