Faces of Clarity - An Easy Book to Read

My face. Its expressions. My eyes and the directions they wander. All of it is open. Perfectly clear for all to read. No exceptions. If you think I'm feeling a certain way that I am not, it is because you simply didn't look at my face. Didn't study for a brief moment what it tells you. Its not that I willfully make myself this way - so open, so vulnerable. Its that my face and eyes within will quite honestly betray everything that I wish to play close to my chest.

I have been told this is a good thing but I am not so sure. I have been emotionally compared to dogs. That forlornness you can see in their eyes, the way their body moves when they are happy or excited, the tail under their legs when they feel inferior or frightened. Tell tails. My own set of emotions rage and change so quickly. They spike from extreme to extreme - an ocean motion printed simple and bold like a child's storybook across the muscles and skin that I show to the world each day. My employers sense the depression, fatigue and boredom. They do not yet fire me because I show up and deliver enough productivity. My lover can tell when I am upset or cranky even when I try my damnedest to get over it or keep it to myself for fear of taking it out on her or the kids.

The fuct up part about this is that almost everyone I speak with regularly can read me this way. It is not a two way street either. I cannot yet read them in turn. I've been told that I am way too easy to convince. Unfortunate if you ask me because if I am so easy to convince, then I am largely accepting what people say and taking it at face value. Why shouldn't I? Oh. Right. The lies, fibs, good intentions never to be followed through upon, the misinformation, the assumptions, the uneducated guesses and even the un-educated guesses. Strange to think I am the one who needs to adjust to discern all this shit. Like my value or the value of my skills. Like wether I'll be told if I make the cut for an audition as opposed to never receiving a call. How to do things and how to live my life. I wonder that I may be receptive to everyone's suggestions because I don't feel I've really gotten it right so far. What to learn to increase my job worth... The list could clearly go on.

So what's the big fucking secret that nobody knows yet so may seem to connect with? Like getting a good job. To me, I wonder where to begin. So I ask. I take it for truth. "Go get a degree." Okay, did that. No job. So I ask others because all the books and internet will tell me is to network *gives finger to nepotism and other time honored practices* Others say, "Here is where you are now, where do you want to be? Here's how to get there... You will have to commit all free time. Other hobbies and interests shall be cast aside. This is what I had to do so surely it is how you should do it too."

You had me buying that shit. For a night, I believed that you were right and that your way is the path for me. I have a lover. She is willing to shake me and be stubbornly point out how I accept what I am told. Though I could be making the same assumptions from what she tells me, the difference is that I trust her implicitly.

Quite honestly, I still have never found a job I WANT to do. What I want to do is own a home with no fucking by-laws and rules about where and when I can cook raw meat outdoors. I WANT to work for ENOUGH pay to stay out of work as much as possible and still afford getting out of debt, groceries, road trips and beer runs. Still, since I was little, they all ask, "But what do you WANT TO BE?"

A singer. Can we now please move on to a way to actually make enough time and money while I try to be a fucking singer?

Myself and friends and lovers have wanted to be one of the following:

A rock singer
An author
A philosopher
An actor
A director
A poet
A painter
A comic book writer

Buy a lotto ticket. It may be as easy to do these things for a living.

I didn't choose rock singer because I want to shirk real jobs though that is a perk if you're selling enough. I chose it because even without practice, without gigging or recording, without much progress of any kind so far, I'm better at it than anything that has ever captured my brief or full interest. The designer, the inventory specialist, the customer service agent, the carpenter, the house cleaner. All these are skills of various levels within my talent. None compare to the ability and enthusiasm I can spit at you from behind a mic. It makes me happy. In fact, the last time I came home from Jam Night, MD said that I smelled like sex. I was that ecstatic.

BTW, happy 4th of July for all you non-ex-patriots out there.

Music: Quarantined - At The Drive In