Ladies and gentlemen, I pledge to give this new job my best. I really think I can do a good job.→[More:]

When I think about it, I've been waiting for years for an opportunity like this.

I don't have the experience for it, but I do think that I have the judgement.

For years I have been swimming in politics. I stopped to reflect on it recently and it's absolutely staggering how much of my time I've spent on this, way back since I was fourteen years old.

Therapy has encouraged me to stop and consider the point that this is fucking worth something.

So now, I have a chance to prove it. I'm reading a lovely novel that centres on the meaning, what is it to be a knight?

I think of myself as a bit of a knight. And I have a long list of battles, some won, some lost.

Therapy, again, has encouraged me to remember this. I set out to be what I wanted to be and, hell and fuck, I did it.

So here I am with experience that started in a small circle of anarchists, through the rumbles of Seattle, and into years of community organizing and socialist parties, and now into a mainstream one. I swim in it, that's like water and air to me. That's a skill, and therapy, yet again, reminds me that I fought for that, and I fought well. I will never forget that and if I move away from the movement for social change I'll be a dry and withered turd.

Another recent skill I got is to admit that I have a mental illness, and that it gives me limits and work to do, and if I do it then maybe I can make something of this new job.

I pledge to do the work, and to do the new job's work diligently and to be attentive to new knowledge.

I'm telling you here because you all have been giving a shit about me. Thousands of thanks for that.

I am building an edifice made out of hope. Thanks go also to Barack Obama for reminding me of the idea of hope - that you can just talk about hope, and you'll find it. It's everywhere. People are open to learning and change.

I hope that this building made out of hope protects me as I transition out of the current job and into the new one. I'll need to remember it, and I'm posting it here. You all have your own buildings made of hope and all of your loved ones who live inside.

I also believe that this is God's grace and mercy working in my life.