...Or maybe it's deviant.

Once again, I find myself bewildered as to what to do with my life. The psychology path turned out to be a mere side interest--not a career. Too bad I didn't realize that before I accumulated all this debt. *sigh*

I'm beginning to think I'm only going to be content running my own business or doing some kind of at-home job. Until I find out what I really want to do in life, I have to make money somehow, though. I'm resigned to taking bally any job at this point. I only went to college to get a better job. That didn't work. I enjoyed the experience of community college. After that, I was simply floundering. No idea what I doing. "Oh, this looks fun. I'll do psychology!" Fun?! Is having debt fun?! No way.

So, I'm striking out with a fiercely positive attitude. Slaying my trepidations and critically analyzing my inhibitions. Maybe I'm growing up. I've taken out most of my piercings (they got boring or annoying). I also feel the yearning to rejoin a Jewish community and active follow Judaism again (my practice of the religion has gained and waned the last few years).

Am I any less deviant? Hell no! I have always been and always will be "the weird girl". I couldn't shake that off if I tried (which I wouldn't). I embrace my odd personality with exuberance! 

 My feelings regarding marriage have changed. When I say this, I am referring to my own personal experience--my life. Earlier this year, I ended a 3 year relationship that I fully expected to develop into a marriage that would last the rest of our lives. I don't want to get into the details of that. I moved on to another relationship--but I changed. Marriage is no longer a goal for me. It has nothing to do with the new guy. It's just that after 3 years with someone I thought was the perfect man of my dreams (yes, there was some big time denial going on), I'm afraid of getting stuck. Stuck in a relationship that I no longer desire for whatever reason.

With me, it's the other way around. :-D

Let's blame it on my age. Yes, I'm still young. I wouldn't say I have plenty of time left, though...but...I don't particularly care. Thanks, Imah, for warning me before I'm even 25 that my biological clock is ticking, so I won't have much time to bear children. What happened to "don't get married til you're 30"?! Well, I definitely don't want kids anytime soon. I'm not ready for any of that--kids, marriage, the works.

Gag me.

I don't even know if I want to ever get married. As I previously stated, it certainly isn't a goal for me. Why should it be? Right now, I just want to be my own person. I don't want my relationship with a man (or any other person) to define who or what I am. I can't stand seeing that in other people (not women) as well.

Yes, I have a boyfriend--a lover--but (at my request) we have an open relationship. I don't want to have any other serious relationships other than him, or even after him. If he and I don't work out, I'll just play the field. If he and I do work out...well, that's going to be complicated. Any equation involving me always is.

The textbook

I had to share these images from my Women's Studies class. The textbook is called Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives by Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey.

I didn't mean to make it sound like I was going to explain myself in apologetic terms. I am not. I am simply stating what it is about me that makes me deviant.

• Black Jew. Hello! (Hence the "But you don't look Jewish comments. What does that even mean?!)
• How many Jews (let alone Jewish women) do you know with 9 piercings? (Probably with more on the way.)
• Grammar Nazi (ironic, isn't it? Jewish grammar Nazi? Haha!)

On the girly side:

Spiny Spider arm band. 

• I love spiders, snakes, scorpions. I own a ball python named Lucian (though I sometimes call him Lucy Lu--no relation to the actress, Lucy Lui, though I love her). 
• I adore Sphynx cats and hope to have one someday. (I am uninterested in owning any pet with hair/fur.)
• I don't like puppies--though I like old dogs if they don't bark.
• I am not a chocolate lover. Although, I do occasionally enjoy white chocolate.

I also don't fit many of the Black/African American stereotypes...

• No pork whatever. (Jewish, remember? I do, however, devour chicken when I get the chance--unless it's KFC; they're nasty!)
• Apparently Blacks like watermelon? A white family told me that when I turned down their offer of the dripping fruit. Haha! No, thanks!
• My white Imah (mother) enjoys Black music more than I. I prefer techno, pop, hip hop, and opera.

Of course, everyone has some stereotype placed upon them that doesn't fit. That's what I find so marvelously delightful. We are all, in some way or another, deviant!

I'd say welcome to my blog, but this, like my life, is not a destination but a journey. Pardon my momentary lapse of sounding like a motivational poster. I simply meant to warn any poor souls who wandered onto this page that I have yet to truly define myself. Terrifying as the thought is, maybe I never will.  I'm a late bloomer, at any rate.

I am at a stage in life when society expects me to at least be on the path to success and accomplishment if not having already achieved them. I am not. Ok, that's my cynicism talking. I'm going to college. I completed my AA (late in life, as usual), and promptly decided I had no interest in the field in which I was majoring. Unfortunately, the activities I enjoy most dearly bring little income in the real world: writing (fiction), singing, dancing, bicycling, swimming, and yoga.

So, now I am continuing my education on a different path--an interest I picked up taking random classes to fill my degree requirements: psychology and sociology. People have always interested me--how they tick, how they act in groups, how they respond in certain situations. I've always been a people watcher. I've attributed it to my writer-identity. I like to focus on the characters and their interactions in the story. People watching was my research--and I happen to be a research-aholic. I often research random topics that pop into my head--just for fun.

Speaking of random, this is not how I wanted to open my blog at all. I was going to go on about the conflict I encounter being a half-Black Jew. I am nothing like the stereotypical Jew. I abhor when people tell me: "But...you don't look like a Jew!" Well, I'll just have to kvetch about that in my next post.