twenty-four and there's how much more?

the more i look at my options in life, the more i want to gouge my eyes out. i'm ten kinds of bummin' these days. probably doesn't help that it is dark by five. i've been spending disgusting amounts of time lying in bed the last couple days. tough to summon up the motivation to do a whole lot else sometimes, even though activity is the precise prescription. i cannot distract employment from my mind though. i'm so desperate for an answer that simply cannot come as easily as sitting around trying to think about it. but i cannot even come up with step one; i hardly know where to start. i know almost everyone has problems like not knowing what to do for a job to hopefully help you get through life, but most people seem to be rolling with the punches better than i have been recently. i'm really really disappointed that the notion of further education has not turned out anywhere close to the way i hoped it would. i don't completely lack interest or ability, but while the breadth of my interest subsumes legal study, the depth there does not match up with what i have taken on or would take on in actual employment, and consequently ability has become difficult to express. as painful as it is to experience a letdown like this and the social implications, however well hidden, are undeniable. it is not generally held honorable or desirable to attempt something of this magnitude without the fortitude to follow through to completion, or at least that is how i perceive things.
every time i come up with some fanciful idea, i can find some reason to shoot it down just as quickly. most things i think i may enjoy doing are either a) jobs people just don't generally get b) require experience which is difficult to obtain c) next to impossible to make a living at d) something plenty of other people do better than i ever will, and typically some combination of these four. i am willing to accept that i have a decent head on my shoulders, but this does not inhere any employable prospects on its own. a lot of people seem to think that it would be a great idea to do peace corps or teach for america, and while that is certainly a great route for some folks, i really don't have that much interest. to me, it seems like another way to delay the inevitable, with the booby prize of something to throw on the god damned resume. i don't think i could get a job based on my extreme distaste for the culture of resumes, but if i could, that is one area where i would have more passion than anyone i have ever met. here, please reduce yourself to a certain amount of page space. we will not tell you how big this space should be, but there is a good chance you will guess wrong and we will sneer and recycle your submission at the bottom of a bird cage, please enjoy the complementary metaphor. i have had a difficult time discerning whether i am a credible rebel with a time-honored notions of refusing to play by the rules or just a lazy slacker with a convenient excuse. in any event, the one thing i have to hold onto for employment is that i have strong feeling that the time has come for me to tend some bar. this i know i can do. i just need to find a place and talk them into it.
while that may not be a permanent solution either, it is a better holding pattern than what i have at present. i've been sort of hamstrung since a class a couple weeks ago. the topic was money and happiness. i am pretty sure i already knew this somehow, and i think most thoughtful people will find it intuitive, but the point is that people's happiness is generally pre-programmed. graphing happiness reporting shows pretty quick levels of normalization for people who have either won the lottery or suffered an accident rendering them quadriplegic (total bitch to spell that, not intuitive at all). a year or two ago i wound up in a break room discussion about greatest fears, and most people had answers involving violent crime or animals (fish!?!) and of course i had to really think about it and give some serious answer, but at least i was probably accurate. i said i was worried that i would never really be happy. so it was a little rough to hear that in my present condition. the good news is that those examples refer to a one-time event's effect over time, and hence leave out data on tangible changes in lifestyle. and they are of course generalizations as well. there is no guarantee that i will fail to ever be happier than i am at present, which is not setting any upward records on the y-axis, to say the least. and there is always dutch comfort: it could be worse.
for some perspective on that i got a phone call while i was writing this. someone near and dear to me signed up for the air force. she signed one dotted line, but i think she still has one chance for an out. the really sad thing is, this might be her most tenable option. she's been doing really well at school majoring in criminal justice at a four-year place after wrapping up an associates. but her living situation is absolutely unbearable, and she is literally broke. but the military... damn. may or may not work for her, but it is truly a bummer that someone who has turned her academic trajectory around over the last couple years is forced into this because of shitty circumstances. but it is a similar cusp, does one carry on with something that has visible problems mitigated by probable benefits, or does one bail and hope for the best? rough.
life is so fucking arbitrary.
after several attempts at talking with various people about how frustrated i am with my current situation and generally being a bad sport when these people were trying to help and comfort me, i am now feeling much better after a conversation that had little to nothing to do with what is going on or what should be going on. i don't know if that means that it is best to approach things in an indirect manner or just ignore the problem until it solves itself or somehow goes away (a favored and dangerously effective strategy i have successfully employed many times over the years) or what, but one way or another, this darkness has got to give. the bar was even closed the last time i tried to go. sign in the window, usual shit, bad wiring, no exit lights, no capacity posted, yadda yadda. typical shit. but we had a decent time nonetheless back at my buddy's place, saved some bucks and ate some heady takeout.
which was about the order of this evening, minus takeout plus cards. didn't last too long but it was a cool game, take-off on an older idea but eliminated possibility of a draw. no drinking game should end in a tie, after all. i think i won the last one tonight... no, i didn't, but it was close. man, i tried to go out and be sociable and have a good time, but here i am again and nothing has changed at all. i've tried to act right over and over, but i just don't seem to be getting anywhere. i got my education, and i even had a job with health insurance a couple times. this does not seem to have made any appreciable difference.
i have been told on multiple occasions that my age is deceiving. many people guessed far off base during odd plasma shop conversations. kat was shocked, and repeatedly told me i was "old for my age". even my mother referred to me as "24, but an old 24" today. what is going on here? i like to think the idea is that i have taken way too many things much too close to heart, but the end result is mostly that i am meaner, more sarcastic, and in some ways more savvy than my contemporaries. like i'm some bottle of wine that peaked before that general varietal should, and yet the verdict is somehow definitively in. i like to think that this makes me more credible in some way, but i think that all it really means is that i am more bitter and just generally more of an asshole than i should be at this point in life. unfortunately, and to return to the point, i do not think that this makes it any more likely that anyone would want to give me a job. sort of like buying an '03 car that somehow has like ninety thousand miles put in on it. i am a fucking saturn belonging to a commuter from delaware who works at an investment banking gig in philly. the only good news is that my owner loves dog fish head. but they do not know shit about automobile maintenance. alright, this metaphor has been extended beyond perceptible applicability and then some.
my only comfort now is that i have killed enough time to sufficiently end this day. i even left the house and hung out with people. i feel like this is enough. better than yesterday, where i made it out of bed for less than twenty percent of the day and went to bed earlier than my grandmother. and your grandmother too. i almost felt bad that i missed the early bird special at denny' it was so early; should have at least made it worth my while at that point, you know?
sorry, now i'm just rambling shit because i cannot get a good enough connection to just post the shit i have already laid down, and that is how it is. feel my wrath, er, boredom. speaking of which, i was really serious about achewood. i must admit that i have now viewed every strip one can access from going and looking into it. my only regret is that i squeezed it all into this past week. what am i going to kill time with now? the point is that if you were not convinced to look into it before, you should now. this is a literary phenomenon one cannot afford to overlook. i saw an interview where someone described the characters as having tokeinesque depth, and that was the truth being spoken. this isn't just characters in a novel, this is really well developed archetypes. carl jung would probably be satisfied. more satisfied than i am with this internet connection at least. hell, i could give a second-by-second breakdown on neil young's cowgirl in the sand before i can actually make this post at this point. in fact i will probably give up on waiting for this to work tonight and post this in the morning, and feel real good about the lack of typographical errors despite a moderate amount of beer consumption. i should just get a job as a copy editor. i would be good at it and i get a sick satisfaction out of writing devoid of stupid errors. now i just need to find someone to watch my cats over the holiday. or maybe i should just sneak them on board in my pockets. they're so fuckin little.