California Has Changed Us…

Honey, does this color make me look fat???

LOL…No, not this much!!

I just loved this picture and wanted to show it off. Of course it isn’t us, though we’re just as creative, but I’d love to hang out with these guys. I’ll bet they have some lovely stories to tell about Arts & Crafts Day at the school for the Butch.

See, I heard several times before Seth and I moved here to Fresno, CA that this state would change us. That we’d become just another pair of screaming California liberal hippie tree hugging you-know-whats. Hell, Seth heard this from many people back in the East.

I felt bad that he had to shoulder such a burden of trying to convince everyone that he was going to be alright. After all, where he comes from, this picture pretty much sums up what those folks think of California. Hell, half of America still thinks this is what California is all about.

This just isn’t true.

Say what you will, but this state is just as religious and conservative as any other state. Don’t let the hype about Than Franthithco & Hollywood fool you. Spend some time here and you’ll see that in many areas here, liberals are in the minority.

Now there were a lot of people worried about both of us going all freaky, and losing our moral compasses and beliefs. That couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, we have remained steadfast in our beliefs and, through the past four months of struggle trying to find work, financial, family, trying to start a life and everything else related to making such a move, we are all the stronger.

We’ve finally become gainfully employed. We are very close to getting what we’re calling a “starter apartment”, we’ve made a truly awesome collection of new friends that our BFF’s back East will love!!

We’ve struggled every single day (no exaggeration) trying to gain a foothold here during what is probably the ugliest time (economically) in our lives. There have been many temptations to take the easy way around things, such as unemployment and other crutches.

(don’t get me wrong about unemployment…many people use it wisely and as their only means to make it…I just chose to fight my way through this without going that route)

We both chose to fight the good fight. We wanted jobs…BOTH of us…and we weren’t about to give in or give up.

There were many times we would just get so frustrated with going one step forward only to be yanked fifteen steps backward by some idiotic snafu at a payroll office or agency or multiple interviews that lead to absolutely nowhere.

We blamed Fresno.

We blamed California.

We blamed Arnold & Maria (that “When Can You Start”? commercial was a LIE!!!).

We blamed the economy.

We blamed people around us.

None of this seemed to solve the problems and all getting angry about it accomplished was to fill us with so much negativity that between the tears we’d lose hope and emotional fortitude.

Well no more.

Many lessons have been learned since we moved here. Some were hard to take, because we lost some friends along the way due to distance making assumptions seem easier to believe. But there have been some good lessons as well.

1. We no longer take anything for granted. What we have now is what we’ve worked our asses off for. It might not be much at the moment, but guess what, it’s earned and it’s ours.

2. Doing without…while it sucks out loud, it’s taught us that we can survive on very little when necessary and we can stretch a dollar so far you’d think it was made of rubber.

3. Even if you have little to no money, volunteer your time to worthy causes. The results have been worth their weight in gold.

4. When we spend time with our friends, it’s like taking little mini-vacations. Just don’t ask us for a postcard or a fridge magnet…it would probably just be of a cocktail umbrella.

5. Film Festivals (thanks Reel Pride) Rule!!!

There’s more that we’ve learned, but you get the idea.

Our next step is to get our own apartment. Anyone got any ideas on good, safe and cheap starter places?