Such Great Heights
“Excuse me. Too busy writing your tragedy. These mishaps you bubble-wrap when you've no idea what you're like.”
I felt like a corpse this morning. Today was third interview day, and I needed to be in St. Albans for eleven o'clock. This necessitated an eight-thirty alarm that seemed to go off about five minutes after I finally got to sleep. Like everything else in these dead times I seem to fall into, it reminded me of the past.
I don't mean to opt out. It isn't a conscious decision. Mostly it's just something that happens. I fall into some job I don't really want and then do it for as long as I can stand to. Eventually, there comes a point when I get tired of all the square peg, round hole baggage that makes itself apparent almost every time I find full-time employment. And when that happens, I usually just drop everything and walk away.
Of course it's dumb. It's dumb like wanting to write fiction for a living or getting into a serious relationship with someone that lives eight timezones away. It's dumb like jumping naked into an abandoned quarry full of freezing water in the middle of February. I have done all of these things, and as long as they feel right, I will continue to do them. Dumb is the substitute word for brave when you forget that you only have one life or start believing in heaven. Dumb, in this instance, is the opposite of safe. If you leave a job without having another to go to, try to make other people understand the things in your head without studying for some kind of security, take the girl that isn't going to leave you with all this distance and heartache, or stand pale and shivering on the banks 'cause you don't know how cold it is or if there are rocks down there or what, then you'll be okay. Dull, bitter, and full of regret...but okay. Secure. Safe. The only thing you'll have to fear are the times you're going to wake up at 3am feeling hollow and ashamed because you took the blue pill.
The past was the cinema offices and the business side of bars and even the cafeteria in the 24 hour supermarket. The past was exhaustion. The past was a folder kept in my rucksack or paper ripped from the waitress's notepad, pens stolen from the boss's drawer or the pint glass by the till where we kept our tips. Seems strange to be nostalgic for that, but maybe that sense of urgency is what I've been missing; the energy I had when my lunchbreak was at two in the morning and I drank three cups of coffee and smoked three cigarettes and wrote three pages before trudging back to the shelf-stacking; the inspiration I had when I could watch a couple hitting the peak of a domestic dispute before falling in love again, right there in the middle of the pub with everyone staring, and make a queue of customers wait while I took notes.
The present was scraping my sandpaper face with a razor and trying to remember how to knot a tie, was slipping into the black leather overcoat I painted with scuff cover before I went to my first interview because it's the only coat I own, was walking these same streets and getting on that same train and meeting the same guy I met ten days ago to talk about the same things. But my New Year's resolutions have become the basis of a plan for the near future, and that plan requires me to be doing a job I can do with the wages and prospects I require.
Six weeks ago, you may remember me making some promises about 2005. Since then, I've quit smoking, massively reduced my alcohol intake, made major inroads into improving my health and general well-being, and started working harder than I can demonstrate towards making myself happy.
You're damn fucking right I got the job.
I felt like a corpse this morning. Today was third interview day, and I needed to be in St. Albans for eleven o'clock. This necessitated an eight-thirty alarm that seemed to go off about five minutes after I finally got to sleep. Like everything else in these dead times I seem to fall into, it reminded me of the past.
I don't mean to opt out. It isn't a conscious decision. Mostly it's just something that happens. I fall into some job I don't really want and then do it for as long as I can stand to. Eventually, there comes a point when I get tired of all the square peg, round hole baggage that makes itself apparent almost every time I find full-time employment. And when that happens, I usually just drop everything and walk away.
Of course it's dumb. It's dumb like wanting to write fiction for a living or getting into a serious relationship with someone that lives eight timezones away. It's dumb like jumping naked into an abandoned quarry full of freezing water in the middle of February. I have done all of these things, and as long as they feel right, I will continue to do them. Dumb is the substitute word for brave when you forget that you only have one life or start believing in heaven. Dumb, in this instance, is the opposite of safe. If you leave a job without having another to go to, try to make other people understand the things in your head without studying for some kind of security, take the girl that isn't going to leave you with all this distance and heartache, or stand pale and shivering on the banks 'cause you don't know how cold it is or if there are rocks down there or what, then you'll be okay. Dull, bitter, and full of regret...but okay. Secure. Safe. The only thing you'll have to fear are the times you're going to wake up at 3am feeling hollow and ashamed because you took the blue pill.
The past was the cinema offices and the business side of bars and even the cafeteria in the 24 hour supermarket. The past was exhaustion. The past was a folder kept in my rucksack or paper ripped from the waitress's notepad, pens stolen from the boss's drawer or the pint glass by the till where we kept our tips. Seems strange to be nostalgic for that, but maybe that sense of urgency is what I've been missing; the energy I had when my lunchbreak was at two in the morning and I drank three cups of coffee and smoked three cigarettes and wrote three pages before trudging back to the shelf-stacking; the inspiration I had when I could watch a couple hitting the peak of a domestic dispute before falling in love again, right there in the middle of the pub with everyone staring, and make a queue of customers wait while I took notes.
The present was scraping my sandpaper face with a razor and trying to remember how to knot a tie, was slipping into the black leather overcoat I painted with scuff cover before I went to my first interview because it's the only coat I own, was walking these same streets and getting on that same train and meeting the same guy I met ten days ago to talk about the same things. But my New Year's resolutions have become the basis of a plan for the near future, and that plan requires me to be doing a job I can do with the wages and prospects I require.
Six weeks ago, you may remember me making some promises about 2005. Since then, I've quit smoking, massively reduced my alcohol intake, made major inroads into improving my health and general well-being, and started working harder than I can demonstrate towards making myself happy.
You're damn fucking right I got the job.
posted by Michael at 6:59 PM
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