Work

I, I, I… I am 31 and I haven’t got a job at the moment; it’s been two months; and although it feels quite bad, the truth is that I sort of don’t want one anymore (finally, I’ve said it)… I don’t want a job… don’t want it, thanks.

Now, since I don’t want to work and I am not working, one could think I have achieved it all… I’ve got it all, yes: the looks (not true), the family (not true), the brains (not true), the retrovirus (not complaining), a comfortable 14-year-old-style room in my parents house with two cork boards where I pin things in a pseudo artistic fashion and, best of all, I have the non-job of a lifetime... But no, of course life is not so simple: I want to be jobless for ever... for e-v-e-r (now, in the world of the non-job-worker that’s what one calls an ambitious career objective), and not having a job for long, nevermind for ever, whilst retaining your dignity and making others believe that you have dignity, well that is very difficult…

In any case, there is a much bigger problem than dignity here: I want to have money, so much money as for generosity mixed with financial carelessness to become my stand-by mode… I, I, I am chewing the very last bite of our (I’m with somebody in my fantasy) minimalist and therefore non-fattening (I am also super fit: lots of yoga and a personal trainer) luxury hotel meal, and I am already distractedly looking for the waiter: I want them to start getting the bill sorted… no time to wait, grieve, regret, get resentful, feel guilt or start talking about how broke I am and so suddenly feel... I want to pay and go, but I am not even thinking about it; I’m distracted… Why worry?... I have so much money to spend that spending it has become my stand-by mode (I repeat).

It’s not that I don’t have career dreams (the sort that could make you earn money… maybe not enough to have a personal trainer, but enough not to live with your parents at 31... I actually sometimes say that I live at my sister’s because I must obviously think it less humiliating), it’s just that I don’t want to do what it takes to follow them through... and I know, that sounds pretty ordinary and therefore makes me even more pathetic… well, what did you expect?

I am looking for a job though; I feel I should. Sometimes the pressure of not having one is unbearable, and the constant CV sending and form-filling becomes a job in itself, it becomes something that resembles the oldest job in the world: you are like a job-market prostitute, and in my case a bad one… no body fucking wants me (the bastards); and that’s the stage I call the non-job; you are not exactly jobless; you have a non-job... it’s a really bad situation to be in: you are no longer in the wonderful period (lasts about two days) where you’ve just left your previous job and daytime television seems entertaining, something that the rest of the world, like you two days ago, is missing, but not you, you’re especial: you deserve daytime television.. you deserve Trisha. But loving Trisha is an experience that was not meant to last. You are now in the terrible period where you have to sell yourself… and you have to lie so much: lies are demanded of you, but not at all expected… isn't the world crazy… like when they ask you what you think you could bring into that job you're applying to… real non-uttered answer: a physical mass that by its very undeniable presence in this shit office will earn me (and more specifically the intellectual mass that hopes never to set foot here, in the shit office with the shit people and the shit atmosphere) a bit of money. Real uttered answer: well (modesty) I think (modesty) I am quite (modesty) a truly wonderfully fantastic person and that I am absolutely necessary for your oh-I’ve-always-so-wanted-to-work-here business... bla, bla, driven, bla, perfectionist (one of my three official defects)... bla, impatient (another one of the three), bla...

Sorry, I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I am determined in this. But what will I do instead? Will my friends and family stick by me when they see this is not a phase, or when they see me running away from this... and that... from the present, and the past, and a reasonable future?

I know who’ll stick by me (sorry, but I either change this blog’s name to "Simply ME" or I have to throw it in somehow... not that you care, of course): the incomparable, the truly wonderful, the mysterious, the old faithfull… the one and only... the retrovirus.