The story I tell everyone about being in tune with the universe goes like this:

In college, there was this great table in the dining hall. It was a booth, the only booth in the whole hall, in this little recessed area with stained glass windows on three sides extending up to the something like 40ft tall ceilings. It was the best. You could fit 8 people at it, and it was my favorite place to sit.

Senior year, fall came around and for a good 2 months, every time I came to a meal the booth was open. It was a lucky streak, and it made me feel like someone had sprinkled me with fairy dust or something… Maybe the booth was tapped and it was always open because they were investigating me and my friends, but I felt like I was at one with the universe. I was doing something right, like when you bowl a bunch of strikes in a row, and I didn’t question it because I didn’t want to ruin it somehow.

Sometimes this happens. You are in the right place at the right time and all the pieces just fall into place and you feel like you must be cautious about everything because if you breathe too hard it might disrupt the flow.

My job is ending soon and lately I’ve been on the brink of worrying about what will happen next. Not really worrying for more than a minute or two, but very aware that there is room for catastrophe if things don’t go my way. But today I’m feeling good, because it seems like the universe has my back.

Exhibit A: When I got to the bus stop, it told me the bus was coming in 8 minutes, which gave me some time to go get lunch to take with me!

Exhibit B: After I got my sandwich, I noticed a valid transfer sticking out from the frame of the poster in the bus shelter, almost like someone had left it just for me. Saved $2!

Exhibit C: After reading my book all the way there are not wanting to put it down, my workday got reconfigured and I didn’t have to be where I was and turned back to go home!

Exhibit D: When I got to the bus stop to go home, someone passed by and gave me ANOTHER valid transfer for my return trip.

Exhibit E: After reading my really good book on the bus for 2 hours, I got home and had an email from a friend offering me free tix for me and a guest to the entire Andy Warhol Retrospective this weekend at the Frameline Film Festival.

Exhibit F: Got notified about a meeting Friday for an additional assistantship for one day a week, ongoing. My temp job with the Census will be ending soon, and I was wondering about work in combination with my upcoming move.

Exhibit G + H: I needed some new clothes and kitchen stuff for our future place.. and one of my BFFs is moving and offered me all the kitchen stuff she doesn’t need!

Now all I need is an awesome new place to live, and a little more work. Need an assistant? Some graphic design? Some advice on bringing your business online? Social Media? Networking? Want to buy a painting?

T always says the universe provides, you just got to decide on something and ask for it. Now that we’re staying in San Francisco for a while, I can feel the universe tuning into what I’m asking for and trying to get it to me.

It’s nice to be in a place of less struggle, more flow. Hustle and Flow, people! Hustle and flow.

There are a lot of things that bother me about money, but I think one of the biggest things is the fact that no one talks about it. To me, it’s a mystery. I’m not always sure how to get it and I think it would be easier if I could ask other people about their strategies. But it’s like a math test in high school: everyone has their arm covering it up so you can’t see their answers.

Life is hard enough, but it seems to me we are all competing with each other for the same thing. We all need food, clothes, and shelter, but instead of trying to help each other get what we need, we have to hide all our tips and tricks so that we can do better than the others.

I have come a long way since we first moved to our little place. Before, we never had any money, and I would worry about how we’d pay our phone bill, or the ridiculously cheap rent our fairy god-landlady for our place. Now, I know we can pay the rent this month, but with my temporary job and imminent move I’m worried about three months from now.

Money makes you worry, no matter how much you have. We worry about getting it, keeping it, having enough, and being about to do what we want. I’m worried not only about feeding and housing myself, but also being able to have the life I always wanted to live.

I am a very lucky person to have the things I have.. I know that. I’m very lucky to have been brought up to believe that I could be an artist, that I could travel, and learn new things constantly. I want the grand experiences. I want to feel success in the things that matter most to me. I want to have space and time and the freedom to do all the things I want to do in life.

But I need money to make all this happen. And it leads to difficult decisions. I can’t have everything I want, not even close. So what do I choose. A few months of fun and then back to square one? Throwing caution to the wild and letting things unfold? Or do I plan and miss out on the adventure that could be? Or will the adventure just come?

I wish I had people to ask who could tell me what to do. I wish I was still in school, or on a career path, or surrounded by successful people who would support any venture I wanted to start. But this is not the case, and I know even if I could find every detail about everyone’s financial history, I still wouldn’t have the answer to my future. But I want to be all in this together, instead of every man for himself. It would make me feel a lot less lame.

On Saturday T and I went to check out the SF Fine Art Fair, that was apparently a big deal because we don’t really have international art fairs in San Francisco. It was lame. It’s like when someone buys you an art magazine and you’re really excited until you find out it’s Art News, which is basically “Couch Art in America.” 99% of everything are paintings that people buy to go with their furniture.

My favorite piece, the one that showed the most creativity and inventiveness and awesome use of materials was “Milky Way” by local artist Renee Gertler. Here’s a picture of it:

(photo credit: Eleanor Harwood Gallery)

It’s hard to see, but the insides of the paper bags are painted midnight blue, and there are mirrors inside the bags on the bottom. The top of the bags are little pinpricks, and the mirrors reflect the light that comes in through the top of the bag from the room. The effect is an entire “Milky Way” on view inside the bags.

It’s really awesome, like these bags are a portal into this amazing other place.

The fair made me inspired to paint more, but only because I felt I could do as well or even better than most of the things I saw. T felt the same way, and now he’s super into painting.

On Saturday we went to Dolores Park and we ripped open a paper bag and lolled about on the grass fingerpainting. Then he continued as I pretended to read my book and really listened to the people around us gossip and complain as they got progressively more stoned and drunk. T started painting with blades of grass.

Our ladylady/friend-whose-basement-we-live-in is going to Paris for a year and we are looking for a new place.

It is very frustrating because we really want to live in all the big converted warehouses with tall ceilings and cool windows and open floor plans that are so big you could do double dutch jumprope in them, but they are either too expensive or in East Oakland. And while I don’t mind living in semi-bad neighborhoods, I don’t know if East Oakland would be fun to live in. I don’t necessarily want to be nervous walking around my neighborhood, or worrying that T will never come back if he goes out to buy cigarettes. I wish I had an expert person who knew all the okay places to live and the icky places to live so I could just ask him.

Also, I keep thinking that maybe if I move there and lock in my cheap rent, the whole place will gentrify really quickly and then I’ll live in a bad ass neighborhood where I won’t get shot. Then I think that is such an elitist privileged thing to say and gentrification is bad!! And then I try and think if East Oakland is like moving to the Mission before all the hipsters and yuppies and maybe I’m missing out on being really cool and tough and avant-garde. But then I think I’d rather be alive than avant-garde and start looking for something in Emeryville, which has an IKEA so it must be safe, right? Also, swedish meatballs.

Even when I do find good places on craigslist, I can’t bring myself to call them because it’s scary and I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to pay rent once my temporary job is over. But I have an optimistic feeling that it will work out somehow.

I also wish I could combine the cheap rent and space of East Oakland with San Francisco location and make it all hot like LA so that I live in this awesome place that is spacious and has a garden, but also cheap and in an old dairy or firehouse but I don’t need a car. Also, I wish all my friends would move there. I would be so happy in this imaginary place. Also, I’d have the best job ever. I’m not sure what it would be, but it would probably involve me hanging out and throwing events for my friends and becoming brilliant and then famous and being the coolest person in the world, which I am already, I just have to find the right place.

I am going to ask Renee Gertler how she became so cool and creative to have shows and think of things like the “Milky Way” and maybe I will become cool too. And then maybe she will agree to be interviewed and then I’ll post it and you can be cool too.

See? I am contributing so much to society already!

When I was in school, I was always excited for what I would do when I got out. Free from all the restrictions and requirements of education, I would be finally free to do what I wanted, and become the person I was meant to be. Then I got out and figured out that I have to pay rent and feed myself, which can be a little dream-crushy at times. Sometimes it’s hard to get back aspirations when you still have to get the everyday stuff handled. For a little while now, I’ve been trying to remember what or who I was striving for all those years I dreamed of graduation.

When I was really little, I wanted to be a talent agent. My mom was a producer and media trainer, and my sister was an actress, so it felt like a good fit. Little but fierce, I’d be able to haggle the most money and the best jobs with my quick wit, charm, and manipulative tactics. I’d take care of people who couldn’t do it by themselves.

Then there was the torch singer idea. I wanted to lie around on pianos and be treated like a princess and admired by all for my sweet, smokey, sultry voice. I’d hypnotize everyone with my satin dresses draping over the piano. My world would be slick, rainy cityscapes lit by streetlights, walking home on the arm of a tall man in a big coat. I’d drink manhattans and smoke with a long cigarette holder and basically live in the 1930s. I’d break hearts.

I thought it would be fun to be a diplomat’s wife. I wouldn’t have to deal with the boring aspects of being a real diplomat. I’d just get to travel a lot and wear fancy clothes and speak tons of languages and be super classy. I’d throw the best dinner parties and bring the best out of everyone and have an amazing place for entertaining. Everyone would adore me and I’d be like a slightly lower level, less famous, but more interesting and artsy Jackie O.

When I got to high school, I did this awesome after school arts program where I met a bunch of practicing artists. I’d visit their studios and go to their shows and that was when I first realize that there were people who actually made art for a living. I remember this moment, because I always loved to make art. It was my favorite thing to do, but I thought it was too fun to be something you could make a career out of. After that, I was hooked. My mantra was “Do what you love, and things will happen.” It led me to major in art in college, where I learned not only about making art, but I also learned how cut-throat and shmoozy the art world supposedly was. It was a big turn-off, one that I haven’t worked through fully yet. Plus, I became more interested in making events and parties than static sculptures or paintings.

When I really think about what I want to do, and who I want to be, I keep coming back to the same thing: anyone/anything I want all the time. I used to think that I could just do whatever I thought was really cool, but lately I’ve been a little blocked on the coolness front. My vision is a little blurred. But the fact remains that I just want to be amazing. I want to be that person whose presence changes a room when I enter. I want to be confident without being cocky, effortlessly beautiful, truly authentic, trusting, and candid. I want to make everyone I meet feel comfortable, like they are already my friend, and like they don’t have to pose or posture at all. I want to have so many good ideas that I give most of them away and inspire art and culture and projects and good deeds. I want to make magic happen, and glide through life, crushing obstacles and worry and troubles underneath me, as though they were nothing. I want to make art, make events, make dinner, make lemonade stands, and get people to stop and think about how lovely and beautiful thing moment is right here. I want to turn reality into a place that people think must be a a dream from which they never want to wake.

Yes, I want to be a faith healer. An artist. An organizer, a planner, a carouser. I want to sing in the street and give everything I am to everyone around me and get it right back. I want to dream and break the rules. I want to do everything, because I can. And I want to give people this perspective, that they can do anything too. And then maybe together, we will.

Since moving to the city, I’ve been working on cultivating possibilities. I feel like the more seeds I plant, the more chances stuff will happen. In the last couple weeks I have joined a ton of event mailing lists, found tons of calendars with things to do, researched the cheapest happy hours in the city, and thought of a ton of ways (read: art projects) to make new friends in this place. I might get a job with the census, I’m working on buttering up this bakery I really want to work at, I’ve applied to volunteer at the botanical gardens, and figured out when the collective bookstore has their monthly meetings to introduce new volunteers. I’ve even figured out what permits to get to become a street artist and started experimenting with making things to sell out of my supply stash. I also found a baking and pastry program at the community college that’s free. Though my next few months are still veiled in mystery, it’s nice to think about all the things that could happen as a result of all the seeds I’m planting. I hope something sprouts.

In addition to the now future, I’ve also been thinking about the future down the road. I try to remember what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a talent agent, a torch singer, an artist. I wanted to travel around the country, sit in the sun, find swimming holes, make forts, and live like an indian. Nothing has changed much. I envision myself learning to play the ukelele and sing on the street corner for passersby. Sometimes when things get tough I imagine just running away, walking out of town and just trying to keep going and see what happens. I went to a show for the first time in a long while on Friday, and listening to the music reminded me of how much pleasure music-making gives me. I thought about being at house shows in Seattle, and letting visions of art and sculpture float through my head inspired by the sounds going on around me. I want to sing loud, without fear, my own words with a strong voice.

Sometimes I dream of moving to the country, into a big wooden house in a meadow not far from the forest. I’d plant a garden, learn how to keep goats, make cheese, bake bread, build a greenhouse, and find somewhere good to go swimming in fresh water. At night we’d light a fire outside and sing and play music and look at the stars and hear the crickets. I would cook, make art, read and write. I’d invite people over to make things, eat, drink, dance, and make music. I’d take long walks and bring home wild flowers. I’d have special places to go for picnics, make forts, and hang birdhouses in the forest.

I am trying to get there. Guide my life in the direction that will lead me to this place, this time. Sometime the path seems invisible, blocked by lack of money and obstacles in my way. Sometimes I feel like I have to be able to trick society in some way to get this. Sometimes I just want to run away because that’s the only way I will get to where I want to be. Sometimes I feel like I need to sacrifice something to get to this place, but I’m not sure what it is.

Sometimes I wish there was a set, known path I was on. Where I could just follow the directions and go along the conveyor belt, not having to thing about how I spend each day, each hour. Just doing what they tell me and not having to think about it outside the hours of 9-5pm, and be able to have money to pay my bills and buy my groceries and go out and have a good time.

So I’m figuring out how to ignore the obstacles. How to think of what I want to do and just do it. How to stop waiting around for the right time or the right resources and just go for it. Get some failures under my belt. Learn. Be active. Stop feeling anxious or scared. Dance, sing, be good to those people around me. And maybe one day I’ll look up and realize that I’m already on the right path.

I think I might have an issue with social anxiety.

On really good days, I am a fun, funny, outgoing, open-hearted person. I think up projects for meeting strangers, like putting up a tea party booth in the park. My dream is to run a multipurpose space for shows, classes, art, happenings, secret cafes, and dance parties. I love throwing elaborate parties, making friends, and seeing how other people live. At night I like to walk around the neighborhood and look into people’s windows and see what other people are doing. My favorite song is “The Sky Opened Wide like the Tide” by The Blow, which is all about driving around looking for your friends. “and what I want to know is where all the people are, and where they go. And what I wouldn’t give to know where everybody gets together where it is that they really live.” Oftentimes I feel isolated, like I don’t have any connection to the world around me. Sometimes I feel like everyone is a stranger to me, and I long to have some kind of community to be a part of more.

It’s been hard, over the last year, with all my best friends scattered around the globe. I’ve heard from so many of my friends how hard it is to move to a new city and find friends to hang out with. Unlike school, where there’s a built in community and constant activities to share with the hundreds of people you are living with, it’s a lot harder to make friends naturally in a city. People are busy working, living with partners, and often have an established group of friends already and aren’t looking for new people. You can go to bars, but most of the time when you approach someone, they expect you want to have sex with them, not hang out in the park and drink beer.

And while on good days, I’m open and confident, funny and outgoing, and able to make people feel comfortable around me, on bad days I’m scared of everyone. I want to hide somewhere and turn off my phone and be invisible in my gmail so people won’t try to talk to me. I’m terrified of running into anyone I know, or having to interact in any situation. I’m not really sure why that is. I have this fear that I will do something wrong, that people will judge me, or be mad at me for some reason. I’m scared of being asked to do things because I’m afraid of failing. I also afraid that if I see someone I haven’t seen in a long time, they will think I’ve made a turn for the worse, that I’m not as good or cool as I used to be. I’d hate to disappoint them.

I know these fears are irrational. I know they are not justified. I know deep down that I’m bad ass and can do pretty much everything I try pretty well. But after a year of being unemployed, continuously rejected from jobs I apply for, depressed, feeling unwanted and like a failure, those little hater voices in my head have undermined my confidence.

I’m working to get it back. Shut those voices up in my head. Feel the physical signs of anxiety and calm myself down, remind myself that what I think is not who I am, and I don’t have to believe my thoughts. That my head sometimes plays tricks on me, likes to overanalyze and worry, and that those things are unnecessary and what I think isn’t always true. That no one hates me.

I am definitely getting better at this, and I have big plans for some new fun social sculpture projects this spring. There will be potlucks and parties and tea and strangers and cake(!). It will be a blast, so stay tuned.

I’m broke. For a while now, I’ve been applying to pretty much any job on craigslist that I’m remotely qualified for. There aren’t really that many. In San Francisco, it seems like you have to be really good at whatever it is to even dream of being considered for the position. Even the maid service group I applied to asked me to reapply after I’ve had a few years of experience. The call backs that I do get, which are few and far between, are usually some sort of scam. A marketing service that has questionable practices. A guy from London who sells electronics wanted to deposit a bunch of money in my bank account so that I could go shopping for him. Another guy who was apparently outsourcing data entry work from Ireland wanted to interview me by Yahoo Messenger. Maybe they weren’t all scams, but I got a big case of heeby jeebies with those.

I applied to be a census worker, thinking that it would be a good way to get to get paid to talk to random people and see inside their house. When I took the test in December, they said they would be hiring in three weeks. Last week, they told me they’d start in March. Americorps is full up, with no positions until April. I haven’t heard from the film festival, and I’m almost at my wit’s end.

I keep wondering, where are these supposed jobs I could work for? I’m not a schmutz, I have a college education, and though I majored in art, I know plenty of art majors with at least SOME kind of job.

Yesterday I walked around the surrounding neighborhood of my place, entering any coffee shop I could find to see if they were hiring. Some gave me hope, saying they would accept my resume, but many did just say “no,” or that they’re already trying to cut their staff.

It’s depressing, not having a job. I do graphic design for friends and family, but it would be so amazing to have a someone stable income that I could actually count on. I keep feeling like I’m looking in the wrong places, like there should be some place to look for jobs that’s a little less bleak.

I know we’re in a huge economic crisis and that there are thousands of people looking for jobs without success just like me. And it sucks to think that a lot of those people have a lot less support and a lot more to lose than I do. I just never thought it would be this hard to do something as basic as get a job. I’m hoping it’s not my lack of qualifications, but my timing. But it’s definitely hard to keep getting rejected all the time.

I keep thinking that maybe all this is just a sign that I shouldn’t get a job. Maybe this is my opportunity to be a street artist and sell my handmade art and goods downtown. Maybe I should start a food cart of my own. Maybe I should set up art workshops in the park for tips. Maybe I should study for my Real Estate license.

With so many and so few options available to me at one time, it’s hard to know what to do. I guess I’ll just try to do everything, as much as I can, constantly trying to put things out to the universe and see what comes back to me.