The apple fell and it taught us that we're all chained here to the ground

From movies and public TV, I know that a recurring plight that inflicts anyone with a steady job is the American tendency to equate "who are you?" with "what do you do?" Or at least I'm sure I've seen at least a few staged group self-exploration exercises in which an overly tender psychoanalyst initiates this exchange:
"Who are you?"
"I'm Ted, the vice president of JiffyLube"
"No, I don't want your job title. Who are you?"
And at this point Ted usually either launches into an introspective monologue about latent childhood dreams and desires, or he's stunned into silence by the sudden realization of his dronish existence. In the end, I don't think they ever tell us how we actually do know who we are, but I guess the important thing to remember is that the answer isn't "barista." Thanks, PBS.

Considering my work identities so far have been Hostess, Bearmaker, Pizza Shifter, Sales Associate, Cook, and Tutor, I think I'd agree with public television that none of those are particularly appropriate for me to cosmically mentally align myself with. But when we're talking about professions, I think it's a little different. Unless I'm remembering Elementary school horribly, horribly wrong, whatever job you ultimately pursue is supposed to be, ideally and essentially, getting paid to do what you'd otherwise do for free. If you like doing math, become an accountant and get paid to do math. And if that scenario plays out, I don't think Mathy is going to have much beef with having his identity wrapped up in being an accountant, since that, after all, more or less encapsulates what he enjoys and probably won't be far off the true introspective mark.

That's not to say that the ideal fun-to-work transfer happens for everyone, which is why the PBS specials are necessary. Plus, naturally, the Other Than Work parts of your life make up your identity too. I'm just saying, if I become a publisher/writer, and someone points at me and says, "Hey, that's Linda and she likes books!", I'm not going to sue for misrepresentation.

That being said, next time anyone sees my sister, point at her and yell, "Hey that's Cathi and she likes alcohol!"

What I really need now is ideas

As long as I'm on a thread of discussing childhood defects, I might as well mention that I also used to be insanely afraid of change. For most of my Piaget-approved developmental childhood, the Martin's lived in a house on Whittington Lane that I mentally still consider Home. The crazy Italian family who owned Home before us carpeted the entire upstairs in what can be diplomatically called unconventional shades of green. It was awesome, in an accepting, "I want to feel like I live in a tree" kind of way, and I was really emotionally disturbed when we replaced it. I could pretend my angst was because I, in my preoperational stage, sensed that replacing such originally colored flooring with Suburban Beige was selling the hippie free spirit of crazy Italians for the official color of the PTA. In actuality, the prospect of having a different, new substance under my feet - the idea of having anything around me that was in any way a variation from what I was comfortable with - was just terrifying, for reasons I can't quite remember now.

Even though I had my dad take a picture of me hugging my car before it got traded, my attachment issues are largely gone. I'm willing to throw out knick knacks, delete music files, and repaint walls with a rationale and ambivalence that would have seemed appallingly callous to Linda Age 7. I even try new entrees at restaurants where I already know of a dish that I definitely like. It seems like an important character advancement to me. Now that I have to say goodbye to things like friendships and lifestyles, I feel like I've had practice.

Things I Plan to Do Over Winter Break:
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- Not work.

This method acting, well, I call that living

Any dedicated and proficient stalker of mine would know that when I was little, I used to be a huge worrywort. I had to have a gross hospital test done to make sure that, at the age of, like, 11, I didn't have an ulcer. It was around then that my mom stepped up to the front lines to teach me how to not become hopelessly anal retentive before I passed the age that the word "anal" still made me giggle. I credit to her one of my current life philosophies, which goes along the lines of, "it's probably not that big of a deal."

A byproduct of that was also my general 'tude about assumptions. In the world of the Chronic Worrier, you assume that any minor detail happening around you has a worrisome implication, probably relating to something that you did wrong. In the world of Trying Not To Be A Chronic Worrier, you kind of stop assuming altogether. If everyone gets invited to go out to dinner except me, I consider the possibility that they simply overlooked me before assuming they deliberately excluded me. If someone is late, I figure it's because they ran into traffic instead of assuming that they're dead on the side of the road. For some reason I still think every honk in traffic is directed at me, but overall, it seems to me that this unassuming way of thinking is just more reasonable, considering that most people's intentions aren't particularly nefarious.

I've operated on this mindset for so long that I frequently forget that other people don't think this way. When living in a world composed entirely out of molehills, hearing someone try to claim that anything is a mountain, outside of AIDS and clinical depression, tends to strike me as blowing things out of proportion. I guess it's a bit of an unfair standard to expect that everyone will also fend off their instinctual self-paranoia, a practice that became habitual to me only after consciously inflicting it on myself for years, but I assume people will forgive me.

A dollar under water keeps on dreaming for me

Even though I kind of like writing, two things have kept me from ever, ever considering writing as a profession, being:

1) I don't write creatively. There's a lot of writing that goes on that isn't overtly creative, like Sedaris-esque essays or no-one-cares critical academic work, but the former usually requires a level of funny which, frankly, I am not, and the latter would require a PhD and a considerable portion of my soul.

2) Writing, as a profession, is fairly unique in that there's not only no job assurance (like any artsy-type aspiration), but there's a discouraging lack of any standard of talent. To be an actor, you need to know how to act at least passably. To be a philosopher, you need to know how to think. To be a doctor, you need to know how to doct. To be a writer, you need to know how to write. Sometimes. Or you need to be a celebrity. Or know one. Or be a politician. Or you need to be scandalous. I'm sure scientists or whatever can relate to being talented but overlooked in a narrow job market, but I doubt the chemistry community would ever receive the extra punch in the face of having their genius work ignored while Britney Spears' mom makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in their field for no logical reason other than a consumer base with a standard for quality about as high as Stalin's respect for human life.

Quirky Things About My Apartment for Next Year That I'm Excited for, But If I Were a Real Live Adult, I Might Consider Negatives:
- Squeaky floors that slant slightly to the right
- A resident squirrel dependent on periodic offers of Cheerios
- A random room far too small to be a real room but ridiculously large to be a closet
- Taking another step into a grown-up life

Try to control the pull of one magnet to another magnet

The other day I was telling Ian about the moment I realized that adults used swear words. Until I was around twelve, I sincerely thought cursing was strictly an adolescent thing. No adults I talked to or overheard ever thought it was necessary to limit their use of adjectives to expletives like teenagers did, plus my parents always discouraged it, so it seemed likely to me that upon getting a job, putting on a tie, and realizing it was time to grow up, punks my age would toss out swearing as fast as ear gauges. I don't remember which potty-mouthed group of full-grown hoodlums finally burst my pristine little bubble of imagined developmental purity, but I do remember feeling a bit betrayed. I'd never swore, and never felt the compulsion to start when the rest of my friends did, so I was looking forward to reaching Magical Eloquent Big People Land, where everyone else would go back to talking like me. Adulthood got an X added to the "con" list in my mind once I realized that not only now, but for the rest of my life, would I likely be the only one in the room who felt the urge to say "the F word" instead of the real one.

That is, until I'm 90 and, presumably, everyone will suddenly be afraid to use anything but coddling infantile language around me.

Happy Halloween, too, I guess. What used to be OMGbestholidayevr! is considerably lamer when candy severely disrupts my usual eating pattern to the point of tummyache, any decent costume requires me to spend money that could otherwise be put to good use to Support My Caffeine Addiction, and it's my impression that trick-or-treating at this age would be met with either disgust, suspicion, or pity.

Days like this keep me warm

I have issues with the idea of playing devil's advocate. I will admit: it's a spectacular rhetorical strategy; it makes for interesting conversation if you're one of those coffee shop philosopher-types in a conceptual discussion; and it is completely necessary in an advice-giving situation. But more often than not, people who do it in everyday, practical dialogs do it wrong. They'll do so for no particular reason, all the time, and, apparently, just to be big asses. Bringing up the occasional counterpoint in our conversation is obviously productive to our discussion. Constantly pitting yourself against me on issues that actively pertain to my life just makes me begin to mentally consider you my mortal enemy and/or arch nemesis.

That being said, there is a second conversational annoyance I have that will without fail incite me to renounce my view and shove myself into the devil's advocate role out of sheer irritation, even if I agree with the point being made. And that is people who propagandize their own arguments. If it is my opinion that abortion should not be legal and I am in a discussion on the topic during which the person I'm talking to refers to pro-choice people as "baby killers" or "anti-life," I don't want to be on his side anymore. There's no point in talking about something unless you talk about it in fair terms. Even if Mr. Propaganda were trying to actively persuade me of his point of view, he should do so with strategies more mature than name calling.

I read in a TIME article once that scientific studies have shown that younger people are more inclined to take risks because of a lack of brain development on their part. Far be it from me to counter Science, but it seems to me that younger people might also be more inclined to take risks because, really, they're in a time in their lives when things are changing constantly and significant decision making is an everyday occurrence. After signing the form agreeing to dedicate their studies, and therefore future career path, on business instead of their musical passion, I think it's reasonable to consider that youngins might regard "risky behavior" as comparatively tame. It's relieving to make a choice which has immediate consequences when most of the other choices you make have ramifications so far in the future it's entirely possible Astro will be waiting for you when you get there.

"I stopped believing in one events. Sure, the first drag from a pipe, the pulling of a trigger, the whispering of a lie, these at times can be monumental events, but there is always history behind them. They can't be picked apart standing alone. It'd be like trying to split an atom with a machete."