You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still Freud.

I've decided to do the unthinkable: Write two new blog posts within days of each other. Seriously. Don't choke on your cheerios.

I am sitting in the library at computer #9 with 19 minutes remaining on my session. It usually takes me longer than 19 minutes to figure out the title of my newest entry, let alone finish writing one. But I have discovered that if you wait it out, sometime within the last 5 minutes remaining the computer gives you another 15. I don't know how many times the computer will do this for me before it realizes that I'm not actually attempting to finish up anything - I'm just refusing to sign off of the damn computer. I won't go so far as to say that machines are stupid. A small part of me believes that machines are sentient beings and as a result of my directly insulting one, I am opening myself up to a bizarre keyboarding "accident" that may cause my fingerprints to burn off.

Of course, that's not a half-bad idea...

I've discovered something else today. Something unthinkable. Unimaginable for me. Makes me want to run home and crawl under the covers and pretend it never happened.

I think I might want to go back to school.

I fucking hate school. Hated it. Never liked it. Not one day in my lifetime have I ever enjoyed being in a classroom and being lectured to, having to read textbooks and complete homework, sit up straight and pay attention and not blow bubble gum bubbles and tap my pen too loud and stare at the good looking guy across the room. I have to pretend that some of these pathetic instructors have succeeded in making me believe they actually give a shit about what I'm learning, and didn't just sign up for the job to have off weekends and summers. That being qualified to teach a class means that they are more intelligent than me and can look down their noses at the "student", condescendingly quizzing me about trivial topics and refusing to hear my point of view.

I think I'm going to throw up on my borrowed copy of The Yage Letters.

Incidentally, I didn't think the JoCo Public library was so hip.

In another time and another mood I'll delve deeper into my bitterness and animosity towards formalized educational systems, and I promise to highlight both the best as well as the worst of pedagogues. I am merely attempting to be more diligent in updating my blog and writing down these heavy thoughts before my fucking brain explodes.

My passions are simple and I fear that I have been making too much a deal of them. It's easy, I guess, to succumb to societal and peer pressures regarding conformity and career and salary and the pursuit of complacency. Because it's not the pursuit of happiness anymore. It seems more apt to refer to it as the pursuit of standards or pursuit of stereotypes. As much as I detest authority I fear that I abhor money even more.

I have decided not to worry about that right now. I didn't grow up with money, or around people that had a lot of money. And a lot of our families are doing OK. Some settled for careers with the best salary options and not necessarily for the pursuit of fulfillment and personal passions. Work was work, and money made from work makes the family happy.

Oscar Wilde once said that work is the refuge for people who have nothing better to do. I want more passion in my career than that. I've never been able to separate work and life. I have so much pride and devotion to my job that it's difficult to not define myself by my work. Instead of fighting that connection, I want to flip it slightly, such that I define my work by my self.

Buddha says: "Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it."

This is what I aspire to do. And this isn't achieved by sitting behind a desk. I have a voracious appetite to learn about the world around me, through travel, through people, through thoughts and words and songs and gestures and emotions and connections. Through CONNECTIONS. I make connections through my words - rants, ramblings, reflections - tiny splinters of my soul I use to communicate all of the distorted images within my personality, coalescing the very fibers of my being within the universe. Trying to find a way, as we all are, in making ourselves immortal. But mostly, I want to make a difference. I feel very passionate about making a difference, making the world a better place even if it's only within the atrium of my mind.

I feel like things are slowly starting to come together. Like watercolors on canvas, I feel as if these self-schemas of my existance are started to blend together and form beautiful connections that I am able to interpret.

There must be some sort of symbolism or interesting metaphorical axiom regarding the fact that I always seem to have these existential revelations in the library. One day, I will need to address that, I am sure.

I have decided to pursue the career path less traveled by my mind, the one of which I longingly considered years ago and dismissed in favor of a more bling-laden degree as is the Clinical Psychology PhD . In the near future, I will address why it is I feel like I chose to pursue that career. In short, what I feel happened is that I took my passion and personal "calling" in this world and tried to dress it up. Like putting lipstick on a pig, I thought I could disguise my passion because it "wasn't good enough" and make it more fancy, more acceptable professionally. I am ashamed to say that there was a brief period in my life where I had my world tied up in a green bow made out of hundred dollar bills, but that was never me, that world never fit me and it is disguisting that I spent years of my life not being true to who I am. That's also a blog for another day.

I'd like to be a family and relationship counselor. I have to be licensed, of course. Unfortunately, the Master of Science degree that I currently possess was tailored specifically for the Clinical Psychology doctorate. In order to qualify for licensure according to the Kansas Behavioral Regulatory Board, I will need more classes and more clinical supervisory hours. The easiest way to accomplish this is through a university program. I've begun researching these programs and reached out to folks who may be good resources during this discovery process. I will keep everyone posted as I advance towards my goal.

It's not how much money you make to be successful in life, it's what you do with the money you make. I need to remind myself of that because it's too easy to get caught up in all the world has to offer and how much the world charges for that ride. But I don't need to make a lot of money to be happy, and I don't need a PhD to follow my passions.

the lights are on, but no- ah, fuck it. you know the rest.

I think I spend more time thinking about what it is that I am supposed to be doing, as opposed to actually doing something. Maybe that's what I am - a thinker. Certainly that has to be some sort of personality type. Someone whose brain is always on five-alarm but no one is actually sliding down the fire pole.

I'm hoping that analogy isn't lost on everyone because I admit, even for me, it is reaching a bit. But who am I if not colorful and occasionally ambiguous and difficult to follow?

I digress.

For example, I think constantly about writing. Constantly. I think about what I've written, what I am in the middle of writing, what I would like to write, what I should write, what I want to write, even what I need to write. You get the picture. It's an obsession. But I do very little writing. I am beginning to think that what appears to be a dramatic case of adult attention deficit disorder is actually the result of my carrying around all of these THOUGHTS in my skull without making any effort to expunge them from my head space. If you grabbed a handful of my brain and squeezed, hundreds of ideas would drip shamefully from the grey matter, beading rapidly like quicksilver, marching little soldiers across my desk. I say "shamefully" because without intention these ideas have become toxic avengers to my 9-5 existence. They've infected an otherwise healthy brain with noise, constant noise, buzzing noise that at one point in my life was a low, dull hum and has now intensified into a roaring cacophony that makes it difficult for me to concentrate on anything.

And what does this mean for me? What does anything mean that I write in this fucking blog? It means that I am a thinker. My friends write lovely and interesting blogs about what they DO. I write blogs about what I THINK about doing. Surely, that will never get old. Are you freaking kidding me? And I've done this to myself, I get it. I've put myself out there. I've started this blog. I've recruited followers. You've all signed up for this crazy ride - you've got front row seats to the freak show and the evolution of Danielle Ross.

I haven't really reconciled any of my issues, as you can see. Like mercury, these thoughts and ideas do very little to keep me warm at night as they are terrible conductors of heat. But - aha! - what fanastic conductors of electricity. If only I could channel that energy into action, rather than the distracting din currently in my skull. The lightbulbs are going off at all hours. Thank you, Thomas Edison. Yes, I can fucking see. Now please let me get some sleep.