In which I decide that in a perfect world I’d be a professional student. And then I complain.

Following are the things I have considered studying – in the past two weeks alone – if only I had the required time and/or money:

Astronomy. There’s a cool online course I want to take; it costs a couple hundred bucks and starts in a month or two. Why? Because all of my astronomy has come from reading hard sci-fi.

French. I hate that I have only one language. I hate that I only get about half of Eddie Izzard’s standup when he suddenly and inexplicably switches to French. Yes, Spanish would be a more functional choice considering where I live, but I actually know more French.

Piano. Because I should be writing original material and my nails are too long to play guitar.

Opera. Because it’s been twenty years since my last classical voice lesson and I think it would be fun. And hard. And fun! And it’s mostly in Italian and German!

Networking. Not because I feel compelled to study networking for its own sake, but because I keep thinking I should get my CCNA or MCSE or something in order to widen my employment opportunities (read: maek moar munny).

History. Wouldn’t it be great to take a history-of-the-world class again? Just for the hell of it?

I just wanna know things.

The things that are easy to know I simply look up. The things that are slightly more complex I learn from people in regular daily interactions. The things I really want to know, however, are more complex than ten minutes of face time and require some sort of formal structure.

Enter my nemesises nemesii: time and money.

I just want to learn. I don’t learn on a daily basis any more. How crap is that?

Some people solved the stay-in-school-forever thing by becoming professors. That had been a plan of mine at one point – before I got distracted by poverty, two re-locations, and a disastrous marriage – I was going to get my PhD in Lit (or history! or philosophy! or music! who cares!) and eventually teach just so I could stay in university forever.

Now I owe so much on my compounded student loans I couldn’t in good conscience ever go back to school again; I doubt I’ll ever fully pay off what I already owe, and I’d certainly be unlikely to live long enough to pay off another twenty to sixty grand additionally.

[BEGIN RANT] In all seriousness, they never should have loaned me all that money in the first place! Holy shit! How the hell is any 18-year-old supposed to figure out how not to live on credit when all they do is teach you that it’s okay to live on credit? I moved out at 17, got my own place, signed my name a few places, and ended up with a bunch of what was effectively free stuff: free classes, free books, free room and board, free mad money. All I had to do was go to class! Yeah!

Well, five years later I couldn’t answer my phone because of the collections calls. Who gives an 18-year-old with no income student loans and credit cards?

I’ve been out of school for a long time and I still owe over forty grand for student loans. It pisses me off that it was so easy to get so much money when I was too young to understand that it would stick with me forever. [/END RANT]

Yeah, so, maybe I’ll buy a keyboard and take some piano lessons.

Or maybe I’ll take the SAO Short Course.

Or maybe I’ll just buckle down and throw money at books and tests until I have a piece of paper that says I can subnet in my head and pull CAT5 from switch to workstation.

[BEGIN RE-RANT] Actually, I forgot: I was scholarship material. Oregon State offered me a partial scholarship in opera but for some reason I didn’t take it and went to my local community college instead.

I might actually regret not going to Oregon State, now that I think about it. I wonder what would have been different if I’d gone to college at a state school on an opera scholarship?[/END RE-RANT]

In other words: if I had ample resources, I’d be doing something other than what I’m doing. Money, as little as I regard it in my day-to-day life, actually owns me. I am money’s bitch.

I live in an attic because of money. I work a day job because of money. My entire life actually revolves around money – obtaining it, hoarding it, spending it – and I don’t even like the stuff. I’m lying in this bed I made, this bed of debt. (Note to self: never ever ever get married again ever ever EVER.)

You know what’s fucked up, my babies? That I am old enough to say – and genuinely mean – the following:

YOU WILL NEVER REGRET THE THINGS YOU DID.
YOU’LL REGRET THE THINGS YOU DIDN’T DO.

Just you wait. You too will wake up forty-something one day, and believe me: your dick will fall off. THAT’S how weird it is.