So tired… So very, very tired…

OK. I remember, once in a great while, my parents coming home and putting and end to whatever noisy activities my sister and I were performing at the time… Practicing instruments, vocal rehearsal, playing “new-fangled music” while we attempted our more boring homework, what have you. It all had to stop and wait for a sullen Mom and Dad to decompress from a shitty day by yelling at the kids to clean up after themselves for a few minutes, strap on a book for a spare hour, then make dinner or do housework over a slightly too stiff drink. This was a rare occurrence, admittedly. Unfortunately, this situation describes my activities every day when I get off work. Unlike my parents, I have nobody to yell at but my cat and my boyfriend, neither of whom can be blamed for their lack of domestic derring-do (I mean, one doesn’t have opposable thumbs or understand English, and the other doesn’t live with me), nor their inability to put up with my perpetual ill-temper.

I guess you could say that my current bout of prissiness re: the job has been spurred by my friend out in Minneapolis, who just up and quit his job one day while going through his yearly review. They loved him, mind you, but the work was driving him insane with the hours and the requirements of running a tight ship of a hotel in a ghettofied suburb of St. Paul. The HR regional VP asked him if he was happy in his job, and his response was, “No. I’d like to make this my official one-month notice.” Balls. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a new job yet, and he’s down to two weeks before he starts dipping into savings. Savings, I don’t have, more’s the pity. Also, I have less marketable skills than he. Oddly, as hard as I’ve worked to make a living, I also lack the work ethic to do what I see other people do willingly every day to survive. Or, perhaps I just haven’t found work yet that I can love. I love the people I work with, but without love of the work, it’s just not enough.

I want to be that lighting designer from last Saturday… I want to be an artist who can wax rhapsodic on what he does. I’d like to bring the love and energy of positive exhaustion into my life in every aspect. Quixotically, this seems to be the hardest thing in the world to do for people without business degrees. Folks who know HOW to shoot the system do well, greyly, while the rest of us founder, or flail about until we figure out how to be just the slightest bit less bohemian. It’s no wonder most aspiring authors become soulless contract lawyers. They’re sick of starving, and want to be able to afford the meds that will put an end to sleepless nights spent wondering whether they’ll be able to afford to eat tomorrow. Fishing-pole, indeed. Somehow, I don’t think a BA/BS in business (B[ull]S[hit] being the preferred term, in my mind, for any undergraduate “science” degree,) should be a prerequisite for happiness. I don’t claim to be an artist. At this point, I’d just settle for being left alone.