got me a job

my stepfather is a professional photographer who makes most of his living producing large-size prints for local artists. so he's doing a bunch of prints for a couple local artists who never took care of their negatives or slides, and now they've been scanned and given to stan with millions of scratches and holes. i have now been hired to do photo retouching on a freelance basis. so i have a job! nothing like my old job. it's pretty cool. the work is fun and meditative - it feels like playing a video game like tetris or space invaders. and i can work at home on my new imac, and make my own hours etc. the only problem is that i am so easily distractible, i have not been putting in many hours at all. and this is now day 5 of my horrible migraine headache, so staring at a computer screen and working with teeny details doesn't help it.

but the important point is that now when people say "so, what do you do?" i can come up with an answer.

in other news, i am going to try to join a new circus that's starting in town this spring! there will be hoopers... i hope to be one of those hoopers. it's odd because i really started hooping because i was inspired by my late aunt's hula hooping contests which she organized for the guatemalen refugee children who lived across from her house in costa rica. and my cousin ruthie went to circus school and then started her own circus in brooklyn. so the whole thing kind of runs in the family but my aunt is dead and my cousin is going to just laugh at me and look down her nose, because as much as i love her the truth is she is quite the snooty little thing. she's a very very talented snooty little thing. i haven't seen her in forever because she wouldn't let me bring a girl date to her wedding (ironic considering that she was at least part gay for a number of years and supposedly that was due to my own inappropriate influence) and then i missed it anyway.

i have been in northampton for 8 months now. and i have made a total of two friends!!! that's because i am still a hermit. one of the friends i made through the freedom center and the other one found me on friendster. i have a couple friends from college still living here but i never see them. one works a couple blocks away at the wine store. another WAS one of my best friends but he's ignored me since july when we had a bad ride home from vermont together. i wasn't on enough medication then. another one i just haven't bumped into but we were never 1:1 friends, just group friends. there's one more, but we haven't been friends in years. maybe we will be again. i hope so. here's the problem with all of this: i want a GROUP of friends so that i can hang out with people in a group... it saves time. i don't like being in groups when i only know one or two of the people, so i tend to stick to 1:1 friendships. but that makes it much more time consuming to make the rounds and stay in touch and be noticed in general.

i am being very very boring talking about my very boring self so i am going to stop. this has basically been my morning waiting-for-vicodin-to-kick-in ramble. i'm really very terribly sorry.