Sunday, September 6, 2009

Sunday Morning, 0310.

I traded love for pennies,
Sold my soul for less;
Lost my ideals in that long tunnel of time.
I've turned inside out, around-and-about
And back and then...
I found myself right back where I started again.
-Jim Croce, "Age"

I was recently interviewed in order to be deemed worthy of.....okay, there's only so much I can say here, but let's just say I was interviewed in order to be granted advanced access to certain......files. It's all very interesting and weird, and frankly I would sleep better if i didn't have to worry about such things, but it's my lot in life and I'll live with it like I've lived with every other twist and turn that's come up on this road.

Run-on sentences can be your friend.

It was the interview itself that made me consider the road itself. And how long and winding it's been. You know, when I listened to McCartney sing that song so many years ago, in the arrogance of youth, I thought the old Beatle was full of sh*t. Now, with the arrogance of age....except my long and winding road doesn't have a haunting melody or millions of dollars of residuals connected with it.

The thing in the interview that set my off was the question of employment. The situation is unique in this employment, because you literally have to be able to track your own movements, going back a decade. And in that time, in fact, since I graduated from college (the first time), and actually since my second year of college, I've only been unemployed for......three months. And those were the months that required my focus on moving all of our worldlies from West to North.

You'd think it would have been harder to tell them all about the theatre jobs; two months here, six months there.....but no, they were reallllly interested in the three months of unemployment. And why I decided to stop working. And whether I got fired, or quit. And how I paid for my life in those three whole months.

It was easier to pay for those three months of unemployment than it was to pay for most of the almost three-decades of employment.

Some things are evident:

I never really suffered fools gladly; it has become abundantly clear that in my youth I at least made the attempt. Now, my mantra seems to be, "the hell with it."

Three months in twenty six years. If I spread those out, it comes to, I think (I'm very bad with numbers), three days of vacation a year. Owch.

I was a go-getter in my youth; I could easily go from a job on one end of the country, and whip my way to the other side for another job with no long term effect. NOW.....I need a vacation just to get through your average MONDAY.

I need to re-think my relationship with time.

Other than that, I'm good.

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