Make Another Day

Day 19 of unemployment and I am losing my mind.  I’m pretty sure I’m on the verge of some sort of breakdown.  And not like a moment of clarity, everything suddenly makes sense sort of thing.  More like a shave my head, cry uncontrollably, dress in black, and write bad poetry kind of breakdown.  Or possibly a check into a padded room, eat soft, salt-free food, and speak in a non-threatening tone kind of breakdown.  And this is only day 19, people.  Day 19.  I’m fairly certain that insanity isn’t supposed to set in until at least day 25.

Driving up I-5 toward Seattle this weekend, it struck me. Here we were going to see a band that has been broken up almost my entire life, talking about the situation with Russia, realizing that the Republican candidates are running for Reagan, not president, and the truth hit; we are right in the middle of a brand new era. Unfortunately, that era is the eighties.

I never got the chance to really experience the Cold War. Hell, our generation has been far too busy dealing with the actual bullets flying, people dying kind of wars to spend even a minute worrying about the standoffs of ideologies between this mythical us and them. But real wars are far too taxing on the mind. Actual foreign policy is just so hard to create, use Reagan’s instead.

This trend extends far past politics. Not only are The Police reuniting (fantastic show, thanks for asking), but David Hasselhoff is on TV, acid washed jeans are back, there’s a new Die Hard movie (Die Hard and God Bless, or something like that), and a new Rambo movie. And the final harbinger of this bizzaro 80’s; Rocky IV (Rocky vs. the USSR) has been on a loop for the last few months. Is Sly Stallone fueling our anger at the great red menace again? I know I can’t look at Apollo Creed’s patriotic shorts and his sticking and moving for America, without feeling a gentle tear of pride slide down my cheek. (I’m campaigning for Livin’ in America to be our new national anthem. Who’s with me?) (more…)

If only I had the time I said, I’d update this blog more often.  I’d tell everyone about the fun we’re still having and all the things we’ve seen.  But I never had the time, and work dulled my brain, making even simple words impossible to form into coherent sentences.  So, you know what?  I quit my job and now I have all the time in the world to do lots of things, including this.

Obviously, updating the blog was way down on the list of reasons to quit, so low in fact, that it never even made the list.  I quit because the entire purpose of this grand experiment was to change my life, and that just wasn’t happening.  I quit because my life’s ambition was not to answer phones and go to the post office.  I quit because I deserve to feel good about waking up in the morning.  And so now it begins.  This next phase.  Is it actually possible to be happy about a job?  Are there lots and lots of people who wake up every morning excited to start their days?  Is it possible that I could be one of those people?  Or are mind-dulling, empty, phone answering, post office running days my fate?