fives and fours

Here are all the films I've rated through NetFlix as either a five- or four-star flick. The most recent five-star addition is Martin Scorsese's epic The Departed, which I watched earlier tonight. Wow. Scorsese has a patent on the crime-drama genre, and, in my opinion, he fails only when he attempts to venture away from that brand. Bringing Out the Dead and The Aviator are dreadful, but The Departed is a damn near perfect film. Jack Nicholson epitomizes evil; Leonardo DiCaprio is the underdog everyone wants to cheer; and Matt Damon is a scumbag. Regardless of their roles, their executed perfectly in a masterfully told story. I can't say enough about this one. Five stars all the way.

today phrom phed ex

meh

Can someone please tell me why The Deer Hunter is regarded as one of the great films of American cinema? It's #79 on AFI's 100, but I found it to be incredibly mediocre.

xx

rant: mediators of information and the music industry

Many blog posts ago I cited and expounded upon Thom Yorke’s thoughts about the current and possible future state of the recording industry. I was reminded of that post earlier today when I saw that Arcade Fire’s highly anticipated album The Suburbs – an album that the BBC said betters Radiohead’s OK Computer – had leaked on to the Interwebs, eleven days before its official release. It’s no coincidence the leak coincides with the exact day publications and “official” music blogs got their advance copies, which leads me to my point: If record labels, be them indie or corporate, wish to curtail illegal downloading they should begin by terminating the tradition of giving publications and “respectable” blogs promotional copies of releases. (Further protection can be made by releasing new albums digitally one week or more before its physical release; this would counter leaks from the labels’ printing plants, which usually occur 5-7 days before the official date and are the most common source of leakage.) This is an obvious point, of course, but I don’t support it with obvious logic. The clear logic says that early leaks will likely cease if all copies of all albums, the digital and promotional versions, are released simultaneously. My point, however, is the tradition of generating buzz through rock-critic accolades isn’t just moot in the Internet age, it’s offensive. It implies that only specific outlets can be trusted with informing the public about upcoming titles.

Newspapers and traditional media outlets are dying because the Web is filled with millions of John Q. Citizens who are there, literally in the midst of breaking news. They have phones equipped with cameras and wireless access to the Internet; within minutes, raw pictures and succinct descriptions emerge from those moments. Blogs report and the media verify… sometimes. (As the recent Shirley Sherrod story proves, traditional media sometime fail to do this.) Regardless of the presence of traditional media, the news will find the people. This same logic applies to music: if it’s worthy, it’ll find ears. Many labels operate on the notion that the mediators of information, i.e. publications, respected blogs, must be part of the distribution equation. Why must we, the consumers, be spoon fed the latest reviews when the music is just a click away? I firmly believe that it’s this egotistical sentiment that drives and even encourages some to illegally download music. Again, if the music is good, it will reach the listeners. Music fans are constantly connected to the Web. We read: blogs, text messages, Facebook updates, Twitter. All these streams of information pour into our brains – unmediated. Much of what we encounter on the Web, for better or worse, is unfiltered. Never mind music fans, consumers in general have unprecedented power. Before we purchase that 32” HDTV, several sites give us detailed information, including reviews from real consumers. We, the consumers, now more than any other point in the history of consumerism, have access to incalculable knowledge, which is priceless power. We have harnessed this force through the vast networks that comprise the Internet. No longer do the borders of geography restrict our ability to connect and communicate. President Barack Obama’s campaign was successful largely because it tapped into those connections, those vast networks. The rise of the Tea Party and the recent massive gathering in Toronto of G20 protesters are further examples, however disparate, of the Internet’s potential to gather people and access power.

I believe record labels can survive in this new era, but for them to do so, they must accept that many revenue streams have permanently dried. For the indie labels, adaptation has been a way of life, and it’s much easier to conform to changing markets when your product is quality bands and the balance sheet is small. For the larger labels though, the story is different and the losses are greater. Regardless of strategy, the Internet has forever altered the music business, and I’m amazed by the number of industry people who remain willfully ignorant about the Internet and its implications. Practically every label has embraced iTunes, but this isn’t the case for the smaller, more indie-oriented eMusic. Every label should actively seek to make its music available on every mp3 site. Apparently some music business people don’t realize that music is an innate expression of the human condition, and it doesn’t need a business model to be produced. It’s simple: evolve or die.

In the end, many businesses remain amazingly ignorant about the Internet’s impact on, well, nearly everything. It seems as though some record labels are going to ride their camels until they die; sustenance is the status quo, apparently. For musicians, however, the floodgates are wide open. Sites like Bandcamp.com are built for the DIY artist. (The Holy Grail of indie music, Pitchfork.com, recently launched AlteredZones.com, which further legitimizes the whole DIY music scene [oxymoronic, I know].)

History may look back at this period of the Web as something of a Wild West, in which anarchy breaks some and reinforces others, only to give way to crude, loosely formed power structures. Whatever the case, John Q. Citizen has more power now than any other point in his lifetime. Are the mediators of information still needed? Or can Mr. Citizen utilize the knowledge bank and discern the good from the bad?

xx

short: ride

“Is it supposed to rain today?” the thin man asked as he boarded the bus. Pluming clouds of grey loomed overhead.

“Flip a coin,” the driver answered. “The man on the radio said there’s a 50% chance of thunderstorms today.”

“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t,” said the thin man, his words trailing off.

“You know, bein’ a weatherman is the only profession in which you can have a 50% success rate and still keep your job! If I had that kinda rate takin’ you folks from point A to point B, I woulda been outta job a long time ago!” Jackie the driver responded.

Jackie had been driving me from point A to point B for three years, and I don’t think I ever saw him without a smile on his face. He was a good man. You felt it whenever he greeted you boarding the bus. Three years, five days a week he was my morning commute, yet I knew practically nothing about him. My imagination filled in all the vacant spaces: he was a happily married man, married his high school sweetheart twenty-five years ago, had two kids, a dog – a postcard sent from the American Dream.

But I had no idea if those things were true.

I’ve never been one to strike up a conversation. I can’t do small talk. I’m lucky if a single coherent sentence stumbles from my lips. Maybe two. Then it’s silence.

When I do speak to Jackie or respond to a fellow passenger, it’s always the mundane and brainless. Like the weather, current events, or “the game last night.” Bullshitting has never been my forte. And I always avoid personal topics. The morning following my dear mother’s death – the very next day, a Thursday – I, as usual, was at the bus stop, at 9:15 sharp. I stood there inside the fiberglass shelter. Waiting for Jackie. Inside of me was a million pieces of broken glass, but I’m a man who revolves around the burning sphere of routine, habit. So, I was there, dressed in my freshly pressed suit, polished shoes and overstuffed briefcase, and at 9:18 Jackie pulled up.

“How ‘bout them Cubbies last night? Is there any hitter in the bigs who can hit Ricky Delgado right now? Guy is on fire!” he said.

“He sure is, he sure is. Cubs could ride him all the way to the playoffs!” I, feigning enthusiasm, responded as I took my usual seat next to the third window. I sat there, silently. Watching people board. Watching people exit. Watching and listening to Jackie, I just sat there, waiting for my bus stop at the Crown’s King Hotel, which was exactly one block from my employer, Thompson and Associates. I was a file clerk there. Eight hours a day I filed manila folders according to last name, department, claim type, resolved cases, whatever the code indicated, I placed it in its respective vault. I suppose the job fitted my personality. Other people answered phones. Others met clients. I was in the background of it all, thumbing through stacks. Silent. Dust. Back there somewhere. “You’re going to be screwed when your company goes digital with its records system,” some guy once cracked. I couldn’t formulate a response, so I just chuckled and smiled real big. Small talk has never been my thing.

Anyway, Thompson and Associates did go digital, and three weeks thereafter I was out of a job. Just like that. The following Monday, however, I, like some loyal lapdog, took my place inside that fiberglass shelter. Pressed suit, the shoes, the briefcase, all of it – I was there as if nothing had happened. I’ve always been a man of routine, and I don’t know if it was fear, an unwillingness to accept my circumstance, or some internal breakdown – hell, it was probably all those things – but I just couldn’t not be there that Monday morning and every morning after.

I got off at the Crown’s King Hotel and walked. During those weeks I walked down every downtown corridor. I’d kill a few hours at some coffeeshop, burn a few more at the newsstand, and sometimes, I’d take a taxi and just ride.

But this morning – exactly seven weeks after Thompson and Associates canned me – I took a cab to the airport. The airport was like a monastery of Americanism. Clean. Efficient. Towering over everything. The only people inside its soaring glass walls were those conducting business. Everyone inside had a purpose, a reason. Except me. I suppose I came there to find a role, a function. And if I couldn’t find that, at least I came dressed for the part. When you’re a professional-looking businessman, no one stands in your way, because you’re above them, all of them. Your tailored suit. Your cufflinks. The gold watch. Even your skin is an extension of those material products. The flesh on your face looks like a perfect slab of tenderized meat, and you’re ready for the heat – you’re waiting for the heat – because you’re a motherfucking businessman. I wasn’t one of them, but I worked under them, and I saw how people looked so small in their shadows. But out here, or killing time at the newsstand, or exchanging words with a sexy intern at a Starbucks, no one knows who crawls under that slab of meat. No one knows I’m an unemployed file clerk whose denial won’t allow him to accept his reality. I look important. And that’s all that matters.

Like a drunk throwing darts, I randomly picked an airline, then picked a city. “When’s the next flight for Boston?” The ticket agent smiled, produced clicks on a keyboard and told me, “Actually, it appears we’ve got one leaving in fifteen minutes. Would you like that plane, sir?” I paid for the ticket and immediately began running for the appropriate concourse. Through the terminal I ran, and I know the onlookers must have marveled at me, the running businessman, struggling against time to make a plane that would make a connection that would produce signatures that would
make
money.

I made my flight, and now I’m here. In some hotel. Hell, I can’t even remember the name of this place. In the sprawling metropolis, all the hotels look different from the outside, but once inside, everything’s the same. The fake art on the walls change, but everything else is the same. You open the door and the same wall of air-conditioned cold wraps around your body. You separate the curtains and see the same indistinguishable skyscrapers. You find the mint carefully placed on your starched pillowcase.

I’m near the Logan International Airport, it’s one of the busiest airports in the country, and the constant sound of 767s arriving and departing is like an invisible medicine; I think about all the faces on those giant jets, all those people with some place to go, to be – destinations waiting to be grasped. A loved one waiting to be hugged. A hand waiting to be shaked. Personal exchanges of mutual significance. When the jets are whirring and the walls of my room struggle to remain intact, I close my eyes and lose myself in the sound, and sometimes, I convince myself I’m an important person
I’m an important person
I’m an important person
with a destination waiting to be greeted.

Behind that heavy hotel door and under the glow of flashing television advertisements, I’m here. Under the soaring jets and behind the hotel drapes, I’m here. I’m closing my eyes and trying to believe that this isn’t me. And this isn’t happening. I want to believe that the veneer I’m living under is just the collapsible scales a snake has shed. The real me is inside that fiberglass bus shelter, waiting for Jackie. But I can’t convince myself that’s reality. See, bullshitting has never been my thing.

I think I’ll leave this room. Tighten my tie. Spit shine my wingtips. Take a cab. The cabbie will ask me “Where to?” And I’ll respond, “I want you to take me to the edge.

“Take me to the edge of all this,” I’ll say, looking through the oily fingerprints of my backseat window. “Take me to the edge of the flashing lights, the people, the destinations. Take me to the edge of it all, and I’ll get out. I’ll go over it. Jackie’s waiting for me.”

xx

cuts

Today I finally landed a job. I got a pizza-delivery gig at a pizzeria about five minutes from home. It is NOT the fantasy role-playing game shop/pizza place where I interviewed a few days ago. In fact, on Monday I was offered a delivery position there but turned it down. I declined it for many of the reasons I stated previously, and aside from the manager being a tight ass, the atmosphere there seemed foul and somber, so I, taking a chance, declined the job. Luckily, this morning’s job interview/job offer happened. Before that occurred though, I had an interview at a temp agency. Ugh. Over the past few weeks I’ve learned one thing about the lower end of the job market: avoid spending any time at a location where the unemployed gather. It’s depressing. While waiting for my interview, I saw a haggard-looking man in his fifties ask for work. “What are you looking for, sir?” asked the attractive young woman behind the desk. “Meat cutter. I’m a meat cutter,” he replied, his voice stained by a million cigarettes. The woman tapped her keyboard and searched a job database, I assume. Finding nothing she offered the man an application and said, “If anything comes up we’ll give you a call.” “Nothing’s gonna come up,” he said with a dry chuckle. “I’ve been looking for work for eight months. I’m a meat cutter. That’s what I do. Nothing’s gonna come up.” He left, and soon a woman who appeared to be approaching sixty years replaced him. The agency didn’t have anything for her either. Then she left, and I wondered what happens to those people. The people who, like me, live paycheck to paycheck, but, unlike me, these people are fifty, fifty-five, even sixty years of age – how long have they been struggling? And how long will that struggle continue? What about their children? Their grandchildren? How will America color their struggles?

I’m sitting here drinking a Triple Sec Sunrise. I feel like shit. And I shouldn’t. Today was a good day. But I’m tired of the struggle. I feel as though I’ve struggled my entire life. I feel as though this labor will only continue. It won’t – at least it shouldn’t, because in seventeen months my name will be suffixed with “RN.” But fuck, those seventeen months seem a light year away, and, knowing my life, a setback will deal me a crushing blow, and then I’ll devise the grand exit I’ve morbidly fantasized about for years. Hell, why wait? Let’s do it now! Chop-chop! Bang-bang! But no, that’s just the goddamn melodramatics typing! But why? Why does this struggle feel like a permanent fixture around my neck? I lack confidence. I feel so goddamn incapable of accomplishing practically anything. As a child, I don’t recall receiving much encouragement from my parents. I’m not condemning them; I’m simply making an observation. I don’t recall getting the you-can-do-anything-if-you-just-set-your-mind-to-it speech. Shouldn’t parents encourage their children to—Fuck it. I’m not going down that path. Again, I’m not blaming my parents for anything, I’m my own man and yada yada, but I really wish I had more confidence in, well, everything. And this lack of confidence is going to be a huge hurdle to clear when I begin my course work in five weeks. I have absolutely no faith in my abilities to become a successful nurse. I don’t. I’ve heard “you’re going to make a great nurse” from a number of people – some friends, some acquaintances, others strangers. Does an ounce of integrity reside behind those wishes? I don’t know. I feel as though there is an immense rift between the face I present to literally everyone and the person I really am. I feel as if that gap will eventually eat itself and the inevitable collapse of me will reign in its aftermath.

That’s all I’ve got for tonight.

xx

from safety to where...?

A man is awakened in the middle of the night by screams and the approaching heat of an infernal wall of flames. “We got to find a way out! Everybody, come on!” a man outside yells. And then a woman’s agonizing scream is heard. “Where are you!” she screams. We can’t see the flames. We can’t see the people scurrying for safety. All we see is Viggo Mortensen’s character, whose character is simply named the Man, preparing a bath for his family’s survival.

The Road is a staggering film about love and survival and the themes that connect those concepts. The film thrives on the stark reality the Man and his son, the Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), face in a post-apocalyptic world in which most life has been destroyed. Those who survived The End wander ashen landscapes searching for food while dodging roving packs of cannibals. The sun is obscured, and the Man and the Boy are on the move, headed to the States’ southern coast, where they hope it’ll be warmer. There is little dialogue in the film – the story unfolds through the bleak but beautiful visual desolation and is told through a series of emotional flashbacks. The flashbacks are shot in brilliant color, which contrasts the colorless pallor of the new world.

The Road is so arresting because it balances on the power and pain of memory. The Boy is too young to remember life before The End, he knows nothing else (when stumbling upon a stash of canned goods, he doesn’t recognize them for what they are), but the Man, despite the years that have passed since The End, struggles to reconcile his present life with the choices he and others, particularly his wife, made long ago. The film’s realness also struck me; obviously, no one knows what the world will look like if it is consumed by massive destruction, but The Road paints a disturbingly vivid picture of how things could be. (In fact, many of the panoramic views of destruction are actual images from the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina and the Mount St. Helens eruption.) That picture is made even more real with great performances by Mortensen and Smit-McPhee (who was twelve years old during filming). And despite his brief camera time, Robert Duvall is captivating as the Old Man.

The Road is a perfect, albeit bleak, film. Movies that revolve around such age-old topics like love and survival often collapse in clichés and syrupy dialogue. The Road avoids these traps because it uses the emotional gravity of its characters’ dilemmas to tell the story, eliminating the need for excessive speech. The pictures speak infinite, and the backstory propels the tale. I highly recommend The Road and give it 5 out of 5. Definitely check it out.

[The Road was released in late 2009; it’s directed by John Hillcoat and written by Joe Penhall and based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name.]

xx

(Big ups to A² for the recommendation – you were dead on with this one.)

are you serious?

Last year a local city park sought donations from the community to help construct a pedestrian bridge. Wal-Mart, whose 2009 net income was $14.3 billion, donated a hefty $50 to the effort. Home-improvement giant Menards, who, in 2008, was ranked the 43rd largest private company by Forbes magazine (Menards doesn't disclose sale figures), made a whopping $5 donation to the cause.

Thank you, capitalism!

xx

choking

Yesterday was a busy Saturday. The four-hour CPR certification class was a success and very informative. I learned CPR for adults, children and infants; adult and child bag-mask technique and rescue breathing; two-rescuer CPR for adults and children; operation of the AED (automated external defibrillator); and how to relieve choking in adults and infants. The class was probably my first experience in which the gravity and importance of being a health-care provider resonated with me on a deep, personal level. At the core, health care is about sustaining life, and saving life is as real and raw as health care gets.

A few hours after CPR class I had the aforementioned job interview. I feel confident that I’ll be offered a delivery-driver position, but I can’t say. I feel like I connected with the interviewer and, in my opinion, showed a desire for the job. The manager seemed nice enough, but I was a little turned off by some of the regulations and rules of the job. First, he stressed that when you’re not out on a delivery or answering phones, you “clean, clean, clean.” Cool, because I’m not a guy who wants free time while I’m on the clock – if you keep yourself busy, the work day shuffles along. He stressed the stay-busy aspect of the position two, maybe three times, and every time I was like, Yeah, I get it, I’m down with it. What I didn’t dig, however, was the clean-shaven rule. “You’ll have to shave your beard if you want to work here. Is that OK?” I said it wasn’t a problem, but what I didn’t say was, “What the fuck, man? You call the ¼” stubble on my face a beard?” I shave my head every 2-3 days and keep the fashionable stubble on my face neatly groomed and trimmed. What gives? I’ve never walked into a business and immediately left the establishment because the unsightly scene of stubble marred the face of the clerk/waiter/whatever. This isn’t a five-star restaurant – we’re talking about a pizza joint that, besides pizza, sells Magic: The Gathering and Warcraft games, for Christ’s sake. Another thing: delivery drivers aren’t paid minimum wage, they’re paid $5.20 an hour. Some employers choose to exempt tipped employees from the federal minimum wage; after all, less for the bottom feeders means more for the pigs on top! Finally, all new employees undergo to a 90-day probationary period in which you can’t call in sick, be late, or, I assume, do anything that makes yourself unworthy in the eyes of the management. He actually said this to me: “If you’re sick, come in anyway, and if you’re too sick, we’ll find someone to come in and then you can go home.” So, this place objects to the ¼” stubble on my face but doesn’t object to sick employees preparing and delivering food?

My recent job-hunting experience has pushed my loathing of capitalism to the brink (I plan on expanding this point in a future post). Over the past couple of weeks, I have had to answer countless humiliating questions; most of these questions have come online and in the form of employee questionnaires. The naked motive of these questions is simple: To what depths are you willing to exploit yourself for the benefit of the company? It’s disgusting. Obviously, some minimum-wage applicants are high school and college students who are simply looking for some extra cash, but many of those applicants are adults, many with families, who have expenses that far exceed those of school students. It is the working poor who are the most ripe for exploitation; never mind the stresses associated with living a life in poverty, they are routinely picked and employed for wages that would be laughable if they weren’t so disgustingly obscene.

Somebody help me, I’m choking.

xx

miles

After nearly two weeks of depression-fueled pessimism, today gave me a refreshing breath of optimism. The source of that optimism might be laughable to some, but when you’ve been unemployed for two weeks, you take what you can get. I’ve got an interview scheduled for Saturday afternoon at a locally owned pizza joint – and this isn’t your typical pizza place. Besides pizza, the place also sells fantasy role-playing games like Magic and Dungeons and Dragons. Never mind the hit points, I’m going there to be interviewed for a pizza-delivery position. If that falls through, things are looking good at another pizza spot (spoke with a manager earlier today and, once my driving record is checked, I should get a call next week).

Tuesday night: Spent a few hours drinking with some old comrades. We sat around, listened to music and shot the shit. Good times. Before those hours of gregariousness, I spent some time with dad and mom and stepdad. Dad recently had is knee replaced, so I wanted to check up on him. He’s approaching 80, and having such a significant surgery at that age poses a different set of challenges, but he’s getting along OK. After spending some time with him, I visited mom and stepdad, who, in light of sister’s imprisonment, are practically raising my nephew, Austin. They don’t really have much choice in the matter because his father is, well, a shitty dad. I won’t detail that opinion other than to say he has slowly backed away from many of his promised commitments. I can’t say that his fatherly failures are surprising, though.

Austin has been asking mom when his mother, sister, will visit him. Sister has spoken with her son many times since her imprisonment, and she tells him that she’s at school, which is why she isn’t around. I’ve yet to speak to sister since her day of judgment, and I’m not sure how to feel about that. Mom says she “sounds like the old [sister].” Sobriety has a way of bringing the old self back to the surface, and I obviously hope she maintains that path, but only time will prove if sobriety is what my sister has chosen. I had to push away the tears when I was at mom’s. In the corner of a window near Austin’s play space was a photograph of sister kissing her son’s cheek -- it was placed there so Austin could have a visual reminder of "mommy." Just recalling that photo is bringing tears to my eyes as I type this. The whole situation is so unfair, and the fact that a small child – a child who cannot even comprehend what has happened to his mother – is involved makes things even more difficult, vicious.

It was strange, though, driving to Hometown. The two-hour trek is never something I enjoy because the destination hangs over my head like a cloud of shit and cancer. But this time was different. As each mile ticked off the odometer, the cloud didn’t get closer. It stayed away. And I didn’t dread my destination. Exit 26’s offramp snaked me into Hometown, and those familiar ghosts didn’t greet me. The gloom remained (the city has destroyed its abandoned factories, but the dust and desperation linger); however, this time, the territory of my imagination was restricted – it couldn’t venture through the frightening possibilities of where sister was or what she was doing.

Tuesday night was a good night. So was Thursday. I hope this trend continues.

xx

wavvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvves

A couple of reasons why you should be listening to Wavves latest album, King of the Beach. (RIYL the self-loathing lyrcis of Kurt Cobain and the fuzzy melodies of early Nirvana.)

it's too much! i don't know what it means! it's so intense!

Hey kids, celebrate the zero-ten 4th with a--OH MY GOD WOW IT'S STARTIN' TO LOOK LIKE A TRIPLE RAINBOW OH MY GOD IT'S FULL ON DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE SKY OH MY GOD!

all's well that ends well

It’s been awhile since I visited this space. Much has changed; some for the better, some for the worse. I am out and away from the place I called home for the past seven years. The townhouse and Bloomington are now memories. I can only speak for myself, but I believe that things between roommate and I ended rather amicably. After one final walk-through of the apartment, we handed over the keys, shook hands and went our separate ways. I remember patting him on the back and saying something like, “Hey, no hard feelings, OK?” Indeed, all’s well that ends well.

I’m no longer a citizen of Bloomington; ____ is where I will call home for the next 16-24 months. I have no illusions about this city – it’s definitely a step down from Bloomington, and, in some ways, reminds me of dreaded Hometown, but the concept temporariness is never far from my mind, and its closeness offers consolation, a reminder that I’m in the process of moving on to bigger and better things. What will I miss about Bloomington? The small, college town aesthetic; the progressive (liberal) politics; the high level of social tolerance many (but far from all) Bloomingtonians practice; and the city offers a relative safe haven from the ignorant, right-wing approach to everything that engulfs much of Indiana. A few things I won’t miss about Bloomington: the artificial wealth that swells throughout certain parts of the city – there’s nothing like being cut off in traffic by a 19-year-old IU student in a $70,000 sports car or SUV (don’t choke on your silver spoon, pig); the liberal elites – these hypocrites pay lip service to traditional liberal causes (specifically, social programs for the poor), yet detest being in the presence of the very people they claim to defend; and, finally, despite the fact that Bloomington is a liberal stronghold, the occasional reminder of your geographic location (southern Indiana, ya’ll) takes the form of a Confederate flag bumper sticker, or the screaming pipes of a pickup truck.

I’ve been in ____ for a week now and have yet to land a job, which is a little frightening. Two weeks ago I applied to a few pizza places with the hopes of landing a delivery job, but nobody is hiring. I’ve since applied to several other businesses (retail stores, hospitals). The entire application process is humbling humiliating, especially as a 32-year-old whose most recent job experience is seven years driving a bus. The fear of being misclassified as a 30something with no skills (“if you had any skills, why would you be applying for a lowly, entry-level position?”) is apparent every time I ask for and return the job application. I feel as though I should preface every application with this simple statement: I’M NOT AN INCOMPETENT DOLT.

Me being me, of course, this uncertainty (along with nursing courses beginning in late August) adds an unhealthy dose of anxiety to the smog of depression that’s been hovering above for the past few weeks. I just want to find a place of relative stability. Right now, I don’t have that, and it feels as though the unknown is greater than the known.

xx