What I want.

I want to have enough money to not worry about it. I don't want to work seven days a week. I want to have vacation time and be able to take it without fear about how it will affect my "scorecard" or my "overall quality rating" or my "meets expectations" notation. I want to be able to shop for something about $50 without having to worry if I'm going to break the bank. I want to save money. I want to fix the brakes on my car before I get into an accident or just get a new car. I want to be able to renew my license and my tag on the same paycheck without worry. If someone asks me about exercise or a gym membership, I don't want to say either "I don't have the money" or "I don't have the time" and seriously mean it. I want American Express to stop calling me. I want to be able to get a phone line at my apartment so that I can use the Internet. I want to go back to London someday, and I don't want my mom to pay for it. I want to be able to travel to Ohio for my family reunion and be able to pay for it. I want to visit Jenipher and be able to pay for it. I want to visit Marley and be able to pay for it. I want to pay Larry back the money I owe him. I want to pay Black back the money I owe him. I want a refrigerator that doesn't freeze milk, or I want to be able to call the super and know that he's going to replace it, rather than just put me off with another useless service visit that doesn't fix the problem. I want my mom to stop asking me about whether I had the refrigerator fixed, for only Ash knows that I called them five times about it during our three-month relationship. I want to go to Phipps and do more than just browse. I want to stop deferring payments on my student loan. I want to stop working until 6 p.m. when I'm only supposed to work until 5:15, yet I still can't manage to get ahead. I want to work at a job that I enjoy, where I'm seen as a creative, equal, intelligent contributor.

That's what I want, and I don't think any of that is particularly unreasonable, except maybe the shopping at Phipps.

It's more than just putting my resume out there. (Put it on Monster, I've been told, and they'll beat down your goddamn door to try and get you a job. I don't think it's quite like that.)

Working at my job for the last five years has left me uniquely qualified to do nothing, I feel like. Nothing. Maybe data entry. Some other $25K job. Oh, and it's not supposed to be about the money. I have big ideas. Of course, at the same time, I'm in perpetual debt, and I feel like I work all the damn time.

I haven't had a job since my work at the college newspaper that I've completely enjoyed. I've felt like every job was this exercise in slow, painful soul-killing. I worked as an obit editor, and that wasn't my worst job. I worked in a highly competitive, divisive environment where I was regularly written up for inappropriate behavior because I did things like "seemed to enjoy a backrub given by a co-worker." Every new job just feels like another exercise in how to slowly, painfully, efficiently kill myself, and I'm sorry if I look at it like that. It makes writing all the enthusiasm into that killer resume really, really hard.

I'm sure it's all me. God, I feel like I'm having a fucking breakdown. Again. And it's the same old shit that I'm complaining about.

It's like I've come up with a really elaborate trick that helps me keep spinning my wheels.

Now, my mom wants to help me find a job. My mom.

I'm turning 29. I'm working at the same jobs I started at five years ago.

During both of those interviews, they asked me where I saw myself five years from then.

They probably wouldn't have hired me if I'd said, "Oh, I see myself here. Right here. The same goddamn place."

I'm not in a good mood today.