This photo, that
theeugene sent me tonight, embodies my former life.
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/rdchino/pic/0005a66d/s320x240)
When he took this picture (this was probably late 2004 or early 2005), I was the bankruptcy technician at the Sacramento County Tax Collector's Office, I sat in a cubicle from 8am-6pm Monday through Friday, I was blind as a bat, I had excellent fashion sense, and I had a respectable income. Then I decided that grad school was a better path for me, so I quit the job, got LASIK surgery, and moved to Ohio in order to read a never-ending pile of books and live off a stipend of about a quarter of my former salary. It was my way of sticking it to the man. Take that, middle-class conformity!