I've been doing some thinking about who/what I am lately always and I'm pretty comfortable owning the photographer label these days. I have trouble putting any part of myself where other people can see it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The money side is still a total mystery to me, how you have to find a way to support yourself and then everyone defines you by that thing even though you only started doing it because it was the option that presented itself. Then again maybe all the things you are you only become because they presented themselves.

I still crave solitude. I can't think if anyone else is around. If someone's in the room or even the house with me it derails my thoughts into external awareness when they'd much better stay in my head where they belong. That's not the whole story, though. When I feel fairly confident in what I appear to be doing and that no one will come up and talk to me, it's okay if there are people there. So long as they're strangers, of course, and can't be thinking thoughts about me that I need to deduce, analyze, and fear. So long as I can keep myself off of everyone's radar I can feel comfortable. Hence: fantasies of invisibility. Hence: fantasies of solitary pioneer life.

As much as I like music, I hate going to shows. I feel so uncomfortable in those loud, crowded, stranger(or worse acquaintance)-filled rooms where there's nothing to do with your body but stand uncomfortably, and you're encouraged to dance but there's no indication of how. Act "natural," I guess. Dancing at a show is not a performance, after all. I was in a therapy group with a guy once who talked about not being able to move at all in front of people, and man, I feel ya. When the slightest action is a decision to be made, it's paralyzing.

Last night I tried to pretend I was drunk, call up that hazy tunnel-visioned focus into which awareness of others cannot penetrate. May have worked for about five seconds. I reject the idea that actually being drunk is the only way I can stand comfortably in a group of people and "have fun." Is there nothing for it but to accept that I'm a person who is uncomfortable around people and can't have fun in the ways those around me like to do it? In my free time, okay, but what about when it comes to a career? How do I get one of those stay-at-home-alone jobs? Does that exist? I always kinda wanted to be a novelist, not because I have any stories in me but because sitting alone all day writing sounds like heaven.

Whereas when I started writing here I think my objective was to change myself, I've gotten lazy on that track and switched over to hoping the world will change for me. There has to be a way to be the person I am, feel okay, and still make money. There have to be jobs besides service jobs. I know there are, and I want to get them.

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