Hopeless.

I really am hopeless at this point. My parents have a million recommendations: go to this agency! Ask your college career center what to do! Why bother? What do they care about me and my plight? No one's losing any sleep about my undesirability career wise. And it's not in my personality to ask and be whiny and demanding. It's not what I do. I don't ask for help, I don't want to have to admit how pathetic and useless I am. Shouldn't someone want me for who I am? Shouldn't I be able to find something when I've always been capable enough to take care of myself? Isn't all this what family friends are for?



I'm tired of thinking about my "career". I don't want a career. Never have, never will. My childhood was filled with the acquisition of completely useless skills. Horseback riding, piano lessons, things to make me "civilized", straight out of the 19th century. I wasn't prepared for a world of back-breaking work, I was prepared to be Scarlett O'Hara. And when I succeeded in academia, well, I assumed that because I was better than everyone else at that, then it meant I really was better than everyone else. Of course things would fall into my lap. How could they not?


Well, that delusion soon died off. But I still don't want to have to go beg from people who don't give a shit. It's like constantly calling a guy and begging them to fuck you- you just don't do it if you have any self-respect. There may have been points where I haven't had self-respect, but at least I knew him. I don't want to have to show all my cards to a total stranger, show them how no one cares about my livelihood and that I'm unhirable. And then have them say "no thanks" anyways.


Why can't I be a bohemian artist for just a few years of life? Why can't I live in the city and drink too much and go on obliquely about some stupid idea for a sculpture I had once? Why isn't it enough that I know everything? I can tell you facts and figures, I can explain basically any theory on art, politics, or society, but I don't know anything about management or IT or working multiline phone systems. I don't do accounting, I don't have experience at anything practical.


I would probably have a better chance surviving in the wilderness than surviving in today's job market, to be honest. I know about gardening and survival skills. I would be fine on a homestead. I can cook and clean if need be. But you don't learn how to become a consultant when you're seven. I don't even know what half the jobs out there actually entail. Sometimes I think the whole system is just an Office Space joke- no one really knows what they're doing, they just sit at a cubicle all day and twiddle their thumbs, so I might as well make shit up on my resume and learn to bullshit better, and I'd probably get a lot more interviews.


But that's not me. Isn't being a tastemaker enough? I'm sure I could write some books if I had enough spare time, or learn some fun new talents that would give me some artistic release. But am I really employable? Is everyone employable, or are there people who are just meant for decoration, to make the edge of life's knife blade a little duller?


Probably not anymore. You have to be hard and driven in this world. There's no room for someone halfway beautiful with a bit of a wit if she can't coerce and force her way onto a scene. I'm not imposing- maybe that's my problem. I'm not someone who demands things. I'd like to think it's my good breeding that prevents me from being rude and contradictory. I probably don't sound sure of myself. And I'm not. How could I be with a record like mine? It would take severe delusions to demand the things I deserve. If I deserve them so badly, then how come no one at all will give them to me?


The fact is that I've given up the fight. I was never prepared for a fight to begin with. I was expecting an extension of childhood, a good time, things taken lightly, taken up when wanted, and put away when they became dull. I expected people to find me desirable, that people would pay attention when I talked. I guess I just expected everyone to be civil. Instead, I was greeted with a picture more akin to a frantic stock market, with yelling and waving and shouting, arguments, everyone trying to find an ear to listen to them. Of course I would be drowned out in all the noise. That noisy world is for someone else. Not me.