Painted into corners

One of the reasons I want to write a blog is to help people who feel like I do.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one who finds myself in a lifestyle like mine.  And I'm also willing to bet there are hundreds of people out there who will know exactly what I'm talking about, but are too afraid of pulling the trigger, too afraid of the What-if's and the hopes and the self-reliance.  And, I'll go even further to say that there are probably even hundreds more than THAT who could read this and go "oh my god.  This is EXACTLY what that vague sense of discontent feels like." 

I'm going to tell you my origin story, as it were.  My reason for being here, 27, unemployed, broke, freelance-everything.  It's a little triggery for sexual assault, self-harm, and suicide.  Consider yourself warned. 

I entered the workforce at 18, which is... a little late.  I didn't work in high school, but instead waited until I graduated, since I was privileged enough to have understanding parents who were totally onboard with the belief that school and homework and theater were enough for one person to contend with.  I worked for a few summers/holidays (through college, actually) at a grocery store, ping-ponging between being a barista, stockboy, fruit-basket-construction-artist (shut up), bakery assistant... you name it.  It was retail, it was mostly full time, and I spent every moment of it with a notebook and pen in my apron pocket, counting down minutes until it was time for me to go home and be free.  I thought that the vague sense of dread I felt every time I got in the car to go to work was something everyone felt.  (Maybe it is.  I haven't really been able to definitively determine that yet.) 

I quit working there after college, because, after months of being followed out to my car on breaks and at the end of the day by one of the numerous undocumented back-of-house employees, I was cornered in the stockroom and narrowly escaped being assaulted.  I wrote a statement "for the police" (it was never submitted to the police), and they determined that I was too much of a problem-child to be asked to return the following summer.  So I shopped my perky little behind across town to their direct competitor, who offered me a better position, better pay, and generally much nicer conditions. 

That was probably the only day job I can classify as having "enjoyed", but I still felt trapped while I was there.  Part of it was probably growing pains, since I was in the process of moving to Chicago for most of that year. 

I moved to Chicago and proceeded to cycle through 5 jobs in 5 years (which includes a cumulative year of unemployment at this point, full disclosure).  All of them hallmarked by the vague sense of dread which would eventually blossom into full-blown daily panic attacks, usually between months 3 and 6... if I even lasted that long.  I'm talking about crying-in-the-car, contemplating-suicide-to-get-out-of-it terror.  My dad got biweekly calls at work with me sobbing on the phone... usually from work... usually during work hours. 

I was afraid of leaving.  I was afraid of quitting ANOTHER job, because the economy sucks and you're supposed to be grateful to even HAVE a job.  But I wasn't grateful.  I was terrified of being yelled at by my bosses (even though I was a productive, quiet, well-behaved employee), I was exhausted by the schedule, I was falling asleep on my commute, and I was racking up thousands of dollars in debt because I would get home and I couldn't bear to do anything more strenuous than order a pizza and climb directly into bed.  Literally.  I've lived probably about three years of my life either sitting in my car, a rolling office chair, or my bed with no more transit time between them then it took to climb the stairs. 

To contrast this, the time I've spent unemployed included weekly 12-mile walks across the city.  Cooking for myself (and Kenneth) on at least a weekly basis.  5-hour binges of editing photos while watching MacGyver.  Travel to Boston.  I haven't had a single panic attack since I quit my last job.  I haven't had a major depressive episode since a month or two after I quit.  I haven't held THAT bottle of pills in my hand, the ones I know could kill me in 20 minutes if I swallowed them all, and thought about what would happen if I did, in so long I can't barely remember. 


The trade-off is that I don't have a steady income.  The unemployment extension that Kenneth keeps telling me is definitely going to get renewed is failing over and over again in the Senate, and this is month 2 of $500 or less income.  I live on food stamps, I maxed out my credit card in just under a year, my parents pay my health insurance, car insurance, and cell phone bill.  I'm basically a failure at being an adult.  But... so is everyone in my generation.  That's what happens when you're set up as a patsy, set up to fail. 


My point is... if you feel like I do... it's damn difficult.  But I'm making the choice for mental health and a life on my own terms.  Because, even when I'm staring down the barrel of completely running out of money, of moving back to my parents house with nothing but the clothes on my back, I remember that sitting for 40 hours under someone else's flourescent lights made me want to die.  Made me physically and mentally sick.  And I really don't have a choice at all, if you think about it that way. 

Bonus post time!

God love Nongshim's kimchi ramen noodles.  The best food stamps can buy. 


Jesus Christ, I'm so sick of being poor.

I should be working

Today, the 18th of February, I am making my 5th post of the year.  Last year, I only managed 5 posts in total.  Which... is a little sad, really. 

I should be working and, you know, actually earning the pittance I'm currently scraping together in my life as a freelance-everything, but instead, I'm going to tell you a little bit about what I envision this place to be on its way to becoming. 

This is my blog.  And right now, it's kind of a disorganized mess.  I do have a dedicated blog just for my photography endeavors, which you can find here.  You'll find all the information about the photos I take and the adventures I embark upon in the process over there.  You'll probably eventually find some of that here too, if we're honest.

I want this place to become an aggregation of the multiple artistic things I do, (photography, burlesque, theater, modeling, acting, sewing, writing... the list goes on) as well as a resource for other people who believe the only way they can exist is if they're making something.  Living on the edge of a knife.  Living without a net.

I want it to be a place where I can show off, where I can vent, where I can archive my work, and where I can share the numerous teachable moments I've had the fortune (or misfortune) to stumble across in my experience of living off the grid as a Freelance-Everything.

And I want to invite you to share the journey with me.  

Theater without a net

Among the myriad things I've been doing with my life since jumping off the deep end, one of the things I really never thought I'd come back to, if we're being honest, is Stage Management.  I busted my ass in school to even be recognized as capable of Stage Managing, I worked quite successfully in the theater my first few years in Chicago, but the cost of trying to balance running a show with working a full-time day job was just too much for me.  I walked away from it for about a year, and then, somehow, managed to allow myself to be talked into doing *just one more* show. 

Now that I'm not working a full-time day job, I find I'm able to be a much more effective stage manager. 

The show I'm working on at present is Love and Understanding and is part of Redtwist Theatre's More Red series.  You can find information about it at Redtwist's website.

Happy V-day

Spend some time with your honey if you have one.  Spend some time with yourself if you don't.  Everyone needs a little love sometimes, and self-care and lovin' can be some of the best.  Eat some chocolate, drink some tea, relax and spend some mindful time with yourself. 

Writing without a net

One of the few things I am exceptionally disciplined about is writing.  Unlike pretty much everything else, I get up and write when I'm sick, when I'm depressed, when I'm so busy with other things my head might explode.  I drabble on the train, I journal in coffeeshops, I slip quotes and soundbytes in between rehearsal reports and line notes. 

The kicker, of course, is that writing really is the last thing I do purely for the joy of it.  I don't write to make money.  I don't receive monetary compensation of any kind for the vast majority of the work I do. 

Like this place, a lot of it is journalling.  Mental check-ins.  Some of it is focused on organizing and crystallizing my purpose for the day, week, month, what-have-you.  And... A lot of it is fanfiction. 

Judge away.  I'll wait. 

Unfortunately for you, dear readers few and far-between, the stuff I write is good.  It's... GOOD.  I write fanfiction to lay the smackdown on other stories, to proverbially 'show them how it's done'.  Well... That's not WHY I write them.  I write them because I have crushes on Ben Linus and MacGyver and the only satisfaction I can get is to weave my own little proxy into their universe.  But it's no secret that writing is the one skill I possess that has been honed and shaped by years of gradual practice.  Somehow, impatient, perfectionist Megan (Raven?) allowed a hobby to survive that was, in the beginning, just as rough and awful and blatantly self-insertient and sensationalist as everyone else, and slowly weeded out the awful bits and polished in a sense of style. 

One of the things I plan on doing with this little blog is making regular updates that involve segments of my fanfiction.  Barf, I know.  If you're not a fan of MacGyver, or LOST, or Person of Interest, or Star Trek... too bad.  Feel free to skip 'em.  But they'll probably be a weekly thing, aggregated under "writing without a net"

So get used to it.  First up will be the oldest story I dare share with a public audience.  Between Two Fires.  The first story I ever began writing, put down, walked away for literally years, came back, picked up, dusted off, and realized I could still work with. That's what you get to look forward to.

What have you been up to NOW, Raven Gemini?

It's been a while.  Sometimes I'm good at keeping things up... sometimes I really let things go by the wayside. 
I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now, Flying Without A Net, wherein I can chronicle my various artsy/crafty endeavours, bitch about being a creative professional ("professional"), and generally offer advice to others, like myself, who have chosen to leap off the cliff of uncertainty into the blue beyond of creative funemployment.

Speaking of creative funemployment, you all really have no idea what I've been up to the better part of this past year.  Well... If you happen to follow my photoblog over at www.singingravenphoto.com, you certainly do, but. 

Where I left off here, I was frustrated with my life at Provision.  Well... I left Provision.  I left last June, in fact, and have been unemployed ever since.  I exist as a cobbled-together mass of unemployment checks, photography gigs, days on set as an extra, burlesque performances, and occasional stints as Model, Stage Manager, and proprietor of my very own Etsy shop.  And... I'd like to have a place where I can talk about all those things.  So before I go off and pay for hosting or some nonsense like that... Maybe we'll dig this old thing out of the grave, and we'll see where it goes.