Dreams

I've been sleeping poorly lately, as you probably know. Yesterday morning I got up before dawn, even when a thunderstorm had awakened me and kept me awake for about an hour in the middle of the night. By the time yesterday evening had rolled around, I was very fatigued and exhausted -- to the point where I told Daisy, who had just gone to work, that I needed to go pass out and that I wouldn't be able to talk to her in the overnight hours like I normally do.

I went downstairs and went to bed, and again slept somewhat fitfully. When I finally awoke this morning, I had an epiphany. I realized something big. And that realization made me really think about a lot of things.

When I awoke, I had been dreaming. I can't remember the dream or what it was about, but it doesn't matter anyhow. What matters is that as soon as I awoke, I knew I was awake -- awake in my bed, in my house with the cats, and that real life had resumed. And that realization made me cripplingly depressed.

I don't consider myself an unhappy person; yesterday I even had a conversation with Daisy about how being unemployed right now has its good and bad sides -- yes, I can sleep when I want and how much I want to (when my body lets me, anyway), and if I choose to, I can play a video game or spend time writing, I can shower and eat when I want, I can leave the house when I want, and I can have the time to actually do necessary things like cooking, cleaning, mowing the grass, etc. The bad sides, of course, are obvious -- I am slowly running down the money in my bank account, I am frequently restless and bored, I'm lonely, and every rejection letter I receive from employers I've applied to (three more this week alone) makes me feel that much more worthless and unemployable.

The epiphany this morning was that my life is much better when I'm asleep, dreaming or otherwise, than it is when I'm awake.

And I can't tell you how depressing it is to realize that. I never realized before just how truly unhappy I actually am until waking up put it into that perspective.

Waking up meant that I actually had to rejoin the real world, the world that has so progressively, little by little, made me hate it. The world where I am, once again, sorely underappreciated and mostly worthless. The world where, really, the only people who care about me are hundreds, if not thousands of miles away, and every day I awaken in a dark room, alone, with three cats staring at me -- with a beat-up car in the driveway, silence filling the house, and bills and debt looming over my head.

I hate it.

I hate that moment of waking up to realize that no matter how good it felt to be asleep or to be dreaming, that everything crashes back down upon the moment I open my eyes, and nothing has changed. That sleep, those dreams, they were fantasies. They weren't real. Waking up and being forced to go on with your life during the day as if it actually means something? That's reality. And reality sucks. Just plug me back into the Matrix. I don't care if it's not real. It's better than this.

I almost started crying. What the fuck is wrong with you, Brandon? Seriously.

I laid there and, in my just-awakened state, thought about all of the ways my life could've gone differently. By differently I don't necessarily mean "better" or "worse," just differently. It was more of a how the hell did I get to this point, where even being awake is fucking miserable?

I mean, I tried to trace my steps backwards to see if there was any situation in which I would not have ended up in a similar situation as I'm in now by a similar year/age.  Like everyone else, my life has had a series of branching-off points, points at which where I came to a fork in the proverbial road and I had to make a choice between two or more different options of what to do. I don't know if I've had more of these branch points than most people have, but I've certainly had a lot. And, in my thinking back on all of the bigger ones, I seemed to have clearly made the right choices...but if that's true, why is the sum result exactly what I didn't want to have happen?

Picture this -- the sum result of my life's choices was me, on a Saturday morning, laying in bed alone with my cats and staring at the ceiling. I didn't have a reason to get up; no job, no real tasks to take care of for the day, no goals to accomplish. I was totally and completely alone and forgotten in most real senses of the term. My fiancee is a few hundred miles away, my parents are over 1,000 miles away, all of my friends seem to have either forgotten about me for the summer or have graduated as well and have moved on with their lives, including a stipulation of never setting foot in Kansas ever again, and the only thing I can do to even attempt to make money is write a freelance story here and there for the newspaper -- one of which, I might add, was supposed to see print on Thursday, apparently never did, and it is now out-of-date (as all of the events that I wrote about took place on Friday and Saturday). I get rejected from or ignored by every job or teaching position I apply for, I have enough money left to last me maybe three more months if I budget every dollar, I don't know whether or not I'm going to be teaching or doing anything during the fall semester, my car desperately needs an oil change and other routine maintenance work (work which would be incidental and an afterthought if I had an income of any sort, but I don't) and my cats will be out of food in less than a week. I smoke like a chimney and drink gallons of coffee because they're the only two things that make me feel (somewhat) normal, and unless I have to, I tend not to leave the house -- I wake up, I go about my day (an extremely boring exercise in quiet desperation) and I go back to bed.

As I mentioned before, most of my major life choices, had I chosen differently, would not have me in any other situation than the one I'm in right now. I still would've been laying in bed yesterday morning -- perhaps not the bed I was actually in, but more than likely a reasonable facsimile -- wondering where everything went wrong.

And that's the most depressing part of it all, really. It's not just that I'm unemployed, it's that I'm unemployable. It's not just that I think I'm basically worthless, talentless, and useless, but the world thinks that too, and it doesn't matter. If the opposite were true, I would've been able to make something happen by now -- I would've been able to actually make use of myself and my life, something sustainable, something important enough to make me actually want to get up in the morning. It's not for lack of trying. I've ventured into many fields in my life -- laboratory work, fashion design, retail work, repairing computers, writing, teaching, etc. None of them have fulfilled me. None of them have brought me any recognition or stability. I have two degrees -- very expensive degrees -- and the only job offer I can get is a teaching assistant position in some before-and-after-school program for $32 a day? For fuck's sake, why even try anymore?

 

I can't support a wife and kids on that, let alone support myself. I can't pay the bills or pay my student loans back on $32 a day. I can't help finance a wedding or put gas in my car with that. It's easier and more peaceful to just go back to sleep.

I've written here before that I am so sick and tired of having to fight tooth and nail for every little thing in life, that the universe or the fates or what-have-you in charge (as I am a very passionate atheist) won't just give me a fucking break enough to feel comfortable or secure in anything. ANYTHING. I can't start up my car to drive three miles to go shopping without worrying that it won't start when I leave the store to come back home. I can't run my air conditioner unless it's over 100 degrees outside because I can't afford the monstrous electric bill that would create. Even little things, like when I tell people I don't have Netflix, or a smartphone, or wireless internet, or a game system that isn't over ten years old, and they all look at me like I'm insane, all of that adds up and feeds into my hopelessness. Even my poorest grad student friends all have Xbox 360s and smartphones -- why don't you, Brandon?

Because I have bills to pay and too many other things to worry about, to the point where I've never, ever been able to enjoy my adult life, or any real aspect of it. That's why.

I can't even fully enjoy any of my time with Daisy, because in the back of my mind I am always thinking about how much money she's spent in gas to come down here and/or on whatever foods or goodies she brings us when she should be spending it on her bills and other things, and if it's not that, I'm always thinking about how when we got together she thought I would be a really smart, successful person fully able to provide for both of us, happy, and with a secure job and future ahead of us -- and how thus far, and for the foreseeable future, I have and will end up sorely disappointing her.

I mean, it's time for me to really face facts. I'll turn 31 this year (in about six months, actually). Eight years ago, upon graduating from WVU, I thought I had a bright future ahead of me. I didn't. I had to work three jobs at once to even be able to save enough money to move out of my parents' house. Three years ago, I thought I had a bright future ahead of me -- I had a long-term girlfriend, I was working at a newspaper as a reporter, and I was about to enter graduate school in order to start teaching, earn a higher degree, and finally start the rest of my life. I didn't. That girlfriend left me, and I worked my ass off for three years, putting myself into debt and spending many sleepless nights grading papers, writing papers of my own, reading countless books that I absolutely hated and writing wholly mediocre poetry for what? Nothing. For a piece of paper that I haven't even picked up yet from the registrar's office. Now, two months after graduating and earning that degree, with nothing to show for it, I'm right back where I was eight years ago -- though now I am considerably less naive or hopeful about the future. The facts that I must face, really, boils down to one simple statement: I am a failure.

Now, mind you, I can already picture people like Daisy reading this and telling me things like "you're not a failure!" But, really, I am. I don't care who says otherwise -- other people's opinions don't matter in this particular statement -- it's about me and how I judge myself. And I judge myself as a failure. I'm really sick of people trying to point out my good points and things I've done and trying to tell me that I matter, that I've done good things, meaningful things with my life, things that have had long-lasting effects. While I have, and I already know this, it doesn't change anything. Those things won't magically land me a high-paying job so that I can get myself out of debt, buy a car that I don't have to worry about breaking down, or provide me with enough liquid assets to where I'd never have to worry about paying a utility bill ever again. I can't call up some college or university and say "give me tenure, because I'm a good person and I've made a difference in some people's lives occasionally" because that isn't what matters. I can't go to DC Comics and say "hey, let me write Batman because I have two degrees and am a nerd," because that isn't how it works.

You may find those to be ludicrous examples, so I'll offer another:

 

The above is an example of a cover letter I've written for almost all of the teaching positions I've applied for this summer. This is the barebones version, of course; I tailor it to the positions I'm applying for and usually personalize each one quite a bit based on the position at hand, but read it. It lists my education and experience. It lists that I helped to design a course, and I named said course. It is formal and reasonable without being too needy (or, for that matter, too formal). And, just like the letter says, I provide all of those documents (if possible) for each position I have applied for  -- a teaching statement, list of references, transcript, and my vita, which is seven pages long and has been written via various guides and instructions (such as those on Monster.com) to the letter as to what to include in it and what not to. 

With all of this formality, including those credentials, requisite references, teaching statements and transcripts, I have applied for over 100 teaching positions this summer. About ten or fifteen of them have sent me rejection letters or emails, and the rest of them I have never heard back from. Ever. And the postings for said teaching jobs were quickly removed. 

I have also sent heavily-edited and changed versions of this letter and other required materials in applications for non-teaching positions as well, including office work (which I would hate) and administrative work both inside and outside of academia. Of those positions I applied for -- probably twenty or thirty over the course of the past month or so -- I have received no responses whatsoever.

So no, I am not simply unemployed. I am apparently unemployable. And at this point I really don't care what others might think -- I have deemed myself a failure. If my accomplishments academically as well as in experience and knowledge cannot even get someone to notice me enough to send me a rejection letter or email 90% of the time when I apply for a position, I have clearly failed at life. Don't tell me that's just how these sorts of jobs work or they probably have thousands of applicants or anything like that -- those things are of no consequence because, if I were good enough, they wouldn't matter. This is no longer just shooting at the moon, or trying to follow pipe dreams -- this is me actually trying to make something of myself, to better my station in the world, to end this long cycle of unhappiness and daily misery -- and it's clearly not good enough. Clearly I've been bypassed and overlooked, or deemed not good enough by a large number of universities, community colleges, private colleges, and other jobs. This is the best I've got, folks. This is me really, really trying.  I wouldn't be so discouraged if anything had come of any of those applications and/or inquiries -- even an interview or a phone call, even if it didn't end up getting me the job, would be better than being silently and immediately dismissed offhand, because at least then I'd know that I had been considered for something based on my skills and experience, even if I hadn't been chosen.

And no, the $32 a day teaching assistant job doesn't count.

As an aside, I felt smug satisfaction about a week ago when I saw that exact job posting -- which had previously been taken down after its ending date -- reappear on the job board, because even really, really desperate people aren't going to work for $32 a day, four hours a day for three days a week (or whatever it was). I really hope nobody is stupid enough to work those hours under those conditions for that amount of money. A full day's work wouldn't even be enough to fill the gas tank of my car once, to put that into perspective. $32 is less than a carton of my cigarettes cost, and I smoke the cheapest kind I can get. $32 isn't enough to get two bags of cat food and a jug of cat litter for my furry little children ($12 per bag, $10 for the litter). So, yes, I hope they remain understaffed, desperate and clawing for help until they actually decide to pay a teacher a living wage.

I'm pretty sure I'm only this bitter because it's the only offer I've had all summer out of all of those applications. 

So, anyway, I've realized I'm a failure. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying, nor does it mean that if I find something that I won't still think I'm a failure. Even if I am so dismally depressed and jaded that I don't know why I should keep trying to find work, I don't really have a choice in the matter if I want to be able to, y'know, survive. And, even if I do eventually find some sort of passable, liveable job, it's not going to quell any fears and/or hopelessness I have about the future -- no, that's going to take a hell of a lot of comfortability and "fuck you" money, and several years of it at least. I don't know if I'll ever be able to be fully comfortable in any work I do because I know that if it ends or something happens to it, I'll be right back where I am right now. 

Again, I hate this. I hate my life and what it has become. It's a series of days and nights where nothing gets accomplished because no time, effort, or good deeds are ever rewarded, where experience and knowledge is no longer respected or, apparently, desired, and where I get up every morning despite having no reason to do so and continue to be lonely, listless, bored, and hopeless. It's been said many times by many people much more intelligent than myself that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In this case, the "different result" would be "any result." Does that make me insane?  Do I even know why I'm doing it anymore, why I'm even trying anymore, aside from simple survival?

I can't answer these questions, at least not fully. 

What's worse, and more troubling, is that I think I've lost any and all ability to actually be happy, or even satisfied, with anything. When I've never been handed anything, when I've had to scrape by and fight for anything and everything I've ever gotten, it's made me bitter and angry. Very bitter and angry, compounded by many years, to the point where I don't think I'll ever be able to get over it. I don't think I'll ever be truly happy or satisfied with anything I have or anything I've earned because I will have turned myself into a slave or soulless cog in some horrible capitalistic machine to earn it. I won't be able to enjoy it, because I worked too hard to barely scrape by to even live. And I don't want to be that person. I really don't. At the same time, I don't take things for granted and I am grateful for what I have, but that doesn't equate to being happy or satisfied. I do know I have it better than a lot of people on this planet do, and I'm not trying to pull some "poor me" routine, not at all. But, as you could probably tell, I am constantly angered, frustrated and hopeless because it is a slim-to-none shot that I'll actually get to be comfortable or happy in this life, or be able to fully follow my dreams -- which, at this point, I couldn't even tell you what they are anymore. 

But what does any of this matter anyway? These are just words on a web page. Most of you reading this are probably just going to roll your eyes and say "oh, he's whining again" and close the tab. Fine. If you're going to be one of those people, you're free to do so. Close the tab. Leave the page -- actually, leave my life. And don't come back. I already have enough negative people in my world, and if you want to be another one, it'll save me the trouble of excommunicating you sometime in the future anyway. I don't write here for you. I don't write here for anyone but myself. 

Applications, Part III

"Are you going to call and follow up with the advising position at [college]?"

This is a question Daisy has asked me no less than three times in the past 24 hours. It is also a position that, mind you, she has applied for as well. My response, all three times, has been the same:

"...honey, it's been like three days since I applied," followed by "I will if they don't contact me in a few days."

Daisy, though she is able to keep her cool about a great many things (seriously; how that woman remains so calm in situations where I'd be freaking the hell out is beyond me), is beginning to show a bit of her own nervousness and panic about money and survival. Yesterday she found out what was wrong with her car -- the brakes needed to be completely replaced -- and she had to pay a large chunk of money to get that fixed. This put even more of a wrench in the plans of saving up for the wedding and being able to reserve a place to do it. Both of us have been dealing with many setbacks in that department, lately. It seems that if it's not one thing which requires money, it's another. And, of course, my hands are rather tied since I'm currently unemployed. Or mostly unemployed, I should say, since I did just write a story for the paper (it appears tomorrow).

While I was sleeping last night, however, she did send me links to three different jobs she'd found in her searching, jobs in the Omaha area which she thought would be good for me. One of them was a content writer job of some sort, and two were teaching positions at universities (why neither of them have popped up in my own daily job searches and emails is beyond me). One of the teaching positions was remedial adult education (read: GED) and ESL, neither of which I can do, but I applied for the other teaching job and the writing job. I doubt I'll get either one of them, but who knows. I won't get anything if I don't keep trying.

The teaching position is at another university that operates on the quarter system; apparently the first day on the job would be October 1st, from what I read in the application. That's exceedingly good; it means that if I get it, I have over two months to get everything packed, get out of here, and get a new place to live in Omaha. That would be wonderful.

As for the other position, it didn't have a date on it except that the posting would close on the 29th, which is Monday. Okay, fair enough.

Daisy is, if she can afford the gas to do so, planning to come down after her next set of days off, which would be Tuesday. Unless I get a job in Omaha soon, it will be the last time we get to spend any real time together for a while; if I do begin adjuncting for the university this fall, the first day of classes is August 19, and I'd have to be on/off campus a few days in advance, more than likely, to set up my office (whether I'd be in the same one or a different one) again, doing things like taking in my printer/laptop/books once more. If I'm not adjuncting, I don't have to worry about that, but I will have to worry about finding some other employment pretty quickly afterwards, obviously.

Again last night, some bad storms rolled through the area. Lots of heavy rain, a bit of wind, and a ton of thunder/lightning bad enough to reset my modem and router twice up here, but no hail or any damage. West and south of me got it pretty rough, though; there are close to 4,000 people without power in Wichita and Park City (just north of Wichita), and there was apparently some bad hail/wind damage to the west of me around the Hutchinson area. I just got the rain here and the power flickering a few times, but nothing else. By midnight it had moved through, and I went to Walmart to pick up a few things I needed. It's only supposed to reach 90 today, and by Friday the high is only supposed to be 81. We're getting the cool-down with rain that I'd so hoped for earlier this month, thankfully. And, I'll add, since the rain started and the temperatures stopped being 100-110 every day, I have neither seen nor killed any spiders in the house. At all. Not a one, not even new ones in the traps (though I haven't checked the traps in a few days).

The traps are working well, as an aside -- before I left for Omaha a few weeks ago, I put out three new ones in places where I've actually seen spiders in the house (around the furnace, in the cat room, in the dark corners of the bedroom behind the bed and dressers, etc) and they've been filling up with all sorts of leggy things for the better part of the month. The one under the furnace is filled with recluse, crickets, and other beetle-things, for example, and since I put the new traps out, the spider population in the house has virtually disappeared. Again, I'm not sure if it's the weather or the traps, but I'm not complaining either way. Let 'em all get trapped and die; it lets me actually get some peaceful sleep without worrying if I'm going to get bitten in bed (which, of course, to the best of my knowledge has never happened in the four years I've lived here).

It really is four years now that I've lived in this house; my now-ex and I signed the lease on July 22, 2009, and moved in the following week. Two years later when we ended our relationship, she signed sole ownership of the lease over to me when she moved out, and I've been living here alone since. It doesn't seem like two years just off-the-cuff, but it has been. And, over those past two years, I've lived a mostly peaceful, quiet life.

Two years from now, where will I be? Who knows. Probably living in yet another house in another state with my wife, Daisy, getting up in the middle of the night to take care of an infant (as I told her I'd do that when we have kids, no matter where we are or what job I'm doing). Whatever works, you know? It's always been hard for me to think about or plan for the future when 95% of my life is, and has always been, lived day-to-day, month-to-month.

A year ago at this time I had just started my relationship with Daisy in earnest, and had just finished teaching my summer sessions. Two years ago, I was just ending my relationship with my ex. Three years ago, I was getting ready to work my last few weeks at the paper before I would start graduate school. Four years ago, I was moving into this house.

Crazy. 

I've been meaning to go over to the Dollar Tree and to the discount grocery store several days in a row now, but most of the time by the time they open in the morning, I'm either asleep or too tired to bother to get dressed, go downstairs to the car, drive over to the place, go shopping, bring the shit home, take it upstairs, and put it away. If I'm awake when the sun comes up, it's usually because I'm suffering from summer insomnia, which leaves me awake but basically too physically tired to go do anything. I was tired when I went over to Walmart in the overnight hours, and only actually went because I basically had to if I wanted the cats to be able to eat and shit comfortably over the course of the next few weeks. As such, I only bought the bare necessities and came home, figuring that anything else I can get more cheaply at the discount place or at the Dollar Tree...whenever I actually go over to either place, of course. I usually go to the Dollar Tree only when Daisy is with me these days, and if I have to I can wait until she comes to town next week, if she gets to.

I told her that for the sake of comfort and companionship, I do want her to come with me to campus when I go, so that we can take her car and have air conditioning and better fuel economy (I also told her I would fill her gas tank as well). To a certain extent, even though it shouldn't, that campus feels cold and alien to me now. Even though that feeling will undoubtedly pass if I end up teaching there again this fall, right now it's just strange. If she can't come down, yes, I'll go it alone, but it'll feel weird. Oh well. Gotta see what happens, I suppose.

In addition to my halfhearted Walmart trip, I paid the rent in the overnight hours as well, chopping another good chunk of money off my bank account balance. At least it's done. When I came back into the house from sticking it in the mail, the cats were staring at me funny.

"It's okay," I said, "I only went outside to put the rent in the mail, ensuring that you three little shits have somewhere to live for the next month worry-free."

Like any of them can understand me, of course.

Still, I probably speak more to the cats than I do to Daisy, as I am their God-figure, the food-giver. Right now, behind me on the floor, Maggie is rolling around on the scratch pad I keep in my room.

 

Yes, the same cat who decided to do this when I was on Skype yesterday morning with Daisy. I had to rub her chin so that she wouldn't move and would keep staring into the camera while I took the screenshot. she purred furiously and lovingly the entire time, the little shit.

Of course, I do have other things I need to do around the house -- as mentioned previously, I need to mow the grass again as it's become a goddamned jungle, but that's not exactly something I can do when the sky wants to open up and rain half an inch every 18 hours or so. The yard is basically grass-coated mud at this point and needs a full day or so to dry out without clogging up my mower. Sigh. It looks like it could start pouring again any second, too, though it's not really supposed to do anything today.

Why am I still up? Eh. Again, summer insomnia. Even when I have slept over the past several days, it's not been for long intervals of time. I either sleep for twelve hours or more, or less than six. There's really no middle ground anymore. I can't do a whole lot about it, and because of this I've frequently been awake for more than 24 hours straight many times over the course of the past week or so. Being tired but not tired enough to sleep is torturous. It feels like you're in purgatory. I try to completely mentally and physically exhaust myself to be able to sleep, and when I do, sometimes I can still barely rest. Don't ask me why; I don't have the answers. I'm not any more stressed or anxious than I usually am -- in fact, I'm somewhat relieved right now since I've applied for several more positions this week, have the rent/bills paid and have the majority of my shopping done, and it's (for once) not balls-sweatingly hot. My allergies aren't keeping me awake and neither are my cats or neighbors; the neighbors have been really quiet as of late, and the cats sleep with me. I've even been drinking less coffee than usual. I don't know what it is. 

On that note, I'm going to actually try to get some sleep now. I don't know if I'll succeed, but at least I'm going to try.

Applications, Part II

Less than 36 hours after applying for the teaching position in Omaha, at the college associated with the hospital, I received a very kind email reply that the position had been filled, and not by me. 

Okay. Well, it was worth a shot at least, right? I don't know what to think of it other than that. My guess is that it was one of those positions that, as Daisy's dad told me about, was posted as a formality but they already had someone lined up to fill it. Really, though, I couldn't tell you.

Yesterday morning, I called and interviewed a guy for one of the story assignments I'd been given for the paper, and then wrote up the story in a little over an hour before sending it off to my editor. The deadline was tomorrow, so I got it in there a day early. He replied while I was asleep this afternoon and said that they're planning to run it on Thursday, and that if I get anything else before then (such as photos, which my interview subject offered but wouldn't be able to send along until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest) to send it along as well. I've still not gotten a reply yet on my second story, about a movie being filmed in the area. My interview subject for that one hasn't replied to my interview questions yet, though I did tell him there was no major hurry on it.

At the very least, I'll get $30 for the story I just completed. That's not bad. That's a trip over to the Dollar Tree or close to a full tank of gas in my car.

I'm at the point of my month where there's a bit of a lull before other bills and the like start coming due. I have to write out the rent check this week (probably Wednesday or Thursday) and stick it in the mail, but that's about it. My finances have been at a standstill for the past five or six days or so since I've not gone anywhere, had any bills left to pay, or had anything to purchase in a shopping trip. I've been eating out of the freezer and pantry, the cats have food and litter enough for the time being, and no other bills have yet come in. It feels good to be able to have a few days at a time where I'm not spending money on something, though I do rather dread my electric bill when it arrives in the mail sometime this week -- even though I was in Omaha for a week with everything turned off and shut down, I have been forced in the past two weeks or so to run the air conditioner for a few hours almost every day. It's July in Kansas -- not much can be done about that. I'm also thankful, at least, that it's not been 110 degrees every day this summer, and that we're actually getting a normal amount of rain for once. There were some pretty strong rainstorms that swept through yesterday morning for a few hours, and more coming now in the overnight/early morning hours. It's supposed to rain or storm, or there are strong chances of either one, every day for the next ten days.

Then again, you know how little I actually trust the weather forecast.

There has been a fair amount of other stuff going on as well. My grandmother, by all accounts, isn't really recovering well from her recent fall. Or, at least, that's the way it sounds. Apparently, though she's supposed to be moving around to help her shoulder heal (something that I don't really fully understand, but whatever), she isn't doing so, and hasn't even done as much as gone to the bathroom in a few days according to what my mother tells me. She has fluid in her lungs, and has a machine that's supposed to help her do breathing exercises so that she doesn't get pneumonia again (she's had it several times over the past few years) but apparently refuses to do those exercises as well. It all sounds like -- and I hate to say this or even think it -- that she almost just wants to give up and say "fuck it," or something to that extent. Of course, there's nothing I can really say or do with me out here in Kansas, so my hands are tied.

Daisy hasn't had it much better, either. A few days ago, her father had a mild stroke. He's okay now (or relatively okay, at least) after spending a day or two in the hospital, but he's being monitored closely because there's something like a 90% chance he'll have another stroke in the next three weeks. The doctors have some sort of monitor on him that he has to wear for a month, and he's now been put on a cholesterol-restricted diet and blood thinner meds. By all accounts, though, he's in good spirits -- he went back to work as per the usual yesterday, and says he's just happy and lucky to be alive. All of us are still worried about him, though, at least passively -- if not actively.

I didn't write about any of this before because I wanted to make sure it was okay to actually write about. I don't like being all gossipy on my blog, nor do I ever want to give out any more information than I'm allowed to (or should). As you folks know, Daisy and I both lead very private lives where not everyone is privy to everything going on in them -- she sometimes much more so than myself, and vice versa.

I wanted Daisy to come down this week on her days off -- we haven't seen each other in two weeks or so -- but her car is in the shop right now getting checked out and getting an oil change. It's been making a whiny, squealy noise similar to my own car. With my car, when it squeals it's because it's old, and when it's growly it's because of the old belts and a wheel bearing going out, yet it still runs and performs admirably, and old cars are going to rumble, growl, whine, and make a lot of noise. Daisy's car is only four years old and is in mostly immaculate condition, so she's getting the noise checked out. I told her it was more than likely a belt or wheel bearing that's making it sound funny, just like my car, but because it's still relatively new, she should probably get that checked out soon -- especially when every few weeks she'll make a 10-hour round trip to visit me. She took her mother's car to work tonight, and whatever her car needs done to it, if anything, it will be done tomorrow.

I still haven't heard anything back from the department about whether or not I'll be teaching this fall; the chair, as far as I know, is still on vacation. I won't be able to meet up with him, obviously, until he returns, and when that happens I'll have to go to campus during the day (yuck) at some point to pick up my diploma. That's another reason I wanted Daisy to come down soon -- so that she could come with me and I wouldn't have to run all of these errands alone in the heat, sweating my balls off and driving a car with no air conditioning. I'm guessing that I'll be taking care of that stuff next week. It's almost better that I do, as I don't know when the summer sessions end at the university, but they're almost always done by the end of July in order to have a bit of a break before the fall semester starts in mid-to-late August. This means that I'll actually be able to find a place to park on campus, since the parking lot I used to park in for three years has now been razed and cleared and a new dorm is (needlessly) being built there.  If I am hired on as an adjunct for the fall, I'll need to figure out a new place to park, and, regardless of when I teach, I'll have to get there early enough (again) to be able to get a spot. My car's a boat, you know -- it's not like I can fit easily into small parking lots.

As for the foreseeable future, there's not a lot else going on. I'm looking up administrative and advising positions around Omaha, as well as basically anything else in that area that I could do, and so is Daisy. In the meantime, I'm working on newspaper stories, writing here, and occasionally sleeping or eating.

Applications

Tonight I applied for two more positions -- both of them, shockingly enough, in Omaha.

I know, right?

There has been a dearth of actual positions I'm qualified for and/or could do in the Omaha area, save for positions involving the words "sales," "insurance," or "retail," of course.

One is yet another English instructor position, this time for a small college there that appears to operate on the quarter system, and one that apparently has close associations with one of the hospitals in the city (for some strange reason, anyway). Because of this, that particular application took for-fucking-ever to fill out, and it was one of the excruciatingly-detailed ones they give you when they need to do extensive background checks and credit checks. You probably know the kind I'm talking about -- they ask for your last seven years of addresses, your last seven years of employment, your driver's license number, etc etc. I had to do all of that shit for another place as well...the place that offered me four hours a day at $8 per hour.

I guess if you're applying for teaching work in an institution that's closely connected with the medical system in the city, they want to make sure your record is spotlessly clean and you're who you say you are. Aside from a speeding ticket a year and a half ago on the way home from work (a ticket that was complete bullshit anyway), I am one of those people who has never had a blemish on the public record -- and my credit score is in the high 600s, last I had it checked.

Anyway, that one took forever. It also required me to cut-and-paste a cover letter, resume, and any other documents I wanted them to have, instead of being able to just upload the actual PDF files. I really dislike applications like that...especially after you've already filled all of the fields of where you've worked and what you've done and where you went to school, what degrees you have, etc. What's worse is that they all said a statement akin to "if you write 'see resume' in any of these fields in lieu of filling them out, it will affect your chances of employment," etc. Look, employment sites, especially higher education employment sites...do one or the other, seriously. It's a waste of my time as well as yours to have to see/do everything twice, especially in the exact same order.

"It's a test of your ability to follow directions," Daisy told me. "And it also hopefully discourages or weeds out the people who aren't serious or who don't have the patience to fill everything out."

Okay, I get that to a certain extent, yes. It's just a huge pain in the ass. And coming from a guy who gets the occasional hemorrhoid, I know what a pain in the ass is both figuratively and literally.

I don't know what the pay scale is for the teaching position. For something so intricate and detailed to apply for, and for a position that's somehow connected to the local hospital, I'd expect it to be fairly high. The main reason I applied for it, however, is because it is a teaching position in Omaha, and even though it would be extremely hectic and crazied to do so, it is at least very feasible that if I were hired for it, I could start teaching there in less than a month. It would take much longer than that to get everything moved out of this house and into a new place in Omaha, of course, but as I mentioned before, that can be done in chunks on weekends and days off, even if it costs me a lot of sleep, time, and money to do so. Also, if this school operates on the quarter system (which it may) instead of the semester system, it might not even start until September, giving me a bit more time.

In all of my applications to numerous higher learning institutions, I never considered that some of them, especially the smaller ones, may operate on the quarter system. I've been so frenzied with actually finding places to apply to that the thought never even crossed my mind. That's how frazzled I've been, folks.

I do know the pay scale, however, for the other position in Omaha I applied for, and I do know that the second position is an institution of higher learning that does operate on the quarter system.

I also know that the job is a union job and that the starting pay is $38k a year. Starting pay. It's an academic advisor position at one of the community colleges that, ironically, Daisy's mother first told me about when I was visiting after graduation. They don't have any teaching positions open that I can do, but they do have some pretty lucrative work in administration, such as this job. I wrote a brilliant cover letter and filled out the (again, very long) application, sending off my professional references, transcript, and CV, and crossed my fingers. Daisy applied for the same job also, as she has a lot of experience that would allow her to do it pretty well (dealing with people, accounts, and communication skills) and I have the experience dealing with students and privacy and academia. If either one of us at least gets a call for an interview for a position that cushy, I'll consider it a small victory at the very least. It would be a huge raise in pay for Daisy, and an amazing job for someone like me to land fresh out of the gate of graduate school. And, again, quarter system, which means I'd more than likely have a little more time to get everything packed up and moved out of here if I were to get it -- especially since it's not a teaching position.

I've got a little more hope tonight, at least, which is good compared to before. Am I still stressed? Yes, of course. But I'm also a little relieved as well. Just a little. I don't know; applying for more positions seems to make me feel like I'm not completely wasting all of my time waiting on balls in the air to come back down and land me a gig. All I can do is keep trying for whatever I find, though, whether or not any of it pans out. Even with as much of a pessimist or fatalist as I can be on some fronts, I have to be at least a bit optimistic on others -- otherwise there's not really a whole lot to live for, is there?

Daisy, at least, is proud of me and has been incredibly supportive and understanding all summer long about my hunt for work -- more so, I think, than anyone else ever has been for anything involving me and my life's goals. Daisy is my number one fan. She believes I can do anything. She has been in my situation before and understands all of my thoughts and feelings all too well, much better than I can probably articulate in a simple blog post. It is that love and support I get from her on a daily basis (a Daisy basis?) that keeps me going, that keeps me getting up every day and working to do whatever I can to better myself and better my station in the world, even when I'm feeling particularly strung out and frazzled. As depressed or hopeless as I get at times, I still know in the back of my mind that all of this is temporary, that obviously I'm not going to be unemployed or frustrated/angered at the world forever, and that less than a year from now, good times or bad, I will have a wonderful wife to share my life with. Occasionally I forget about some of these good things when I am so overwhelmed with defeats, setbacks, and other frustrations stressing me out.

I have decided to make it a point to casually ask Daisy "Marry me?" on a regular basis. Not to actually propose over and over, but to remind her that I love her, very very much, and that even when we're both strung out and sleep-deprived on a frequent basis (she much more so than me, usually) I still want, and will always want, her to be my wife. Yeah, we have our differences. No, we don't always completely agree on things. Yeah, we do occasionally have little spats about stupid shit. So does everyone else. But we love each other. And I am very, very lucky to have her. I will never take that, or her, for granted.

It is 5:41 AM on a Sunday morning, and it's still pouring rain. I have just showered, rinsing all of the sweat and ick off me in order to sleep more peacefully. My plans for the day are simple -- I shall go to bed soon, get up when I get up, and take care of my tasks in an orderly fashion. I need to take the garbage down to the road, I need to clean the cat room, run the dishwasher, and keep working on a long letter to my ailing grandmother. I also need to see if one of my interview subjects has answered my questions so that I can put together and finish one of my news stories to send it away to my editor, and I'll need to eat something eventually too. I need to talk to Daisy before she goes to work, as that isn't a simple want but a true need these days when we see each other so little. Finally, before I go to bed once more, I need to keep looking for and applying for, if possible, more jobs in the Omaha area.

Metering out my tasks this way makes everything seem so simple, as if there's a time and a place for each little action, each thought, each movement. There's a certain kind of peace in that, honestly. It's a relative peace, a peace I don't feel very often, but I'll take it.

I'll take it.

Further Updates

It has been a tumultuous week.

I have begun working on two stories for the newspaper; hopefully, and with a little luck, I can finish them by Monday, send them off to my editor, and create an invoice for them. Neither one should take me incredibly long to write once I get the information for them from my interview subjects; when I was working at the paper as a real reporter, I would sometimes write three or four stories a day. Even when I was freelancing before I would tackle stories one after another until I had exhausted the list of them. I must've written thirty or more freelance stories in the span of two or three months before I became a full reporter and webmaster at the paper. Pages upon pages of invoices, let me tell you.

The problem is the stories themselves; I've been in contact with one of the interview subjects via email for the first story, and he seems like a cool guy. Once he answers the few questions I asked him, I can put together and write that story almost effortlessly. For the second story, I've been shuffled around to three different people now to get information from, none of whom seem to know what the hell I'm asking, and I have to call one of them from my own phone on Monday to even see if I can get the information out of him that I need.

This doesn't really make me feel like I've accomplished much; really, it feels more like a hollow victory more than anything else. I'm doing something, but it's not a lot, and a drop in the bucket when it comes to finances.

I've not been eating much and I've been trying to drink more water due to the fact that earlier this week, for some reason, by the time I went to bed at night (or in the early morning hours) my feet and ankles were swelling up. Not painfully or anything like that, but it was definitely noticeable. I've not really changed my diet recently, nor have I injured myself or gone outside my daily, normal routine, and I feel perfectly fine and normal -- yet for some reason my feet started swelling from my ankles down. They swelled slowly, and when I went to bed at night they went down, because upon awakening, they're perfectly normal again. Daisy mentioned that it might be because I consume a lot of sodium, which is true -- so I've been trying to eat less and flush what's in my system already out with extra water. She also thought that it might be because of the heat, and I reminded her that it's barely been above 90 for the past week here, and it's certainly not been as hot as it was, say, earlier this summer.

Also, don't Google "feet swelling" if you're a hypochondriac or at all able to be swayed by the worst of the myriad reasons your feet might swell, because fuck, I made that mistake, and would rather not believe that I'm somehow dying slowly because I have swollen feet.

Anyway, eating less and drinking more water seems to help; all I've eaten today is a bowl of Cracklin' Oat Bran and some coffee, and tonight (so far) they've not swollen up to any noticeable level. So who knows. I think some of it may be attributed to my new computer chair, which was the spare I had to switch out of the spare room when my old one broke -- it sits higher and at a different angle than my old one, and therefore puts pressure on my legs and ass in different places than before. I am not yet used to it.

I had to go out to Walmart -- as much as I didn't want to -- last night, and spend yet more money on things for around the house. The cats go through litter so very quickly that I can barely keep up, and unless I wanted to eat nothing but cereal, coffee, ramen, and homemade waffles with peanut butter on them for the next week, I needed to get some actual groceries. As it's not been entirely sweltering hot recently, I actually have the desire to cook some food as well, since if I try to do so when it's 100 degrees outside, the kitchen gets so overheated that I almost pass out. I ended up getting some hot dogs/buns and some chicken nuggets (yay, more sodium!) because both were on sale and will provide me with something different to eat for once.

It's also rapidly getting to that point where I need to make a "big" shopping trip again sometime soon -- and when I say "big" I mean "over $300 or so" to get everything I need around the house at once. Unfortunately, it's not like I have the money to do this, so I have to part-and-parcel everything I purchase until I can find reliable, sustainable employment again -- the search for which, if you read my last post, isn't exactly going well at this juncture. I've thought about going over to the discount grocery store and purchasing absolutely everything I might need or use in one big trip, spending about $100 or so, but I'm usually not awake (or awake enough) to make that trip during their normal business hours of 8AM to 7PM. I say "awake enough" because, if I'm awake early during the day anymore, it's usually for a reason. I got up early yesterday morning, for example, to work on those newspaper stories, search for more work, and get an update from my mother about my grandmother's current condition (I'll get to that in a bit). When I was done with that -- or as done as I could be, really -- I went back to bed until around 8PM, as I was tired from getting up and being mobile during the morning hours. If I land a reliable job sometime soon -- even if it's adjuncting for the fall -- I'll be able to go out and get all the groceries and items I need without worry. But, for right now? Budget, budget, budget. I still have to pay next month's rent, and I still have about $250 or so to pay off on my credit cards next month. It appears that ordering pizza last week will be about the only "indulgence" I'll be able to afford for a while.

I'm starting to get to my "nervousness point," as in, the point where the money I have will seem to go much more quickly than it did before when, really, it's going at the same rate -- there's just much less of it. This is part of why I desperately want to know ASAP if I'm going to be teaching this fall in any capacity, because if not, I should probably be filling out a Walmart application at their computer terminal the next time I'm over there. I don't want to do this, of course, but I have to find something to stop the money drain, and soon -- at this point, foreseeing the bills I have coming over the course of the next several weeks, as well as expenses such as food, I won't have enough money left to be able to move out of this house and into a new place after, say, the end of August or so, even if I were able to get hired on somewhere closer to here (such as Omaha). It takes a lot of money to rent a moving truck and to pay first/last month's rent plus deposit on a new place, any place. Taking into account all of my expenses, I've got about another six weeks before -- if that scenario were to occur -- I would no longer be able to afford it on my own.

If that scenario doesn't occur, and I'm stuck not teaching this fall and simply writing a few articles a week for the paper, if that many (read: the worst-case scenario), then I will completely exhaust my savings by late October, or mid-November at the latest. And I mean completely exhaust, to where nothing at all will be left in my bank account.

Now do you see why I'm nervous or constantly stressed and in low-level "panic mode" all the time? It's fucking terrifying.

On some level, I can't believe I'm in this situation again. I went off to get another degree, got it, and it seems in many ways that I'm right back where I started in late 2009, early 2010: technically unemployed, with many financial responsibilities that drain me of all the money I do have, and with nothing sustainable on the horizon. It's one of the primary reasons I went to graduate school in the first place, as I've written here before -- a guaranteed three-year job with the ability to get an advanced degree that may save me from the hell of being otherwise completely unemployable.

Apparently that second degree, and the three years of work I put into getting it, didn't really raise my overall worth to employers by that much. If anything, it upgraded me from "completely unemployable" to "only mostly unemployable." Fuck, really?

And now, of course, I'm saddled with a bunch of student loan debt that the clock is ticking on. Debt that if I hadn't taken on, I wouldn't be paying bills right now.

To make matters worse (at least marginally so), I received this email yesterday:

Dear Brandon,

This is to acknowledge receipt of your application for the position English Faculty (Reg FT 10 month, with benefits) Job Slot # 2006, 2272, 2468 at the Community College of Allegheny County. Your application has been carefully reviewed with those of the other applicants, but has not been chosen for further consideration at this time.

We sincerely thank you for the time and effort you invested as an applicant and for your interest in the Community College of Allegheny County. We encourage you to visit our employment website at www.ccacjobs.com often to explore other opportunities as they become available. The website is updated every Friday with the latest openings. We wish you the best in your employment endeavors.

Sincerely,

Human Resources
Community College of Allegheny County

Allegheny County, if you're unaware, is Pittsburgh.

I'd really like to know what other applicants were better than me for a community college English teaching position. Especially since people with doctorates don't generally apply for employment at community colleges, and I doubt that many more applicants than me, if any, have three years of experience teaching three different courses under their belt, one of them being a course they basically designed (which is stated quite clearly in my CV).

I will, however, give them the props for actually emailing me to tell me I haven't been selected for any of the positions they had. Note the job numbers above in that email; I applied for not one, but all three of the English faculty positions they had open. Took me a good 90 minutes or so to do that.

You know how much I would have loved living in Pittsburgh? A lot.

After reading my previous post here, Daisy was upset and thought that somehow, it insinuated that I was suicidal, since I referenced the MFA graduate suicide rate and made several references to not wanting to work a job where I would come home every night and want to eat a bullet or drink myself to death.

Well, yeah, I don't think anyone wants a job where they'd come home every night wanting to fucking die, duh. But I'm not suicidal (also duh). I have too much shit to take care of in my life and too much life ahead of me. Even if I'm depressed and feeling stressed, strung-out, and fairly hopeless at this point (which, yes, I am) it doesn't mean I want to off myself. It means I'm angry and frustrated at the world, the economy, my lot in life, and the now-broken promises of "you can always keep teaching!" I was told before I graduated with my Master's degree.

I'm angry and frustrated, not suicidal. Big difference. I don't want to end up stuck in a position that would make me incredibly depressed and actually suicidal. Bigger difference. I have a wedding and a family in my future -- those two things are all I've ever wanted out of life. But, obviously, I want to be able to survive and support myself as well. That's a rather big thing, you know.

I mentioned my grandmother's condition before because, earlier this week back home, she fell and broke her shoulder and wrist. My grandmother is frail, 85 years old, and has terrible osteoporosis and heart conditions. Obviously, she was rushed the hospital where they kept her overnight because of the possibility that she might need surgery on the shoulder (and they wanted to make sure she was okay, of course), and I got bits and pieces of details from my cousin and from my mother in the meantime. The doctors there set her wrist and put it in a cast, something that according to my mother was gruesome to watch, since she was there, and the doctors decided that she didn't need surgery on her shoulder but would have to wear a sling until it healed up again. They sent her home, where several of my aunts and uncles have been taking care of her day and night.

Quite obviously, this alone has caused me a lot more stress this past week than usual. I've mentioned here in the blog before that every time I fly home to visit friends and family, I wonder if it's the last chance I'll get to see my grandmother alive. As I've not been able to fly home this summer when I really wanted to, I was even more stressed by the entire situation. It gives me a bit of solace that she's at home and recuperating now, but it doesn't truly ease my worries.

It also doesn't help that, all of a sudden, many other friends and family are all having problems at the same time. Like, everything was fine, and then bam, a ton of people close to me start having health issues, personal issues, people or pets dying, money problems, etc. All at once. Just as many other friends who I was once close with have seemed to drop off the face of the earth now that it's summer. Some of them I'll probably never hear from again.

All of this stuff -- all of it -- makes me want to crawl into a proverbial hole until it all resolves itself. Is July an unlucky month, or something? Who knows.

Rae gave me the advice that I should look for jobs in childcare. Like, in daycare centers and the like, because places like that are always thrilled when men apply (apparently, most daycare workers are women). Also, she said, "some of them pay pretty well."

"Wouldn't these places consider it creepy that a large, bearded burly man was applying to work with children?" I asked.

Because, honestly, that's a legitimate question. As a child, I was in daycare for a long time. The facility was owned and operated exclusively by women. In the facility across town (owned by the same company; we used to do pool days with both groups of kids combined in the summer), there was one guy working for them, and I'm pretty sure he was gay.

"A lot of these kids need father figures," Rae said. "Any man will do. Maybe lose the beard and start baby talking."

While I'd love the money, and it would probably be a relatively easy job, I don't really think the childcare field is for me. Especially as most children tend to drive me up the wall very quickly. When I say that, people look at me with a surprised expression because it is no secret that I want children, and they ask why I want them if they drive me crazy.

My answer is always the same: "Because I can't discipline other people's children, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let my own run around screaming like idiots and be little terrors without rules or sense."

As an aside, this has been a huge point of contention in conversations with Daisy in the past; what it boils down to, essentially, is that she really doesn't believe in disciplining children or raising your voice to them, ever; she thinks that you can sit down and have a reasonable explanatory discussion with a toddler about why they're tearing ass around the house screaming and being a little asshole. You can't; they're toddlers, they don't have the capacity for reason. But I told her that was fine, we'd do it her way when we have kids, and I will silently watch and wait to see how quickly she snaps. Daisy doesn't have a temper; she's one of the most balanced, cool, and level-headed people I've ever met, but watching how she will eventually take care of our children will be a supremely fascinating psychological study.

As a further aside, Daisy is wonderful with children; both of her sisters have several children already (one has two; the other has three, with a fourth on the way). They all adore their Aunt Daisy, and she's great with them. I've seen it in person. So, maybe I'm wrong.

But getting back to the point, I really don't think a job in childcare is for me. I know my temperament; I'd snap too quickly. I will, however, suggest such jobs to Daisy in the future, so that she may possibly get out of the horrible job she has now. Part of why I don't think I'd do well in childcare is the same reason I really don't think I'd do well in teaching at anywhere but the university level -- I have to be able to interact with people who actually have some sort of logical skills, and people who will actually follow directions when I issue them. People who will learn something, who aren't there just because they have to be. Etc.

It's finally cool and rainy tonight; right now, it's 73 and pouring rain outside with a good breeze. I've been trying to cool down the house somewhat by opening all the windows and running the fans, and it's working -- but very slowly. It was stifling hot upstairs this afternoon when I woke up and came up here, and there's only so much I can do to keep it cool. Again, unless it's below freezing outside, good luck on ever getting the temperature in this house to stay below 80 or so. And, additionally, when it's super-cold outside, good luck keeping the temperature in it above 65. Old house, poorly insulated, inefficient (and insufficient) heating/cooling/ventilation system. Go figure.

I have a long week ahead of me next week; at some point I have to go to campus and pick up my diploma, and see if I can meet up with the chair of the department (if he's back from vacation). If he's not, I'll wait until he is. I'll also have to get at least one of the stories to my editor by Tuesday morning if at all possible, and see what the status of the other one is or if they have more they want me to do. And, of course, I must continue looking for/applying for other work, pay my rent, do the normal upkeep of the house (including mowing the grass again, as it'll grow like crazy after tonight's rain) and try to keep cool and hydrated so that my feet don't swell up again -- they've been fine for the past two days or so.

As for the rest of my night, though, I'm going to make something to eat and probably watch a movie or something downstairs where it's cool and I don't have to worry about being too hot all the time.

Further Responsibilities

As most of you folks probably already know, I've never been one to shirk responsibilities in any form -- no, when something comes along that needs to be dealt with and/or taken care of, I do that before I do anything else, sometimes to great detriment to my sleep schedule or ability to be social. This is why, for a long time as a graduate student, I was sort of a homebody and/or hermit -- aside from the fact that I don't live in Wichita, I had many more important things to take care of that came first before socialization. I always had student work to grade or plan for, and if it wasn't work for my students, it was work of my own or studying for comps or what-have-you. There was always something else to be done.

Now that I have left that environment and routine (well, at least for the time being), my responsibilities have become much more basic in nature -- take care of the cats, clean the house, make sure the bills are paid, go grocery shopping, etc. But, obviously, the biggest responsibility I've had over the course of the past two months is to find work somewhere, and it is, of course, the responsibility that is the most difficult to take care of.

Over the course of this past week, I haven't been sleeping well. There are myriad reasons for this, some of which I'll get to in subsequent posts, but a big one is the fact that I have a looming sense of dread. I just have this overwhelming feeling that, while things may be okay right now, they're not going to be okay forever -- specifically when it comes to finances and finding work that won't make me want to kill myself every night upon returning home from said work.

I'm going to be blunt when I say that I have never felt, and probably will never feel, like I've been cut out for conventional employment. It doesn't suit me; it never has. When I say "conventional employment" I mean five days a week, 9-5, shirt-and-tie office desk job. I'm not that type of person and I never have been. I relate well to the movie Office Space because it mirrors a lot of what I feel about office environments -- boring, soul-killing, creativity-stifled work. It sounds, to me, like an incredible waste of time and human resources for the benefit of someone else, not towards the personal and intellectual growth of the individual. Even when I've worked in jobs that have involved an office of some sort, they've been unconventional jobs, positions in which the majority of my time was spent outside that setting.

As a college instructor, I taught classes and had office hours. As a newspaper reporter, I did some work on the computer every morning, but the majority of my day was spent writing stories and/or interviewing people for stories, with the occasional layout or field reporting/photography thrown in there as well. As a grocery store worker on night shifts, I generally ran the place (most nights, I was left in charge) and did everything including running register, stocking shelves, taking inventory, and sweeping/scrubbing the floors. As a laboratory technician, I did a lot of hands-on research work in addition to anything and everything else the lab required I do.

I have never worked a conventional job and, am, frankly, disheartened and saddened by the possibility that eventually, in able for me to be able to eat, I might be forced to take one. And believe me, that is the sort of job that will make me want to come home every night and put a shotgun in my mouth. No creativity. No flexibility. Dress codes, codes of conduct, and edicts on how long your hair can be or if you're allowed to have facial hair.

I don't have dress clothing. I maybe have four dress shirts, and I couldn't tell you where three of them are. If I even still own them, that is. I only own one pair of jeans, but the rest of the pants in my wardrobe are either corduroy or cargo pants. I own one pair of black, high-shine dress shoes, and I haven't worn them in five years (they're in the top of my closet, still in their box after only having worn them twice). I don't own a dress jacket or sport coat, because I can't find one that will fit me and don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on one. I own but four ties, despite the fact that no matter how I try and no matter how many times I've read and watched tutorials on how to learn, I do not know how to tie a necktie. I can never get it right. I am not kidding about this. I am thirty years old, and I am not cut out for the corporate world or private sector. I never have been, and I don't think I ever will be -- nor do I want to be, or want that kind of life. Ever.

Daisy works in an office setting, a setting in which she has a cubicle, desk, and computer in front of her, and she has to deal with all the office drama in addition to the customer support and management issues that is her job. And she hates it. She gets paid well (or, really, well enough, anyhow) but she hates it. Half of our conversations about work involve, on some level, how much she hates her job. Daisy has also encouraged me to apply there myself, in a position different than the one she works -- because it is decent money, after all -- and I told her that quite frankly I would rather shoot myself than work in an environment like that. It's really not for me, and I don't know any way to put it better than that.

I had once lost all hope that I would ever make something of myself; when I originally started this blog six years ago, I had resigned myself to a fate of being a grocery store worker forever, that no matter how I tried, I would never get out of that soul-sucking, morale-crushing job. And, believe me, I tried. I tried for well over a year to find a job someplace else. I interviewed at other retail establishments -- Kmart, JCPenney, Target -- and none of them wanted me. I interviewed at banks and insurance companies, called and sent emails to the local newspapers trying to get reporter work, etc. I couldn't get anything. Nobody wanted me.

One of the insurance companies I interviewed at wanted to pay me $10k a year driving 500 miles a week in my own car (when I didn't own a car) back and forth, to and from Kansas City and several other large cities around the area -- with no benefits and no mileage reimbursement, frequently spending weekends in hotels and on the road selling insurance. For only ten thousand dollars a year.

I made $17k a year at the grocery store. And I'd applied for a secretary position at that particular insurance agency, not a traveling salesman position -- because even a secretarial position would make close to or more than $17k a year, and I wouldn't have to be doing manual labor work on nights and weekends. When I told the interviewer this on the phone, he promptly hung up on me.

This is similar to earlier this month, when my teaching credentials fit the bill and experience for a teaching position in Lincoln, and the lady called to offer me four hours a day at $8 per hour. It's insulting. There's a Writing Center position open in Omaha at the university there that pays $20 per hour, but it's also listed as "temporary" and "part time" with no benefits and no other details. I told Daisy that it was probably a waste of time to even apply for it, as "temporary" and "part time" more than likely translated to less than ten hours a week -- with the former meaning they could basically tell you to go kick rocks at any time they wanted to.

I keep telling Daisy, mostly because it's true, that I desperately want a teaching or writing position someplace, not some sort of office job like she has. This is because doing a job like she has would more than likely put me back into the rut of life, which is my greatest fear -- if I settle for something that is below me, something simply done for the sake of necessity, something that I did not go to school for and could have done without an advanced degree...I will once more give up on my life's dreams. I'll realize that I'm trapped in whatever position I have for the foreseeable future, and I will slowly resign myself to my fate as a low-wage slave more and more as what little self-esteem I have evaporates. After a while I will no longer have the drive and motivation to succeed or make anything of myself anymore -- my work will boil down to something I have to do for simple survival, and something I cannot escape because, when I try to, I am constantly smacked down and reminded that being a wage slave is all I'm good for. I know me. I know how I am. I know how my mental state operates.

The only thing that got me out of that mindset four years ago was leaving the grocery store job, uprooting myself, and moving to Kansas with my longtime ex when she got accepted into graduate school. It was the one and only good thing that came out of my move here to this hot, flat, dismal red state. It is a mental state that I refuse to fall into again. Ever. And nobody seems to "get it" when I say I don't want to be trapped in doing one thing and only one thing for the rest of my life. All of them look at me with sad eyes and say things like "do you think I wanted to work where I work for as long as I've been working there?" They say things like this because they've already resigned themselves to defeat, and did so many years ago -- now all they can look forward to is retirement or death, or both.

Careers in teaching, writing, or (really) teaching writing give me options. Options are important. This is why I've felt so fucking defeated over the past two months in being able to find nothing. Teaching, at least at the college level, is one of those few careers left in which you can work your way up through the system and actually enjoy what you do while you do so.

"I know you want a tenure-track job..." Daisy began the other night before I stopped her.

"I'm not going to find a tenure-track job," I told her point-blank. "There are way too few of them and way too many of us. Hoping for something tenure-track is basically pointless."

In teaching at the college level, if you do well enough for a long enough period of time, people tend to notice that. They tend to promote you, give you more leeway in what you do, let you fully design and mandate your own courses and their execution, and generally (over some time) tend to pay you more. You don't have to be tenure-track to get these things. Tenure basically boils down to a permanent position that is nigh-impossible to be fired from -- and only sometimes does it mean you'll get paid more than anyone else. I don't necessarily want tenure track anyway -- it means more responsibilities, and with more responsibilities comes higher, frequently difficult-to-achieve expectations. If I've learned anything in my several years of teaching, it's that you don't want more responsibilities or higher expectations -- really, you just want to be trusted enough by the administration to be left alone. As a GTA, I had that -- I helmed the Engineering English 102 sections all by my lonesome, as my own boss, for a year. I only answered to the department chair, a close friend and ally who trusted me, knew the course was "my baby" and that I'd made it my own after his wife designed the original blueprint for it, and let me go my own way. This is because I knew what I was doing, I didn't start any shit, and I truly enjoyed what I did. If anyone were to posit a complaint about me, all he would have to do would be to pull my course evaluations and look at the high-percentile marks across the board. I wore Iron Maiden, Firefly, and comic book t-shirts to class to teach in because I had that unspoken pass from the department (a department without a dress code, really) once I explained, briefly, that Engineers were classes full of nerds who could relate to someone like me better than someone who would wear a suit and tie every day.

And, of course, I was right. I was trusted. Nobody was going to give me any shit about anything when they saw the results of my teaching abilities, and nobody did. Ever. I got along with the program directors who nobody else liked and who nobody else got along with. I had hour-long conversations with them on a semi-frequent basis, because I was trusted and respected. Again, as you know, I took my job seriously. It was the highest of responsibilities for me, and that served me well.

So teaching, you see, is an animal all its own. It's sort of like being in the mafia. You gain trust, you gain respect, and you work your way up the ladder. It's also a position which has just the right amount of job security, and with every class you teach you add more experience and another notch to your proverbial belt on your CV. It's not a conventional, sit-in-an-office-and-work-9-to-5 job. It's a 24/7 job. But it's a job that also gives you a lot more flexibility and leeway than many other jobs do, and when you have downtime you actually get to savor and enjoy it, instead of getting off work and wanting to drink a fifth of gin to make the pain go away.

Teaching is also flexible in the sense that if you don't like what you're teaching, where you're teaching or when you're doing it, you generally only have to deal with that for a semester at a time, and the more respected and trusted you are amongst the administration and your peers, the more you get to have a say in what you do and when/where/how you're doing it. Again, look at my example above -- even as a GTA, I was trusted enough to basically run an entire program by myself. I could've done anything I wanted in that class -- I could've gone in there every day wearing my leather jacket and a speedo, bullshitted with my students about the science of Star Trek, and as long as I performed admirably and still fulfilled the requirements of the department, it didn't matter. Having autonomy, having interaction with one's students, having a classroom full of subjects under your orders and command -- so many of these things are taken for granted. And none of these things are present in most other fields I could be working in. It's a totally unique experience.

The other plus about teaching is that I have never, not once felt hopeless, trapped, or resigned to my fate. My fate was education. My fate was bettering the world as I bettered myself as well. I was never smacked down or chastised for wanting to be the best person I could be -- teaching encouraged and bolstered that in me. I made a difference. I was doing work that meant something to not only me, but everyone I worked with.

The thought that I may have to eventually take an office job that will make me feel the exact opposite of that feeling not only terrifies me, but very deeply depresses me.

Writing, on the other hand, offers supreme flexibility at the expense of any and all job security. I've written before about how I've basically lost faith in the publishing industry; very little of what I see published these days is at all good or interesting, and most of it is just flat-out boring or bad. I became bitter and jaded about literary journals long ago, especially when my own submissions (or the brilliant submissions of my friends and colleagues) were rejected in favor of some of the worst, most trite poetry or short fiction I've ever read. It's almost impossible to get published anymore or to find a literary agent who will actually do anything for you -- it's very similar to the music industry. If you have something good, you might as well put the work into it and release it yourself independently, because then at least you'll be likely to get something out of it. The only way one can make any money writing these days is, sadly, through journalism -- and that's tenuous money at best. I write for the newspaper because I can do it, it's relatively fun and easy, and it's something I enjoy that gets my work read by the public while I actually get a paycheck for it. I took on two stories for the paper yesterday morning, and my deadline for at least one, if not both of them, is Tuesday morning. It won't pay the bills, but it's something.

Still I am filled with dread and uncertainty about my future, and it's a feeling I can't shake. In less than two weeks, I will find out whether I will be adjuncting this fall or will have any sort of employment with the university at all. If I'm not, I have to either dive into as many stories as I can get the newspaper to give me at once, essentially making my freelancing a full-time job, or I have to dive into the soul-sucking, life-draining job market everywhere I can in order to be able to find something that will allow me to pay my bills. Or both. None of it's going to be pleasant.

I don't really tell Daisy about a lot of the thoughts going through my head or the stress I'm under right now, because I am mentally able to keep it pretty balanced and I don't want her to worry about me. My financial situation right now is just fine, but it's not exactly sustainable for more than a few more months, despite my few monetary needs. Internally, I am always in a low-level panic, always feeling that there's something more I should be doing, but I don't know what else could be done. I know if I were to apply for, and get hired into some low-level sales job somewhere, while it would bring in some money, it more than likely wouldn't be enough for me to live on, and I know I would fall back into that pit of despair, that pit of "I'll never succeed doing what I was meant to do with my life, or anything I went to school for" and I will lose all motivation to even try anymore because it will be too goddamned depressing. You may think that knowledge of this situation alone would prevent it from happening, but it doesn't. I know how I am, I know how I think. I can't change who I am at my core, not even the traits and pitfalls that I do not like about myself. It is so easy, whether you think it would be or not, to fall back into that pit of despair and self-loathing. So, so easy. And I don't want to end up looking back on my life in a year or two and hating everything it's become, especially not when I'll just be starting a life as a husband (and probably a father) as well.

In the meantime, there are few opportunities that will offer me any sort of stability at all beyond, say, a semester or so's worth of work. Daisy has applied for academic advisor positions at a community college, and has encouraged me to do the same (as the starting pay is $38k a year or so), and I will do so, but even that feels basically fruitless. While it is still in the education field, yes, I can also see that playing out as one of those positions I'd apply for and would then never, ever hear back from because it is posted as a formality -- something else Daisy's father reminded me of when I was visiting last week.

"So many of these job postings aren't really job postings," he told me. "They're put up because they have to put them up as placeholders when, in reality, they already have someone lined up for the position from within their ranks, and have no intention of hiring any outside applicants."

This is something I knew before of course, and something I've known for years, but had conveniently forgotten in favor of actually being able to hold out some sort of hope that maybe, eventually, someone might actually want to hire someone with my skills, experience, and qualifications.

I put up a treatise this morning on Facebook about why I believe the national minimum wage should be federally mandated to be $20 per hour, for everyone (including servers/waiters/etc) and how employers should basically not be allowed to have "part-time only" jobs anymore. I come from a state where Walmart is the largest private employer because nobody can get any work anywhere else, and Walmart is legendarily known to pay their employees as little as possible and to work them like dogs -- it's the American version of sweatshop slave labor. Yet, companies like Walmart rake in millions, if not billions, in pure profits every year. Companies like McDonald's, who do the same thing and expect their employees to be able to live on their poor salaries, have basically admitted that to break even, an average employee's wage should be at least $15 per hour.

I got a lot of shit over this, by friends of mine saying things like "$20 per hour is $40k a year!" Yes, yes it is. I don't see the problem here. Especially not when many companies like Walmart and McDonald's are making such massive profits on the backs of their employees who essentially run the company for them, employees who are worked to the bone at the lowest possible wage they are federally allowed to pay them.

"Okay," I said, "So don't make it all companies and businesses then, only the ones who make a pure profit of $5M, $10M, $20M a year or more."

Putting in a stipulation like that would allow small businesses to survive, and would force the megacorporations raping the workforce to actually better our economy by, y'know, allowing their workers to be actually able to afford life.

One of my friends replied that "Basic, menial jobs exist to give people a place to start. The opportunity, as it is, is to build skills and a job history in order to advance to the next step. Okay, so minimum wage can't get someone by, fine: work two jobs."

Yeah, that's part of the problem. The solution shouldn't be "work two jobs," ever. If you want to work two jobs? Go for it. I have no problem with that. For a time, after I graduated from WVU, I worked three jobs all at once -- freelance reporter for the Morgantown newspaper, grocery store checker/stocker, and laboratory technician/assistant. In addition, I ran my own web business. I barely slept, and with the money I made from all of those ventures combined, I wouldn't have even been able to pay car insurance, let alone move out of my parents' house and fend for myself. Combined, with all of those, I worked anywhere between 60-70 hours per week -- I usually had about 38 or 39 at the grocery store (so that they couldn't classify me as "full time," which meant they would have to pay me benefits) and around 20 in the lab, not to mention the hours I put into writing stories for the paper. And even in that, if I weren't living with my parents at the time, I would not have been able to survive. This was almost ten years ago now.

"I find it most amusing," said one of my other friends, "that most of the people telling fast food workers to get better jobs that pay more than minimum wage are the same people complaining about welfare, food stamps, low income housing etc. Stuff that a lot of people wouldn't need if they could actually survive on one 40 hour a week job."

My thoughts exactly. It's not about getting comfortable in some fast food job so that one never leaves it -- it's about being able to survive working that job for the time being when one needs it, or, conversely, in the case that the person working it is unable to ever leave it. I know people who have worked in grocery stores or in fast food for over twenty years -- why? Because they can't get out of it, or because they don't have the education or ability to do anything else and are forced to rely on that job to survive. And it kills them mentally and socially, as well as physically. If you think everyone in this country has the same opportunity to get an education and to move up in the world, you are wrong. If you think everyone has the ability -- mental or physical or both -- to continue bettering themselves and rise up, you are also wrong. Most of my own family members worked in the coal mines of West Virginia and Pennsylvania for the better part of their lives not because they wanted to, but because they couldn't afford to go to college, and working in the mines was the only job available that they could actually live on. Even today, in West Virginia you either work for the mines (or mining companies), work for the university in some capacity, or end up working at Walmart or a grocery store. Those are about the only three real options unless you want to sacrifice your life to the military, since poor states like West Virginia have the highest recruitment rates -- people would rather take the chance of getting shot at on a regular basis just to be able to make enough money to survive.

I find all of this incredibly sad and depressing, of course.

This is what I have to deal with; this is all of the stuff I think about on a regular basis. It's not much better here in Kansas than it is in West Virginia. It wasn't any better in Missouri when I lived there, either, and it's not much better (if at all) in Omaha. Could I get a minimum wage job right now if I wanted to or had to? Yes, of course I could -- at almost any retail or foodservice establishment here in Newton, for fuck's sake. And yes, it would help pay the bills. Yes, it would keep food in the fridge and gas in the car, and would do so for a while. But would it be enough for me to live on indefinitely? Hell no. It would be just like adjuncting -- it would supplement what I already have, but it would not fully stop the hemorrhaging of money, nor would it really allow me to save anything. It would just slow the bleeding to a trickle for a short time.

I'm not alone in this situation, of course; I'm not crying the "poor me" routine. There are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of recent graduates exactly where I am right now, looking down the barrel of unemployment and financial ruin with hope for the future in my chosen career field slowly dwindling more and more by the day. And what can be done about this? Not a lot. I'm sick of assholes calling people like me -- recent graduates -- "lazy" or "entitled" or what-have-you. We're not -- or at least not all of us are. I didn't get two degrees to expect a job to fall into my lap. I'm not that immature. I got two degrees with the simple expectation that doing so would better my chances of actually being able to do what I want to do with my life, only to find that thousands upon thousands of others did the same thing and are also in the same situation I am. All of us are working hard to find some sort of employment we can live on, and yes, I am fully aware that I am the product of my choices and life decisions (by the way, don't Google the statistics on how many MFA graduates commit suicide, because it's fucking scary). Still, to a certain extent I don't care what other people think -- my life choices, my experience and credentials, should mean something. It's not about self-importance, it's about self-reliance.

My mother asked me this morning if I had any updates for her on the job hunt, and it took all of my self-control to not begin laughing. Instead, I had to explain to her that over the past two weeks or so, while there were plenty of jobs in education-related fields still out there (most of which require degrees more advanced than mine and/or experience I do not have), most teaching positions have been disappearing, dropping like dominoes as the timeframe for being able to interview and hire applicants has now passed -- including many of the positions I myself have applied for. I also had to explain to her that even if I got a call today and was offered even an interview, let alone a position someplace, it's far, far too late for me to be able to uproot myself to move halfway across the country again to be able to start teaching on a set date. That's the difference between teaching positions and other positions -- set dates. You can be the best candidate possible with every degree and credential any given institution would want, but if you can't interview, pack up and move, secure a new living situation and be ready to teach on the first day of classes....sorry, we'll pick someone else. That's part of what's so frustrating about looking for work in education -- very strict, metered-out timeframes. At least for most other realms of employment, if hired I can give them a start date on my own terms. If you're a professor, you can't -- they dictate those times and you have to abide by them.

I found this on Twitter this evening: "Life doesn't give you what you want. Life gives you the materials necessary to create you into the person you're supposed to be."

I've already crafted myself into the person I'm supposed to be.

What now?