thought i was dead, eh?

...i'm visiting

09.20.05

It's not that I don't love you.

I'm mean, truly, you're a great public.

The best public I've ever known.

It's just that I have been spending a lot of time with the PS2 lately, playing old PS1 games*.

You know how it is. You think you're just going to spend a couple of hours on mindless entertainment, but then you look at the clock and it's really late, so late that the public is probably already sleeping.

So you creep in silently and go to bed yourself.

That and I have a new work-friend who works at Another Store Like Unto Mine, but her's is a nicer, newer version.

She's super energetic and chirpy, but she's also as weird and messed up as I am... just in new and different ways. She burns off her frustrations walking the dog or taking hip-hop dance classes, and I kill monsters and solve quests from the comfort of my own sofa.

She went to beauty school as a way to pay for college, and worked in and ran her mom's salon all throughout her collegiate experience. Now she has a degree in Spanish literature, and runs a salon in another store Like Unto Mine But Nicer.

In the car today, because we're driving back and forth everyday this week to a far away destination to get training on how to be a "More Effective Salon Manager," (alternate class title: "How to Grin and Bear It When Someone Foists Another Job That Isn't Really Your Responsibility Upon Your Already Ridiculous Workload & Still Do It All Effectively, Just Because Corporate's Initiative To Do This Thing You Now Do Failed Miserably At the Corporate Level .") Sparky told me that she wasn't sure what she wanted to do careerwise in the future. While she likes doing hair, this position for her is just a way to make money and have benefits until she figures out what she wants to do for real.

Merely a stepping stone to better things, if you will.

And it made me think for a minute about how this is a 23 year-old essentially starting off her lot in life, fresh out of college. Sparky's filled to the brim with fantastic business skills, and has it all planned out for now. If she needs help with a difficult issue, she googles it to find out how to delicately handle it the best way, without making it worse, and probably make it all better instead.

And I'm a 33 year-old that considers this position a career. I make okay money, I have security and benefits, a matched 401K, paid vacations, and I'm a salaried position. If I could think of something else I'd like to do better that I'd make more money doing and still have that security, I'd probably be all over that, to be honest. And I've been thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up, back when I was a 23 year-old starting off my lot in life, fresh out of school.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't what I am right now.

I'm realizing again that quirks and foibles that are cute in a twenty-something are considered childish and pathetic in someone over 30.

I'm almost out of the 19-34 demographic, which means that I guess I'll have to grow up and figure it out before July 9, 2007. That gives me 21 months to find the meaning of me.

But for now I'd still rather play video games and watch television.

**********

*A lot of them are ones that I've played before a long time ago, either on the SNES or PS1, but many of them are also sequels to those particular games. Or, believe it or not, director's cuts of older games.