Love is the night...

As I lay here in the dark listening to Amy Winehouse (RIP Angel), I am forced to look at my love life...past and present. These past couple of years I have had my fill of ups and downs in the love department leaving me with a very skewed and jaded perception of how my life will play out in this field.

Lemme give you the cliff notes...

I went from not believing I would find love because I never felt it romantically for anyone. I would try to feel something but it would never come to me, like grasping at the moon's reflection in a bowl of water. I then felt something for someone who was not interested in me due to their "preferences" moving along from them I started to fall for a young lady who initially started to fall like I was but got distracted by another. In between one and two I caught affections infectiously for another who never noticed me even when I was willing to change myself for them and then I loved another who was career oriented more than me oriented leaving me as alone like before.

Then finally...finally I fell in love with a girl who just took my breath away. The movie Fault in Our Stars has a quote that described what happened to me, "I fell in love like you would fall asleep; slowly then all at once." My God I had never felt so alive, never felt such purpose to be here....sadly it ended after ups and downs, mistakes and lessons learned. I fell out of love, just fell...limp and cold and empty all of a sudden.

If falling in love can be compared to falling asleep then falling out can be compared to waking up.

A cruel, abrupt yanking...a snatch so hard that my insides turn over, under, and into themselves. (Yes I had it bad) This is departure from what I knew as my reality was the "kick" in the throws of the night amidst the tossing and the turning of your sleep. I figured the best way to describe this was with a quote from a movie about sleep, Inception, describes the kick as "that feeling of falling that jolts you awake. It's snaps you out of a dream."

This touched me profoundly when I took a good hard look at, we have all felt that feeling of being snapped out of a dream that felt real....well to me that's what falling out of love with her was like. Even still I figured its always darkest before the dawn and tried to push forward (after taking time to heal) and eventually found myself in the beginning stages of liking someone again but this too was a disappointment.

So where does this leave me?

Well alone of course...here with my thoughts in the middle of the night looking at all these other people calling in and out like sunrise and sunset. This endless and inevitable cycle of gain and loss, wax and wane, joy and pain. (Really didn't mean to rhyme)

I didn't write this for sympathy or even for advice. I wrote this because I know there are others who feel my pain. I have no earthly idea if I will ever fall again, not sure I want to anymore. Just had to get that off my chest people.

Night World

Who's leg do I have to hump for $15 hour??

So I have been holding back writing something like this because I have afraid of coming off as a whiner but to hell with that! I feel at this point I have a small right to complain about my current employment situation. I want to know who's world I need rock for a decent job in my field? I mean like seriously American journalism? No one has need for an award winning photographer (Louisiana Press Assoc. Best News Photo 2012) who is also an award winning reporter (BCCA Best Investigative series ft. Evan Taylor 2011) and lets not forget award winning editor (BCCA Best Overall student newspaper 2nd place same year)? No need for a well rounded journalist who can do the jobs of several other reporter by himself, nooo, "to hell with being versatile we just want you to do one thing."

How hard is it to give a brother a break? -yes I said brother because I'm frustrated-

I'm not asking to be an editor even though I do have experience both at the college level (newspaper twice, yearbook, and magazine) and the professional level (a monthly newspaper and a magazine). All I'm asking for is a simple entry level photographers job with a small possibility to write here and there, hell I'll take freelance...emphasis on free!!

I'm just asking for a chance to what I love is that so hard?

Stop me if I'm asking for too much. I don't think its a far stretch to give someone with experience on multiple levels a small chance to show what they are capable of. Or maybe it is and I'm foolish for thinking otherwise. It has been like this past year I've been Steve Urkel and my career has been Laura Winslow, rejection at every turn and disappointment on several levels. -Makes me wanna eat cheese and dance to polka music just thinking about it-

But that's my only problem with America....why in the did I spend all that time and money getting this degree if nobody wants it!!!

I could have sold dru....(clears throat) I mean participated in urban pharmaceutical distribution, antiquity and collateral retrievals, or management of anatomical sales associates if I would have known that the long nights spent studying and fine tuning my craft would be for naught.

Not to brag but I made a choice many did not make to further my education on the promise that it would help me position myself in life where I had options. Not a guaranteed job or career nor a promise of more money, but OPTIONS. Not slinging tickets at the Reunion Tower because its all that was hiring that didn't require me doing manual labor -I'm highly allergic to manual labor-or teaching children I can't beat or curse out. I went to school as an investment in myself not the federal government fund for student loans or that damn Sallie Mae, I went on the promise that it would guarantee me the ability to move around to jobs whose pay would not insult the hard work I did in the classroom.

Bitter much? Angry much? Hell yes!

It's a damn shame that I am afraid to answer my phone in fear of it being a student loan collector threatening me for money. It's a damn shame that I have a hard time sleeping because I'm so worried about paying for these loans. It's a damn shame that I can't even get a job that pays me $15 an hour to make ends meet. I didn't go to college to settle for anything, I went because I didn't settle. Not to take away from those who made it their own way but college was mine and many other's way and so far this a is not panning out the way it was supposed to. So far I have amassed a great deal of debt in loans, spent countless hours applying for jobs and passing out my resume, read hundreds of rejection letters from jobs -by the way can anyone explain to me what the hell overqualified means- all to take a job at a tourist attraction that pays $11 an hour.

I feel like an idiot standing in a ticket booth with this whole Bachelor's of Arts in Mass Communications and this laundry list of work experience, skill, and expertise. Again, not knocking anyone who has taken this road but damn, when is it alright to be upset?

When is it okay to say this job is beneath what I am capable of?

And no I don't want to hear the "things will get better" or "its all for a reason" speech. I know all that stuff, I know things will change in due time. I want to know when is it okay to be upset about it. I want to know it's alright to be upset and have this chip on my shoulder. That everyday I don't have to suck it up, that it's cool have an attitude.

(Takes deep breath) Okay, I'm back. Just had to ask, what do I have to do to make it? Is there some proverbial leg to hump that will grant my wish like so kind of perverted genie's lamp? -will it show me a whole new world at least? I'll take a ride on the flying carpet at this point-

I love it like XO??? Fa Real

So after months of protest I decided to listen to a Beyonce song without wanting to set up a 45mm ordinance sniper outside her house. And I chose a song I'm assuming doesn't get a lot of radio play (mind you I treat the radio like BET since they both are teeming with mindless dribble and incessant ignorance) and not that damn Drunk in Love cause they play that 50 gazillion times at work. I chose "XO" and I have to admit that I like it. Its not the bs I have come expect from her with the overuse of technics and pointless banter. Its an honest song and a simple one which makes me think of that special girl on my mind which is what music is about. It took me somewhere, some sort of adventure that I always wanted but never knew I did and it was a beautiful feeling....hats off to you Beyonce. I didn't think it was possible but you made a song that want on my playlist.

In all honesty I thought perhaps Solange wrote this song but it was a collaborative effort from The Dream and Ryan Tedder (front man for One Republic) and Beyonce herself which is a surprising mix with addition of Tedder but a great result. And the video was an honest one too, no ridiculous, over dramatized set or awkward choreography just a low budget video of a good time at a county fair...nothing is more simple or honest than that. I especially love the ferris wheel, nothing is more romantic than a ride to the top of the world overlooking the city lights fluttering like a field of fireflies in June....just does something to a person I guess. Lyrically the song had a childish innocence to it with a feeling of whimsical storybook magic peppering it. It was just an all around joy to hear and a refreshing break from her drawled out, morphine injected, broken record Drunk in Love. I can truly that song does not belong on an album with a song the likes of "XO" which incites the feeling put into the song onto the person listening (and yes I actually gave Drunk in Love a good listening to and still don't like it).