Pre Employment Interview: Fill & Download for Free

The half way house experience may be different, depending upon the state or federal jurisdiction. In the U.S. federal system it is very restrictive. And it is done this way for a purpose. It is basically a test of how well a former prisoner behaves as they transition back to society. You are still technically under the control of the BOP. You will be able to wear civilian clothing, jewelry, and may be allowed to rent a (locked down) cellphone, but will be very limited on internet access other than to look for employment. If you don’t have any money at first, they have some on-site items and you may be able to go to Goodwill or similar resale shops.The facility will assign you to a case manager who will try to help you make the transition. They have a point system that slowly adds “privileges.” You will typically only be allowed 4 hours per week to leave the facility to shop or eat out at a restaurant, etc. If you are taking a bus, much of the time may be in transit and return, so you need to figure this out in advance. They expect you to get employment if you are of working age or have no other income. They do extensive coordination with employers who will hire people coming out of prison. Mostly are low end or difficult factory type jobs or farm work. They take 25% of your pre tax earnings and that includes any retirement income that you may have from previous employment. I know of cases where individuals opted to return to prison so that their wife could continue to receive the entire retirement. The loss of 25% pretax, made it impossible to meet their obligations since that means your take home would likely be lower than 70% of what it previously was depending upon your tax bracket.You can NOT receive Social Security or Medicare while under the direct control of the BOP. As time goes on, you will be allowed to have a vehicle if you can afford it. But you will not be allowed to transport other half way house members. If you have other specific needs to leave the facility you will be given time for that. This includes obtaining a drivers license, or renewing an old one, going to a doctor, job interview, etc.While it may seem unfair that there are so many restrictions and what some may view as ridiculous rules, this is basically an on-going test. And other inmates are the ones who have spoiled it for others. For example, the facility I am familiar with is in a somewhat rural area with nice grounds to walk around. At one time they allowed a fairly wide area, but the drug people made that impossible to enforce drug drop offs from outsiders so they drastically restricted residents to tiny fenced in areas.Without the half way house system, I would expect even more recidivism from recently released prisoners. A lot of HWH is similar to being incarcerated, but the food is tremendously better and you are treated like a human being. In fact, you may find that the staff calls you by your last name, such as Mr. Jones, and you call them by their first name.

What’s missing in this question and in many the answers: the evolutionary nature of adulthood.If you’re skilled enough at something to know that it doesn’t pay a lot, are you skilled enough to get paid to do it? Since it’s an open OP, I notice that you are skilled in fields of the arts. There’s no reason I can see that you couldn’t major in something that also interests you and leads to more straightforward employment potential than the typical career in the arts.I learned this serendipitously. I was tracked as a gifted science and math student, but was also an in-demand rock n roll guitarist, a good writer, and showed 90+ percentile language skills on every standardized test.Starting in chemistry/pre-pharmacy, I switched to English literature after confirming that English majors got interviews from real companies at graduation.To fund my last couple years in college, I started working at Peninsular ChemResearch, which had a proprietary water-treatment polymer and an industrial chemical production facility. That was 1964.I loved working in labs and it paid a hell of a lot better than other students’ work-study jobs or summer jobs. Fast-forward to 2014, when Pfizer acquired the biopharma company where I worked for $5.3 billion.I strongly recommend that you seek portfolio effects in your marketable skills. You don’t have to do anything you hate. You just have to open your mind that you could find unexpected aptitude and satisfaction in doing something you don’t hate.BTW, I think Joseph Campbell and his “follow your bliss” rhetoric did a huge disservice to so many people who expect to be romantically in love with some activity before they will consider doing it for a living. It’s a misleading paradigm that keeps people from finding out how many things could create a satisfying work-life if you give them a chance.When I left Gainesville after graduating from the U of Florida, I had been working at PCR labs, playing music in the house band of a nightclub, and had a degree in English literature.When my buddy and I struck out for California, we had $165 between us, no jobs, no interviews, and no known friends in San Francisco where we ended up. No, we hadn’t even decided where we were going when we left Florida.I felt confident I could find a job with one of the three credentials I had: two jobs that counted as experience and a brand new liberal arts degree, which big employers considered desirable in their professional training programs. He had an econ degree and had been working 40-hour weeks through college and part-time to help support his family since high school. UI got a job first—within three days. He still feels guilty that we bopped around Haight Street (where we lived) in 1967 spending my money for a month until he got a job.His econ degree led to a distinguished career as an insurance underwriter, which I thought I would hate. In reality, I couldn’t wait for our carpool to hear the interesting problems and questions that insurance underwriters try to figure out.

My early days with George, living on a beautiful island in Puget Sound, playing mother to his child prodigy painter of a daughter, with me a PTA mom at the ripe old age of 22, may have been the happiest days of my life. Emily Fisher's answer to How did you meet the love of your life, whether or not you married him or her, or if it was reciprocated?So far, George, who's been dead for 33 years, has proven to be the love of my life, even though I've had absolutely no sexual interest in men since 1980, 5 years before he died.Although he was 32 years my senior, I was also the love of his life. Finding someone who loved me as overwhelmingly as I tended to unrequitedly love others, was life-changing for me, caused me to instantly and entirely lose my lifelong mortal shyness, and really come into my own.Although my love was seemingly obsessive, it was equally so, and as long as we were together constantly, without any human distraction, we were riding the ultimate wave.(In my lush Whidbey Island garden)I'd always insisted on a life of rebellious determination for justice, and that angry battle had made me too frightening for the love of my peers. The fact that, secretly, I was all ABOUT LOVE, went unnoticed until I met the man of my dreams, and recognized him on sight as the love of my life.In the midst of a party at his house, we made mad passionate love soon after meeting, when we discovered we spoke a language no others had a means to interpret, though when they noticed the degree of our intensity, they tried their best to join in, unsuccessfully.I found that it took a like-minded poetic soul who'd seen the world, to recognize my until then ostracized qualities, and I knew immediately that I would do whatever I could to keep him in my life forever, though being a couple seemed out of the realm of possibility.During our initial love-making, which took place in the bed George shared with another woman, she walked in on us. But it was different, free-loving times, and she minded only because she, too, had enjoyed my fresh, young company, and was afraid he had taken advantage of me in a way that would keep me from ever returning to their on-going drunken festivities.Meanwhile I was scheming ways to find my way back, and was delighted to discover I'd left my sweater there.George was my dream love, had hung with Kerouac, Ginsberg, and many others who had inspired me to hit the road at 16. He was a painter, a poet, and all around magical, ethereal, love machine. I knew I'd be with him the rest of one of our lives, whether or not as a couple, and, indeed, I was.I was newly 21 when I met George, had spent my childhood hanging only with boys, then lived in women-free zones for some years (a Here-Comes-the-Brides type of Wild Westdom, followed by a 2 year culinary college in the days when that was strictly a male profession). I'd become a wild barfly, too, which is also a male role, as I'd never met women who could keep up with my drinking.I'd been blessed by having spectacularly unusual men in my life, and I assume it was that, combined with the unnoticed absence of women in my life, that kept me from realizing that it was women who attracted me sexually.During our first few years of island bliss, I was exposed to other women for the first time since I'd become sexually active. Then, at 25 years old, I unexpectedly fell in love with one. Her name was Michele, she was straight, unfortunately, and drove me completely out of my mind. Michele was beautiful in a young Liz Taylorish way, a painter, extremely overweight, married to an emotionally abusive silent tyrant.She wouldn't have me, except in drunken bits, very infrequently. I was open with George about my initial attraction, and in his free-love, Beatnik way, he was not only fine about it, but encouraging, especially about my writing, which had started up again after a 4 year block. I suspect he'd also assumed she'd never give in to sex with me, sex, which had become off limits for him, aside from my daily suck-off as a -- for me --completely unlibidinous gift for the man I adored.I wrote to Michele daily, spent most days with her, and loved her so much it absolutely broke me.My persistently irresistible sense of adoring surprise increasingly enticed her into loving me, too. But she was petrified of being with a woman, especially under the watchful gaze of her parents, who lived near her and whose shop was next door to hers.For 2 fractured suicidal years I lived only to see her, and would literally think I was dying if she or I had to leave the island we lived on, even for a day. My daily writing to her became what, until that point, was the biggest writing spree of my life. As we lived close enough to one another, on an island, I'd hand deliver her the letters, or sneak them under the door of the house she shared with her thoroughly disengaged, emotionally abusive husband.The "letters" I wrote her turned out to be the best psychoanalysis I've ever received, even if I did give it to myself. I tore my soul apart, every day, in an effort to understand my neglected babyhood and childhood, and the way they affected my relationships with others, the psychological impact of this woman's own past, George's troubled background, and every fucking thing else.Of course the letters also included a lot of seduction. After all, these were the years I still considered myself duty-bound to fix everyone's life, whether or not they were willing, and I saw no reason for such a vibrant, creative woman to be stuck in a loveless marriage.I never actively tried to lure her away from her husband, but at every turn I offered something better, beginning with the thankless task of trying to convince her of her worth by explaining the psychological reasons behind her lack, which I'd discovered by my internal digging.I brought my lifelong expertise in unrequited love into play, endlessly finding new ways to thrill her. We spent most every day together, and any day we didn't, made me increasingly frantic. Although I didn't try to lure her from her husband, I did think of a way to lure him away from her.He was a game fanatic, which in 1980 was either pinball or arcade games, as there were not yet home video game consoles. It was around Christmas time that the first home joysticks made their appearance, and since I was spending Christmas with them, anyway -- the only Christmas I’d ever attended -- I made sure to rack up credit card debt I couldn't afford, in order to secure one of those for him.It wound up being the first one on the island, and kept him and the rest of the island's fanatics locked up and out of my way.I demanded past life readings from strangers who knew nothing about me, and in every one of them there were suicidal writing themes that mimicked my current life, right down to descriptions of women who looked and sounded like Michele. Of course this made me feel more crazily doomed, and ready to do anything in the world to make her mine.I'd say I had an official breakdown over her that lasted 2 years. The breakdown became the most important thing to me, like a job I worked at overtime and took home for bonus points. That consisted of dropping everything else of importance, including my ability to pay bills, tend to my man and child, or take care of business in any way.I had always been pretty fanatical about paperwork, felt I needed to deal with it right away, or you just wouldn't know what might happen. That tactic was clearly a result of my mother's absolute hysteria about bills, phone calls, or any sort of paperwork that had even the vaguest deadline.The way I'd found to prevent the possibility of mimicking that sort of behavior was to nip it in the bud by dealing with everything instantly. Numbers, and all Math, had been my favorite things, even before school, and for me paperwork was sort of like flossing your teeth, something I do every day whether I like it or not.A few times, for various family reasons, I was forced to leave Michele, and would spend the entire time with breathless anxiety attacks, sobbing myself blue-faced. Everyone suggested I get professional help, as I'd become unable to function in the slightest degree, but my obsessed frenzy invented endless reasons why this was impossible.Undoubtedly, in my youthful neurotic exuberance, at a time when I devoured nothing but 19th Century novels, I must have found something irresistibly romantic about fading away for love, in Camillesque fashion.Then, on my way down to an inevitable family gathering in LA, in the midst of sobbing so hard I disturbed everyone on the plane, I had a revelation of sorts. I decided then and there that I'd use being away from Michele as a starting point to healing, and would not return to the island until I'd completed the task.It was April, and the jacarandas were in bloom in LA. I'd never witnessed them before and was overwhelmed by their magnificence. From there I went to visit friends in DC, just in time for the cherry blossoms, then off to New Jersey, at that magical time when the dull green turns into furled pre-leaves, then on to full bloomage.After that I hit Boston, then Maine, just in time for their own versions of magic seasonal tree explosion. In other words, I spent the entire season following Spring as it burst forth from the bottom of the East Coast to the top, and this proved to present an automatic cure; I, too, burst forth, and discovered it wasn't only Michele I loved, but ALL women.When I returned home to the island, a new woman, freed from my chains, I felt liberated, raging with a high that enticed me into becoming an unstoppable woman-chasing stud.Before I knew it, I had my first official girlfriend. She’d actually come after me -- a first, and so far last, for me. For 2 years I'd thought of little but sex with a woman, and now, though not the right woman, my prayers were answered.This new woman was smart, funny, loved me and seemed to get me. She lived in Seattle, off the island, and found me through dyke circles by hearing of my love for Michele, whom I never pretended I'd stopped loving or wouldn't go to when I could. At any rate, there was now a woman in my bed.But much of my attraction to women was about softness. I've yet to fully recover from not being breast-fed by Cora Belle, the woman who raised me, has been dead since 1974, and who my last dog was named after. Emily Fisher's answer to Who has been the most important person in your life and why?Cora Belle, who was round, soft, and loved me fiercely, didn't come into my life until I was 2 years old, so obviously couldn't have breast-fed me. My mother, who was sharp bony points and meanness, had chosen not to breast-feed me.Call me a cliché, call me a misogynist, but ah luvs me sum titty. If fat Michele hadn't been fat, she would have been completely flat-chested, but it didn't matter because her entire body was like a giant soft breast.Unfortunately, the woman in my bed was not only completely flat-chested but was so angularly bony/skinny there was no comfortable -- let alone sexual -- way to get cozy with her.Sharp bony points reminded me of meanness, and that wasn't good. As a small child, walking city streets with my mother had been a balancing act. It wasn't safe to be too far from her because she tended to forget she even had children, but getting too close could easily mean an eye put out, or a nose broken, by the honed elbow of that angrily swinging arm.This was the fat and skinny of the situation as it stood 35 years ago. It was Skinny's 30th birthday and we were in her bed, in the city, not yet having woken up to the day, which was to be spent together with birthday delights. Then, we were awakened, early, by the telephone. It was Michele calling to tell me her vibrant father had just dropped dead.Of course I ran to her, stopping only to load up my car with gourmet treats not to be found on the island, because Jews live to feed those who are in mourning. I'd already, repeatedly, offered Michele a more fulfilling, loving life, so what could I do for her now, aside from devour chocolate and pastries with her, neither of which I ever ate, ever?2 years and 2 days later, George was also dead. I'd tended to him at home, having convinced University Hospital in Seattle to train me in the use of machinery which had never before been used out of hospitals. Not knowing what else to do with him gone, I moved to LA and dabbled in the music business.Many years later, I was back on the Island, visiting my friend, Shanti, for her birthday, staying at her house. After partying for hours, only Shanti, Michele, and a couple of others were still there. The night had been fun, or so I'd thought. When things wore down, Shanti somehow wound up spinning out about how envious she was of me and Michele for getting to watch George die, that she'd always wanted to witness death and thought she'd be good at it. Emily Fisher's answer to Have you witnessed anything noticeable happen immediately after someone dies?By 4 AM the lights were low, the music loud and lovely. Shanti, the other two and I, were still dancing. Michele, with her back to us, was bopping to the music while drawing it all at the drafting table. I looked up and got a delicious rush of nostalgia, remembering the early days of George, Michele, me, and my dog Cricket, before anyone had gotten hurt, when Michele hung at our Cultus Bay house after hours. George and I would be dancing, Cricket jumping in, and Michele would bop along, drawing it all.It was such a sweet wave I was hit by, suddenly, that I was inspired to run over to share it with Michele. When I did, she turned to me and started yelling, profusely -- about, essentially, how miserable she was made by my mere existence. Her explosion was so extreme it caused everyone else to run out the door in fear and embarrassment.The others ran home, and Shanti finally came back into her own house when she saw Michele slam out. She found me pacing the floor, red faced, and pulled me onto the futon with her. My heart was beating extra hard and I was stunned; it was so out of left field, since Michele and I, over the years, had remained good friends."What the hell was that about?" Shanti asked."Fucked if I know. Am I the only one who didn't know she feels that way? Has she talked about it?""First I heard of it, too," she said, "It was pretty shocking, would be for anyone to sound like that, but Michele? Not exactly one to pour out her feelings!""I know! I'm guessing she resents depriving herself of a life she could have lived with me, and blames me for exposing her to alternatives. Lots of what she said didn't seem to make sense, but I wasn't about to interrupt. Actually, I never said a word, just let her run on, and when she was done she was still running, ran right out the door!"Suddenly my lip felt large and odd."Hey, Shanti," I said, "look at my lip -- does it look funny? It feels all, sort of swollen."She took a peek."I don't see anything," she said.The next moment it felt like my lip doubled in size again."Whoa! Whoa! Look again! Something's up with my lip!""I still don't see anything," she said, her party eyes red and glazed, unfocused in the dim light.But I could feel my lip, with lightning speed now, bubbling up and over. I yelped, and ran to the bathroom to see for myself.In the second or two it took me to get to the mirror, my lip had grown 5 times it normal size, and within the next couple, my face had doubled along with it. I broke into a sweat, and simultaneously had to shit and puke. I'd never been allergic to anything in my life, but recognized disaster."Shanti! Call 911!" I screamed.Shanti, who'd followed me upstairs, started running in circles, yelping, "What, how, what do I do?""Call 911!" I repeated."How?? What do I do? How do I call?"By then I was sitting on the toilet with a world of pollution pouring out of my butt. It was fortunate her toilet sits right next to the bathtub, because I was throwing up, as well, and sheets of water were flying off my body.Clearly, the woman who less than an hour earlier had admitted that partaking in a mortal emergency was one of her life's dreams, was not going to be of much help. Somehow, I had to think, even though I could tell I was about to lose consciousness and didn't know if I was moments from passing out, or from dying."Forget it. It's too late for 911," I screamed. "Call Ron Lind (the pharmacist) and tell him to get over here with some injectable Benedryl, preferably with some adrenalin.""What? What? What do I do?" Shanti shrieked, still flying around in circles.I don't much know what happened after that. A more functional friend appeared with Benedryl, a couple other friends appeared, too, and it all became sort of back-in-bed-in-Kansaslike. I spent a couple of days in Shanti's bed, doped up on Benedryl, which I knew was not to treat an outside allergy, but an allergy to my own tortured soul, which had happened to me one time before, nearly 30 years earlier, also based on unrequited love. Emily Fisher's answer to Have you ever been to the emergency room? Why and what happened?After the face blow up catastrophe, I kept my distance from Michele. Maybe I don't know when I'm not wanted, but I can learn.Years later, after I'd moved to my desert castle Emily Fisher's answer to What does your dream retirement home look like?, I ran into Michele for the first time since my frightening near death catastrophe. I'd had no desire to ever visit the Island again, as the desert had exposed my hatred for the Northwest; I was only visiting there to renew my driver's license, since I'd maintained my Washington State residency forever, because they have no state taxes.During that visit, thousands of years of intertwined past lives got in the way, and I became heated with Michele in the opposite direction.We decided to go for a walk on the beach. It was one of my favorite spots and one I knew I may never see again. I'd wanted to hike with her up my favorite beach bluff, a breathlessly sexy endeavor. But Michele was too huffy & puffy for that.So I consoled myself with a laying on of hands. We rolled around on the beach, the only ones there, kissed and moaned in a driftwood lean-to someone had left behind, and watched 2 loons perform an Animal Planet mating dance, standing, it appeared, on top of the water with their giant wings beating ferociously.When I got home to the desert, I felt abused. Sure, I'm aware of myriad lives Michele and I have spent together as thwarted lovers -- in many of which I killed myself over her -- but that doesn't mean I have to be a slave to her now. After more than 20 years I was just tired out. So I got an official exorcism, and stopped thinking of her, haven’t seen her since.But my MySpace blog began to draw out so many life stories that the tale of my first woman seemed to pop up with unexpected frequency. The most annoying thing about that was that I heard from various sources that she read my blog. I don't know whether or not this was true, but in any case, she never gave any indication of stopping by, so I ignored the possibility.When George died, I knew I had to fill the time I'd spent nursing him with a real job, and since my career as a chef had ended after a car accident destroyed my back, I had to think up a new way to make money.My attention to George had absorbed my heart, and I hated the idea of doing something that didn't. So I gave it some thought and realized the thing closest to my heart was music, and though not myself a musician, I decided I could only be happy doing something in that world.When I considered the options there, I thought what I'd be best at was artist management, as I was feisty, unintimidatable, had knowledgeably honed musical taste, and was experienced in taking loving care of people, especially complicated creative types. Even though I'd never really had the patience for school, I had nowhere to start, knew nothing about the business, so figured schooling may be my best bet.I had expected to find something in LA -- the music business capital -- where my 6 years older sister lived. And I looked forward to finally forming a relationship with her.We had bonded for the first time when her long term partner had been murdered 2 years earlier Emily Fisher's answer to Have you ever flashed someone intentionally?, and then again when she was with me at George's death bed, along with Michele and George's son Bruce, who 20 years later built my desert castle.But in 1985, my pre-computer research surprised me with the information that the only actual music business school was in an as yet undeveloped Atlanta. Deep in the Louisiana Bayou, the KKK had burned down my house, in 1973 Emily Fisher's answer to Have you ever had a run in with the KKK?, and I'd vowed to never again live in the South, so this created a problem.My sister presented an option. She was (and is) a movie producer in LA, and she insisted I'd be better served jumping into the fire, unschooled, with only my innate talent and her connections to guide me. Although soundtracks hadn't hit the big time yet, and music wasn't near as important in movies as it later became, the two businesses were linked enough that she knew plenty of music movers and shakers.As opposed to everyone else she'd ever met -- and plenty of complete strangers -- I'd never asked her for a damn thing, of which she was well aware. She wasn't about to put her reputation on the line for someone as thoroughly anti-establishment and uncareer-experienced as I, but she was perfectly willing to set me up with big dog interviews I'd never have been able to acquire otherwise. From there it would be up to me.I met plenty of music business folk -- including those who managed giant stars -- and already knew lots of the close friends of my sister's murdered boyfriend, who represented the alternative music world.My lack of experience and inability to type, passed me over for full time jobs, but really, the most attractive thing to me about LA's musical work force, was that there were so many damn project jobs that, with a little spunk, it was easy enough to score enough employment to pay the bills.This also allowed me plenty of free days to write, hike the Echo Park hills I'd settled in, go out to hear live music most every night, and generally enjoy the cabin I'd found for very little rent in what felt like wilderness, allowed large yard nakedness, and year round outdoor sleeping, but featured one of the finest close up views of downtown LA I've ever seen.On the side, I took some UCLA Extension classes in music management, found unusual bands with whom I fell in love, and offered them my increasing managerial skills at no cost, with no return.When people asked me what I did -- a question I've always hated, but find impossible to avoid wherever other humans are involved -- I tended to answer, "Odd jobs; the odder the better", and most of my jobs were offbeat enough that I didn't have to report at "normal" hours, so could avoid the freeway crunch.I'd never expected to actually like LA, thought I'd only be there a couple of years to pick up some music business skills I could then bring back to Seattle. But I fell in love with my cabin in the hills, had started writing again after years of slump, during which time Seattle became overrun with Californians, and I began to lose interest in returning. Besides, I had other relatives in LA -- all of whom I liked, and barbecued with often. Then, suddenly, they all started having babies.I had always been the only baby fanatic in the family; most of the others had never even changed a diaper before those of their own offspring, but George was the only one whose babies I'd ever wanted. Though I wasn't particularly ready at the time, my trying to get pregnant by him had become a sub-plot of his 2 year illness, but hadn't proved fruitful.Suddenly, I was Auntie Em, and digging the hell out of it.I discovered that LA was such a serious music town that when I'd go out to hear music -- always alone -- I could get into an overpowering dancing groove that would take me away, turn my body into another one of the band's instruments. As opposed to anywhere else I'd ever lived, I found that men did not interpret this as a sexual come-on.I wasn't looking for attention, only to get my groove on, and the only attention of which I was aware (with my closed eyes) was when bands would sometimes ask me, alone, to join them on stage. There were plenty of other women grooving by themselves as well, and people left us the fuck alone. I can't tell you how much I appreciated this, and have never really seen it in any other city.In Echo Park, when I began writing a lot, I lost the momentum to even seek employment. To support myself, I was playing the credit card shell game: grabbing on to new offers of 0%, for a minute, switching over my high interest cards, applying for any card that came my way, and creating invented jobs with larger and larger annual incomes, until I'd wracked up a credit portfolio of half a million dollars, while I actually had no income at all.At first I made a point of paying off the debt each month, because the mere idea of debt petrified me, as it suggested the need for full time slavery in order to merely get by. It wasn't long, though, before I had so many cards running, that regardless of the opposing evidence, I began to feel wealthy.Ha ha on them? Felt like it, but I was the one who was developing an increasingly bulging debt I assumed would be paid by magic. Consequently, I'd continued my body-vibrating bedtime visualizations for a lot of years, and they'd come to include financial reparations.I suppose you're wondering what the fuck all of this has to do with why I've never even attempted to get published? Who could blame you? I hope you've been amused so far, because I'm afraid the ending is going to be rather blunt, and depressing.One day, while still living in LA, I was doing crunches on my floor -- because I was one toned ass, aerobicized muthafucka at the time, between wee-hour post-club gym visits, along with all that hiking and dancing. In the midst of my millionth sit-up, I spotted something under my dresser I hadn't noticed before. Curiosity got the best of me, so I crawled over to dig it out and investigate.Low and behold, it was a folder full of all the love poems I'd written Michele the year when, suddenly, daily prose to her didn't feel as though it made my heart bleed enough. I'd forgotten about these, and hadn't looked at them in nearly 10 years. Not too many people had seen them, but I knew there were some good ones, and Peter, my sister's murdered boyfriend, had sworn there were many songs-to-be among them. Emily Fisher's answer to What are your favorite self penned poems?Oh, lawd. I did not feel even vaguely enticed to dig into that shit. But I tend to be Curiosity's Bitch, so decided peeping one or two couldn't hurt.I don't believe it was the actual content of any of the poems I chose to read at random, more likely the mere thought of Michele, who'd been out of my head for quite some time. Or maybe it was just my moment for revelation.But my breakdown over her had somehow encompassed every fear that had made me who I was, and therefore crushed me into a blithering idiot.As I've mentioned, during those 2 years I'd let my entire life slide, giving free reign to my tortured heart, which left me no time to attend to anything else.I'd become a proficient crier, probably broke records, along with the blood vessels in my cheeks, nose and eyeballs. That collapse was a defining moment for me, and when, after 2 years, it ended, with the same unexplained immediacy as have all my large funks since then, I vowed to never again allow myself to sink that low -- to the point of preferring death -- and have kept that vow all these years.But for whatever reason, when I was reminded of those days, I realized for the first time, that when I'd met my sudden Springtime cure, it was with so much exuberance, such a desire to celebrate my freedom, that it had never occurred to me until that very mid-sit-up moment, that my cure hadn't included regaining my ability to function properly.To the contrary, in those 10 years, I'd become far more dysfunctional! The realization nailed me to the floor, sobbing to a degree I hadn't attained since my release from Michele. The fact is, I was scared shitless, as much by the evidence that I'd been so uncharacteristically un-self-aware, as by anything else. And while reality sank in, my fear grew.How could I -- who had prided myself in my ability to self-analyze -- have, for years, become increasingly incapable of doing the slightest thing, without even noticing?Stunned, I sat on the floor and thought about how my life had gone.When I'd left home with a chip on my shoulder, unconsciously it was my mother's fear of chaos I was rebelling against. My early childhood refusal to recognize that had led me to an obsession with numbers, which represented a system of order. I had lived and breathed Math; complex mathematical problems, worked out in my head in the middle of sleepless nights, had offered me some semblance of control.Michele had stolen my soul -- or, more precisely, I'd offered it up to her -- and part of my complete breakdown included consciously allowing myself the privilege of non-responsibility.It was only in contrast to my previous insistence on fanatically keeping my paperwork tight, that, at the time, I was able to recognize how I'd let things slide. But there was some glee attached to that. I'd felt I had a legitimate reason to ignore obligation, and the fact that my crisis was love based, had made it all the more admirable. It dragged me further from the world of Mathematician, and deeper into the freescape of artist/writer.I dismissed the needs of my man & child, and concentrated on the beauty of disintegrating my soul. You see, in a sense, to give up control entirely was a form of freedom. Living among my siblings had required me to look over my shoulder at all times, and to frantically row against the tide, simply in order to keep afloat.And then there was George, someone whose sensibility I'd trusted to steer us to safety, even if he was rapidly becoming the town drunk. But it wasn't too long before I stopped noticing that what needed to be done wasn't being done. George, by then, had progressed from Evolved Arty Lover Who Supported the Idea of Me Lusting After a Woman, into semi-amusing barfly, out for self-destruction.Eventually, it stopped occurring to me to consider necessity at all, choosing instead to drown myself in unrequited misery, which I would take to as a work-a-holic might to an esteemed job.And there it is. Any number of things have happened to me since then, including another woman, the woman of my dreams, who I'd been with for 7 years, with whom I'd expected to spend the rest of my life -- with her replacing George as my greatest love -- turning out to have been lying every time we'd discussed anything of import, and to have been leading a secret existence that put not only my heart at stake, but also my life.But before I was to figure that out, my monetary visualization ship came in.Billy, a cousin of mine, very unexpectedly left me some money when he died from long term melanoma. Emily Fisher's answer to Who are the people you owe so much in your life? He was just a few years older than I, and had made a killing with a roofing business. Billy was my mother's sister's son, a middle one of 6 children, all of whom were very close, as they also were to their mother; their father had been dead a while.As Billy had remained single, I'd assumed he would leave his money to his family. But it turned out he'd spent 6 years working out a complicated will left to 15 people, none of whom were related to him but me.I can only guess he wanted to support my life choices, since he'd always honored them.It was probably enough money for me to live on forever, but I chose, instead, to leave my lovely Seattle home, and be guided to a desert wonderland, to rocks that suggested how to build a home among them without incurring their wrath. What I have built here has far surpassed anything I could have imagined, but also used up all my money, before I could thoroughly complete the project.I have an innate sense that I have done the right thing in offering this magical dwelling to the universe and those who trample it, and I'm convinced the universe will also do the right thing, by somehow compensating me.But the more my dreams seem to be coming true, the less I seem able to participate.In my youth, any revelation of Self included an automatic fix of whatever problem had arisen due to it. But for some reason, since my 1990 Knock-on-the-Head realization that I hadn't in fact ever recovered from my Michele breakdown 8 years earlier, my inability to take care of business has only grown.I'm not opposed to throwing up my hands and begging for help, to seeking any kind of psychological assistance I may be able to find. And I have sought just about every type you could imagine. Yet, if anything, my capacity for competence has continued to shrink. More so since my Quora addiction.I may have felt fine, blessed, as The Queen of My Desert Castle, but even before my physical paralysis -- due to a back situation that eventually required surgery -- I had become increasingly paralyzed, emotionally, when it came to getting anything done at all.It was while recovering from back surgery that I broke down and got a laptop, and a satellite to run it, as there's no other means of internet access where I live. Almost immediately my friend, Candye Kane, turned me on to MySpace, and insisted I start blogging. I wasn't sold at first, but pretty quickly got sucked in.Try to picture this. When I say, "I can't get anything done,” chances are that the degree of which I'm speaking is far beyond anything you've ever experienced. I admit to still being good in an emergency, and if someone else is in crisis I can probably rise to the occasion of their need. But I absolutely can not lift a finger to orchestrate anything that could even vaguely be confused with my life.Yes, I was a fabulous 24/7 nurse to my dying mother, serving also as pharmacologist to sort out the increasingly complex mystery of various doses for the terminally ill. But I am absolutely not exaggerating when I swear to you that the only thing I can do for myself at all -- besides floss my teeth daily -- is to write.You might argue that, shit, barely anybody can actually get around to flossing their teeth daily. And that degree of written output by one of her advanced years is pretty impressive. But what can I tell you? Life's complicated. I can do that. I can floss and write. But I can't do any fucking thing else, no matter how much I really want to. Truthfully? In the last few weeks flossing has become a little irregular for the first time ever.For as far back as I can remember, my biggest dream had been to write and publish books. I've always felt that the thing setting me back the most in the writing department was some thefts of my work that left me feeling frightened and crippled. But I'd also always acknowledged the possibility of fear of failure/success, alongside the realization that I might just have to wait til my mother was dead before I'd feel safe enough to reveal myself publicly.Then, in 2005, as soon as I began to blog, I knew that a line had been crossed, that I no longer feared either failure or success, and that even my mother couldn't stand in my way.Right after this, my mother discovered she had advanced Lymphoma, and even though I’d long ago lost my adolescent sense of being a superhero, part of me wondered if I’d sacrificed my mother, same as I had my father. Of course I realize that's absurd, that I don't have control over life and death, and I'd done my damn best to keep my mother alive. But I'm just sayin'.There was an important agent interested in seeing my work. She'd heard me give my mother's eulogy, and was impressed. How's that for having it reinforced that my mother had to die before I could publish?By then, 99% of my writing was in my blog (though also in a desktop folder), and I'd had to format everything for MySpace in a way that would not be acceptable to an agent. I had so many damn pieces by then, too, that it would have been a real task to go through them all, figure out what was what, reformat some, and send them off to her.But what a small task, you might say, considering the possible gain! What you're not taking into account is that the task involved neither flossing nor writing. Therefore it became increasingly obvious that it wasn't going to get done, not by me alone, at any rate.How absofuckinglutely pitiful! Earlier in life I may have shamed myself into getting it done, but menopause removed whatever small amount of shame I may have ever carried.And so this, my dear friends, and only this, is the reason I'm not some form of published. Not because there's any issue between me and publishing -- I'm more excited and feel more ready than ever in my life, and never have the possibilities felt so realistic. Not because of that, but only because there's an issue between me and EVERYTHING.