I had no particular idea what I wanted to do, my interests were too broad to exclude anything from my vision board, but thankfully the Canadian school system taught me that I was a disappointing, low class fool with no prospects, and my options were whittled down for me. Joining the military was an option, but in 2003, it didn’t seem like the right fit for a 140 pound queer kid with enough sense to see warmongering for what it was, with no desire to die for such bullshit. So I went to theater school, with dreams of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, or fortunately, for me, a couple of years in I could tell that, though there was a niche for performers who just liked to entertain people and tell new stories, the paths I had dreamed of were, in actuality, journeys of deception, facade and prostitution with few guarantees. So I ran away, took what I could get, and ended up in food service. There was something so comforting about blue-collar work after the experiences of my life, that I never really left it. I had seen a world of divorce and abuse and falseness and unhappiness and hate and exclusion and isolation in pursuit of some bizarre idea of what success looked like, so I just rejected my middle class suburban programming completely. I settled down in a lovely small town eventually, built a couple houses, grew up a family, had a bunch of lovers I genuinely loved, planted things, and worked honest jobs for honest pay. I never stopped dreaming, however, and eventually worked my way up to putting out my shingle in the food trades. How it works out long term is still unknown, and climate change may just fuck us all in the end, but I feel proud of my accomplishments, nonetheless. College was a part of my education, but life provided much more (but you still have to read books).