So here I am, 2:34pm on Monday, March 9th, 2009, sitting in the office, stressing over a spreadsheet that will track the path of "lost" grant money allotted to us by the county. And I could not care any less than I do right now. At least I don't think so. If this money is not accounted for, the department I work in could be in dire straits and lose many jobs (mine among them), and the school on a larger scale, will likely feel the impact as well.
And so the fuck what.
My boss is a wonderful woman. I remarked to my mother that working for her is like working for family. You can't beat that. Many of my co-workers - likewise. But frankly, who cares? I mean, if the school doesn't re-obtain this funding and starts to suffer for it, it won't be the worst thing (in my view) because my only gain from it is a pittance of a weekly paycheck.
I'm over-reacting to some degree, of course. I just came off of a weekend where I completed work on photo installations for a world-premiere of a play, met two muralists, and appeared at a reading where I was a part of the creative arts world - not just a pencil-pushing, spreadsheet-generating, number-crunching, data miner. I did what I loved and people liked it and if not, they still respected me for who I was and what I do. Here, I'm just someone they can replace easily if they need to.
So of course, this falls into the category of narcissism, and just like that, I'm propelled into an understanding of celebrities and the like who go "Do you know who I am?"
"I don't care about your grant spreadsheet! I'm a photographer whose work will appear in a world-premiere play this very week. Do you know who I am?!"
No one. But still, at this stage of my life, where opportunities are appearing in front of me every single day and where people care about what I have to say and equally so, how I say it, I feel I am only a short time away from casting off the work-a-day shackles and tackling something infinitely more interesting and important in my opinion - my own life...
I hear you. But try to take encourage in seeing the student on the other end of the grant money, who will find his personal fulfillment through this program otherwise inaccessible to him. Yes, I know many students are taking advantage of the grant but there is always the one who needs it. You are here for just one moment but perhaps what so see working on this grant, working at a community college with echo in your after this one moment in time. When I complained to Judy Tate my disgust with the welfare mothers on the bus, she said artists often live side my side poverty even though they do not have the poverty mentality. Artists can see these people in a way no one else can. You are a photographer one day you may capture the landscape around you and wake up the mundance masses.
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