Aisle 3

Aisle 3: The Empty Aisle

Things are not at there best at the moment. Far from it. I'm currently fighting an uphill battle with the job market that this country loves oh so much. It is interesting how when things look their bleakest there sometimes can be glimmers of pretty darn interesting stuff off in the distance.

Case in point, right now I'm beginning to make ready one of three (or four) possible escape/exit plans from the city I currently reside in, due to lack of funding. Now this isn't really something I enjoy planning out, in fact I absolutely cringe at the prospect of having to cut and run. What can I say I actually enjoy living in Brooklyn. But as I am making all these plans I am also getting all these excellent reasons to fight tooth and nail to stay here. I've been asked to be part of two practice groups, there's a kid who keeps wanting to start up a sketch group with me, several of my friends have moved relatively close to my current location and things in general have begun to take an interesting turn. So moving is a bit out of the desired plan at the moment.

Sorry this post isn't going to be at all entertaining (are they ever really though?) I kind of feel I need this space right now just to take stock of my current situation and, without giving too much information, think out some things that need to be thought out. You have to understand I'm a very hesitant man. Despite all my love for spontaneity and randomness, I get weirded out when I have to make an actual move. This is something that has pretty much wrecked most of my personal life, I don't act fast enough, or worse, I pause in the midst of acting in order to rethink what is going on. It would be easy to blame the constant exposure to academia for this. After spending a nonstop year analyzing every small movement and trying to figure out the social implications of said movement could be seen as having an adverse effect on me. However, this has always been the case with me. Even when I was a small child.

When I was growing up, despite all the idiotic things I did (the jumping off of bikes onto a gravel filled play ground at top speed for example, with no helmet I might add) I was very cautious when dealing with any form of social interactions. Long winded explanations aside I was one shy mother trucker when I was growing up. The youngest of three siblings and the only boy of the lot I would place myself in the background most of the time. I will say this worked to my advantage as I tended to get in trouble less but in the end it made me feel safe on the back line of life. So whenever I was placed in a social setting (school, friends' birthday parties, after school specials, family functions, etc) I tended to be very quiet and solitary; unless, of course, some one actually made the move to talk to me. Then I would easily just step in and run amuck along with the whole gang.

I kind of made this my way of acting through out most of my schooling. It wasn't until I was in college as an undergrad that things seemed to be changing. For one thing people started to actually look up to me. Which was odd to me. In essence I was sort of popular due to my helpfulness and being a nice guy (albeit a nice guy with a strange sense of humor). When I moved to New York and started grad school I told myself I was going to change. I was going to be more proactive in my life. In a sense I did that, sort of. Well for a while I did that, really up until July I was pretty set in my life. I was doing what I wanted, hung out with the people I liked, flirted with the people I was interested in (didn't ask any of them out as well... there's good reasons for why I didn't do that, I've wrecked enough homes for this decade). Then came July, the month of the nothing (see the awesome film Fantasia). Nothing went right. Temp agency couldn't find me work, all my applications never received any real responses, and the two relatively great interviews I did have all ended in no final result. It has been a rough month. My spirits have been more or less battered and I'm a bit lost as to what to do. A bit lost mind you, I haven't totally lost my bearings completely I've just kind of strayed a bit and am attempting this week to get back on track.

So what does all this amount to? Why am I writing all this "Woe is me" pity material for all the world (or at least a small portion of a community) to read? I don't really know. It could be because if I get this down I'll feel a bit better about everything. It could be because of reasons I'm not even going to post on this here blog (as I figure some privacy should stay with me). It could also be because I'm at my wit's end and need to vent to the void that is the internet rather than vent to some one else (as it seems that whenever I vent I get the same responses and then end up spending more time working on other people's problems rather than my own, not that I mind helping people out, it's just I think it's time I find someone that is just my own private and trusted venting partner).

Recently I was corresponding with an old friend of mine from high school. We were catching up with one another and sharing our mutual stress about where we were in life. At one point in one of the letters I sent her I commented that I wasn't happy with where I was but was happy with where I seemed to be going. This still holds true. Things are getting better, but slowly and not in the areas where I'd most appreciate improvement. Still, things seem to be picking up. I hope things continue this way. I hope things continue. And I figure I really need to make a couple of phone calls, start acting my age and so forth, and get rid of all this crap in my room I totally don't need anymore. Otherwise I'm going to go the way of Meursault, be an absurd character that shirks his responsibilities (See Camus' "The Stranger"). I need to start finding my own way. I also need to stop clinging to the back line and step forward.

Eh, tomorrow I go for an interview for a library assistant gig. It sounds interesting and was recommended by the last job I interviewed for. Maybe things will change tomorrow. Maybe they won't. Who knows, this time next month I may be in Atlanta trying to find work down there, or in Connecticut trying to not go insane, or even on the couch of some friends who live up the street from me. Hopefully though, next month at this time I will be right were I am now, just not as stressed out. And hopefully I will be writing a more engaging and interesting post for people to stumble upon. I mean, cause honestly how old am I? How many of these embarrassing posts about my personal life and psychosis have I made? On the plus side I didn't mention anything about "these old hands" or "louts." Sigh... man I've said some really dumb things in the past, and I thank each and every one of you who repeatedly brings these things up, time and time again. Keeps me from doing that again.