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back on the bus.
By briantologist | October 24, 2009
It was when I read this story, about shutting down one’s blog, that I realized I needed to start writing here again.
As I read about how ideas for posts were getting in the way of her working on her novel, or other stories, or grocery lists, or leaflets, the same idea came back to me that’s been plaguing me for kind of a while now: I’ve got nothing to write about. I’d certainly settle for a blog post or two.
Which is horse shit, of course; saying you have nothing to write about is like saying you’re bored, which is something I’ve always considered an almost completely inexcusable statement coming from anyone not actually serving time in solitary confinement. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about, it’s that I haven’t been writing about it.
So yeah, why I haven’t been writing about it is the murkier, more troubling bit of it. It’s been drifting off for kind of a while now, my desire to do much of anything, or engage with the world around me beyond the people living within 30 feet of me; if I had to blame it on something other than myself, I’d definitely pin it on my ongoing struggles with (lack of) permanent gainful employment.
Which isn’t entirely a cop-out, if I’m being fair to myself for a change. Erin’s been out of work since the end of 2007, and after several months of infuriatingly fruitless job searching, a couple of things were clear:
- If there was a job out there for her, this was a trick statement, because there was not a fucking job out there for her.
- Ultimately it was moot, as what she really wanted to do was write books for a living.
The fact is that I utterly believe of her ability and her drive to do the latter, as evidenced by the 1.66 (and counting) books she’s written in the past year. I believed from the beginning, which was why it wasn’t too long before I got focused on being the breadwinner for our tiny family.
And I was able to do it, mostly. At the beginning of 2008 I got what looked like a temp-to-perm job at an office full of awesome people with an organization I believed in, and other than the worthless and awful human being who was technically our supervisor, everything was great. (She almost never bothered to show up for work, though, so fortunately she wasn’t a problem most of the time.) And yet, things fell apart there, due entirely to said idiot-in-charge, and just in time for New Year’s Eve, there I was! Unemployed! Deeper in debt than ever before! Good times.
We were lucky, though: Due to me being far too occupied with the monumental tasks of day-to-day existence (video games, child-rearing, dime-store hooch), I’d forgotten to change my W-2 to reflect my sole breadwinnerdom, which meant way too much cash withheld from my checks, which meant a truly awesome tax refund, which meant we could actually live on the unemployment checks provided by the good people at the Illinois Department of Employment Security for several months, long enough for me to apply for One Billion Jobs, get completely disillusioned, get myself fired up again about looking for work, apply for One Billion More Jobs, get completely disillusioned again, and repeat the process nine to fifteen times before finally landing a mostly full-time contract gig somewhere I completely fucking love. I’m still there, and it’s still awesome, and though I’m kind of screwed when they run out of stuff for me to do, it’s pretty rare that that actually happens.
Are the last couple of paragraphs a little overwhelming and also kind of totally boring to you? I don’t blame you. Living it has been much the same. The whole time I’ve been focused on whether or not I’ll continue to have a job, and how long it’ll last, and whether or not the life we’ve built for ourselves in the city we love would crumble in our hands like a sombrero made of blue cheese, catapulting us back to a life of disgrace in spare rooms at our parents’ houses. It’s felt like our lives are in my hands, which is insultingly reductive when you consider how much work Erin does looking after Henry day in and day out, but you get prone to a melodramatic inner monologue when you dwell on shit like this all the time. And you’re me.
So it’s been like this:
- Go to work.
- Drive self nuts thinking about this shit all the time, to the point where it gets in the way of working.
- Beat self up for not accomplishing all I could be at work.
- Leave work feeling kind of beaten by item 3.
- Come home, drink, watch TV, enjoy some quality time with the kid, waste a shitload of time on utterly meaningless Facebook-related activities.
- Repeat.
You’ll note the lack of time budgeted for reading, social activities, fun, setting or achieving personal goals, and the fostering of a meaningful inner monologue.
And this is how I’ve come to realize that whatever progress I’ve made as a person has slowly ground to a complete halt over the past year and a half, and so what I’ve got right now (other than a family I love in a city I love and a lot of awesome friends and a life that anybody with a lick of sense would envy the shit out of) is a biggo bucket of pureéd inertia, and dear me, it seems I’ve been taking more than my share of drinks from it. I got dragged down, people; I let myself get sucked into the grind, to the point where the grind* became everything I could think about, and it turns out that regardless of whether or not your outer life is going well (turns out it actually has been going really well), it ain’t worth a shit if you don’t keep up with your mental housekeeping.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was a Doogie Howser End-of-Episode Giant Computer Journal Moment, and you were unfortunate enough to be here for it. If nothing else, the fact that I’d write a post ending like that is ample evidence that I need to get back into practice on this typin’-'n’-thinkin’ thing. So there it is.
*The Grind with Eric Nies, naturally.
Topics: Baffled Mutterings, Reflections From the Bottom Rung, Thinkin'. | 5 Comments »
October 24th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
It should be noted that for most of his tenure on “The Grind” Eric Nies was referred to only as “Eric”, given the fact that his telepersonality was developed initially without the acknowledgment of his last name’s existence.
It should also be noted that I’m really glad you are thinking in this direction, and that the lovely wife and I are all in favor of greater endeavor blog-wise or whatever-wise by you and yours. More, please.
October 25th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Good for you! Glad you’re back. Blogging can be cheap therapy and if nothing else it gives you something to keep yourself grounded. A reason to find something silly to discuss, a goal that is easy to check off, a community of like-minded blog nerds. It can be good. And if all else fails, take up embroidery. Worked for me! :)
October 25th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
i’ve missed you guys. terribly. thank you for this.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:54 am
Hey buddy, glad you’re back. I couldn’t sympathize more with what you’re saying here – I have a kickass job that pays good money, and though I’m brimming with novel and short story ideas I come home most days too mentally worn out to tend to them. I tend to think of it like a garden, and most of my thoughts throughout most of the day are just weeds. The metaphor kinda breaks down there, though, because I have no idea what the Weed-B-Gon would be. I think it’s something about clearing a protected space and time, and getting really quiet on a regular basis, but it’s also possible I’m full of it, so you can’t really go by me.
At any rate, it’s good you’re back.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Welcome back. You were sorely missed. Quite frankly, I don’t blog myself because I too am getting ground into the fine powder of daily existence. The ideas come and by the next day they floated off into some nebulous other world, and I can’t them back.
It’s alright. Your cyber peeps missed you.
If it makes you feel any better here’s my status–I too finally found a job that I love–but only after–1) a divorce–2) a move from NYC into the home of the parental units at age 31 with cat in carrier–3) a year long search for permanent employment, and 4) finding out that after 6 mos. of contract employment I DID NOT QUALIFY FOR M*&^&((F&&&CKing GA unemployment benefits.