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29 oct 06 Is a certain group of high school friends slowly drifting apart? i can't even remember their names. what was the one...el parsh? something like that. at reunion time, i was visiting a girlfriend in west virginia, and couldn't go. but honestly, i probably would not have gone anyway, even though i would have been slightly tempted. the first two years of high school were sort of awful, although not really any more awful than any other year of public school. i believe my last two years of high school were somewhat fun, even though it's hard to remember them clearly. after twenty-three years of forced socialization, i'm finally able to crawl back into my hole. now, i wait. i dropped one of my community college classes -- "advanced website development". i wanted more free time, and i was getting absolutely nothing out of it. well, the first two weeks on CSS was nice, but now we're studying dreamweaver and fireworks. barf. then, we'll be doing flash, but not actionscript -- only building pointless web interfaces. being formally taught software makes me feel like i'm in a "special needs" class. it's a bit sad that the only thing i have to look forward to is my two-day trip to pittsburgh in a little less than a month. but that's what work routine does to you: makes you grateful for any interruption in the grind. i keep thinking i want to do something totally wild, just flip out and go live in a cave in azerbaijan or something. but then i realize that after three days in the cave i'd want to go flip out again.
what's doubly disturbing is that my routine is not that disturbing. ie, i don't hate it; i'm not in a world of utter hell. sometimes i whimper "i wanna go home", not really knowing where or what home is. but for the most part, i'm content in a neutral, dog-in-kennel way. it's just that i wish there were something else to it all, wish i could just stop this reality and start on a new one. i think that's why drugs are appealing -- they basically serve to alleviate boredom. narcotics, of course, are for the unimaginative. some things i could try:
i find it interesting that i didn't feel this way when i was jobless, and basically sat around all day. but there's someting about this particular job, and this particular life, that is getting to me in a peculiar way, in which i've never been gotten to before. yesterday i had one of my mini-nervous breakdowns in the car (these usually involve screaming at god that he's a piece of shit) when i couldn't find an address, and there was something about it that was relieving -- at least it broke up the routine, interrupted the monotone for a few seconds. but it isn't a zen sort of monotone, the kind of thing that lulls you to sleep. it's more like someone snoring next to you -- there's some pattern there, but there's just enough variation to make it impossible to blot out. another analogy might be trotting -- not running -- in a mouse wheel: it doesn't totally run you out, but you never quite feel like you have a chance to totally catch your breath. i don't understand how people can go on like this, year after year. i guess they go and have families or something. a friend recently told me that his dad has endured a job he hates for 30 years, so that he can support his family. how, then, am i supposed to react when i get the "robert, you should go and get married and start a family" speech at work? what should i do? where should i go? i might just be bored, for the first time. it'll be halloween tomorrow. tonight, i'm going to go out and get some candy for the trick-or-treaters, once it gets a little later and the humans clear out a bit. we have a porch light this year for the first time, so we might actually get a few callers. for a costume, i tried on a "grim reaper"-style hood, some work goggles, an air filter mask, a pair of underwear, and grabbed my long-handled axe. i checked myself out in the mirror, and i realized that i don't want to go to jail all that much, and so might want to dispense at least with the partial nudity and axe. along with candy (5,000 reese's peanut butter cups), what else should i buy at the food-mart? i'm thinking "apple juice". |
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