I know I haven’t written for a while. But a lot of things have converged lately that I want to try to make sense of.

Jose Esteban Munoz died earlier this week. I drew heavily from his book Cruising Utopia for my thesis. While academic research is often framed as a conversation, I always entertained the thought of having an actual conversation with him someday about queer utopian spaces, or maybe working with him.

Doing research which draws on a current theorist’s works is just different than talking to ghosts and pages; the former could talk back. Now he’s just another ghost. And he was only 45.

Yes, I’m writing queer news articles for The Horn now, but coupled with Nelson Mandela’s death I feel more strongly than ever the kind of queer and creative writing I want to do and the fact that I’m just not.

We never know how much time we have and I’m wasting mine.

I called in sick today at work. The second time in a month. My insomnia is acting up again and my throat was killing me. If I keep this up they may just fire me, but I really couldn’t get up and drive.

This call center is better than the last in some ways and worse in others. Being paid per call just makes it extra miserable. I’m constantly thinking about the number of calls I’m taking.

It’s hard for me to take 65 calls a day long-term. My last job was going through some changes and switching systems so for several months most of the calls I got were transfers. Which was hard in its own way. But at least I had some peace.

Now I feel guilt for putting myself in AUX to breathe because that is money I am not getting. Or the days when it’s slow feel worse because I have to sit there and wait for calls but that time is no longer paid equitably.

But I feel like every call I take drains energy from me even if they aren’t angry and nothing I do outside of work can replenish that effectively.

I worked a test shift for a job I applied for and am still waiting to hear back. I’d forgotten what it was like to work a shift and only maybe be physically tired from being on your feet. My current job is so emotionally and psychically draining that it’s hard to do much outside of work.

I want to make more friends and sustain those friendships but it’s hard when my job makes me hate people sometimes. I want to write creatively and perform again but there’s never enough room in my brain.

I want to work with my hands so that I can use my brain in the off time.

I keep thinking maybe I’ll turn in my 2 weeks notice and just not come back after I visit my sister for Christmas. The alternative feels too terrible to bear.

But then I think that savings are all I have to show from these jobs and if I deplete those it feels like I really have wasted my life for nothing.

I keep wondering what’s changed? How did I drag myself to work before and what is making it so hard now? Maybe it is the fact that I’m so close to what I want now and this job is all that’s holding me back. Whereas before there was nothing outside of work anyway. Despair making me a better worker feels odd, but perhaps it’s true.

Either way, I’m almost to the end of my rope.

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