I probably shouldn't be blogging after watching Six Feet Under

Especially after watching the final episode again. Nothing good can come from it.

Then again, this is a personal blog, the whole point of its existence is to serve as a dumping ground for all my melodramatic navel-gazing.

In short, I've been really excited and hopeful the last few days, but thanks to SFU I'm feeling melancholic again. It's not reverse culture shock or anything, I seem to have better mentally prepared than I thought, probably because I've done this before.

It's just that I'm right back where I started. Actually, I'm worse off than when I left. I ain't got two pennies to rub together, and a $5000 credit card bill. Not to mention the money I owe my parents, which, bless them, they insist I don't have to repay, but my pride says otherwise.

I switched over to SFU about halfway through, at the part where Nate is urging Claire to go to New York even though she's lost her job there. "You can't stay here."

I'm not scared, like Claire, of being on my own, of picking up and moving into a completely unfamiliar place. I've done that. I want that. I wish to god I was Claire driving to New York with a couple thousand bucks. The problem is, I don't have a couple thousand bucks. Or shoot, I'd even do it on a couple hundred. Just enough to pay off the first and last rent of an apartment.

The main problem is transportation. I "have" a car, technically, but my parents need to use it until they have enough money to get a new used one. Which probably won't be until the end of the summer. Now I wouldn't mind putting off Chicago (New York, Austin, Seattle, I don't care, anywhere, so long as it's big and Blue) for 6 months, as long as I was on my own. I won't do it in my parents house. Especially with Shithead my ambiguously homophobic brother living here as well. Not that my parents and I don't get along, things have been great, but I can't live here. I can't go around all day being...discreet. For their comfort and to keep the peace. I need my own life. That's what I miss most about Europe. My independance. I got real used to that. I can light incence and read tarot if I want, I can bring home a totally random girl if I want, I can experiment with making vegetarian curry while watching cowboy movies if I want. Space.

My only hope, at the moment, is that I could move to Nearby Medium Sized College Town and make do with a bike. But that still leaves the question of money to actually get a place to live first.

You know, I could do this in Europe. I could get by without a vehicle. Fucking oil industry.

Oh, and that head cold I've been fighting off for weeks? Bronchial cough!

Frankly, the fact that the President's been bashing the homos with his Federal Marriage Amendment is the least of my worries. It annoys me when Blue Staters wonder why queers remain in Red States. For one thing, home is home is home. But mainly, some of us can't get the fuck out. Even when there's a Blue State right across the river.

What am I doing? Where am I going? How the fuck do I get there? Why is my Bachelor's Degree not worth the paper its printed on? What should I do? (Who am I? What is Art? What is the Meaning of Life? 42)

Any and all answers to Life's Mysteries should be emailed to the address on the right; any contributions greatly appreciated.

There. I feel a smidgen better. I'm going to go cuddle my books.