employablog

I don’t know how it happened, but all my friends have business cards. At first I thought it was a fluke. I saw Adam drop a B-card (I’m so out of the loop — is that cool to say, or is it like saying ‘frisco’?).

He did it casually. He did it like it was something he’d done before.

“Dude, you have a business card? You just give it to people?”

Of course he does. He makes a living doing freelance. That is what he told me. It made sense.

Well. Adam is freelance, of course he’d need a business card, but then each and every one of my roommates had a little cardboard card with their name, some little letterhead thing and some designor font that made it cool. Kelly, Tanveer, Josh, they all had them. Even Kelly’s little sister! They were in irregular shapes, they had backgrounds … they …

I was immediately jealous.

Then I thought of my own business card. What would it say?

“Writer” “Cultural comedian” “Observational humorist” “Part time dissector”

Are these skills marketable?

Furthermore, I won’t have a job for four years, and I already know what that job is going to be.

A professional.

I just finished moving into my new apartment, and with it, I left a number of things behind. Most of them are tangible, some tangible (my twin bed mattress) and all of them (like my twin bed mattress) are gladly left behind.

I’m not old, nor am I mature, but moving gave me the terrible oozing possibility to pick off all the scabs that had been bothering me, bleed on the way over and make sure that they never returned. For example, here is a list of things that I have outgrown:

Dimmer switches that hum. Seriously.

Road bike tires. Mountain bike tires are stupid and slow, especially when your bike is your car, and vice versa. Winter will be interesting.

Rollerblades. I bike to get a round, I run for exercise. Rollerblades are some unholy bastard child of terrible fashion and low impact exercise for fatties. If it ever comes to that I’ll sign up for water aerobics thankyouverymuch.

Leaky roofs. Eesh, especially in Minnesota.

Excessive knick-knacks. When I started painting, I began producing more than enough stuff to be saving porcelain manatees and blown glass porpoises.

My old filing system. Now I use a cabinet instead of any old flat surface I happen to pass by. The psychological relief from the new system is beyond words. But still nowhere near as good as orgasm … or procrasturbation.
Dirty dishes. Never again. Too many roommates, too many tears.

SO with that, I began my new life, chapter 4, to a good start. And there are still a ton of things that I haven’t nor ever will outgrow, so, cheers cheers to:

Exposed brick

Hugs

Cheap, cheap beer
Fart jokes

My pants (I’m real slender, an anatomist would say gracile)

First: Employee One, where are you? We miss you.

Come back, OK?

Next: I am a unique character. I leave impressions. For example, I play the “misheard,” game. It’s easy, and you can play it at home. Someone says, anything to you and you simply say a word that sounds similar, phrased as a question, or in a related statement.

Say that you say to me, “I like those new pants,”

Then I would reply, “I would love to dance!”

Then the person usually thinks you misheard accidentally, not that you are just being a douchebag, and clarifies.

“No, no, pants, I like those pants.”

Now we are in round two. I would say something like,

“Yeah, those ants are crazy.”

It goes on like this until someone catches on, and yells at me.

But, and especially now, the general public found a comeback to my particular breed of hyjinx. They say:

“I can’t believe you’re going to be a doctor.”

We’re both employed.  Somewhat.  But there has been a lull.  I can’t help but feel that the fact that both of our being out of the country for extended periods of time may have been partially responsible. Neither of us were working at that time, but that’s another story. Another blog for another day for another dollar they say.

What I found out, though, is that quitting, is awesome.

Sure, there are some awkward bits. People say they won’t know what to do without you, which is entirely untrue. They will do the exact same thing they did before I popped into said company. In fact, because I knew how temporary this officeland honeymoon was, I cut a low profile, ducking in and out of the office on the minute, eating lunch at my desk with a spreadsheet open, going to the gym during lunch break.

I was already leaving one life, and since the corporate world has no place for me, and likewise I have no place for it, so leaving two lives seemed reckless and too much. Instead I chose to flit in and out of the work life, honestly checking in between 9 and 10, and checking out each day around six.

But quitting — I would get another job some day just so I could quit it. I don’t think I paid for a lunch during my whole last week. I got more than my share of attention and my modest vacation, Peru for a month to get my head right, surf and learn a language was lauded as independent, incredible and the right thing. Sandwiched between medical school, and I was suddenly congratulated just for doing what I want to do.

People bought me drinks, took me out, asked what I was up to, and cornered me, forcing me to go out for drinks.

My reclusive tendency when stuck in fluorescent cubicles got mistaken for coolness.

I wear my sunglasses at night.