Friday, October 3, 2008

Thanks given

I'd like to thank everyone who expressed concern over my not-so-brief hiatus. I really appreciate everyone's concern and good advice. I'm trying to work my way back into writing shape and I'm still not very inspired. Don't fret if I lapse into longer than a day periods of inactivity...I won't bail again.

Obviously I haven't had the best start to fall. I imagine joblessness feels something like impotence. Hopefully I'll never be able to say that with certainty. They say misery loves company, and if that idiom were true, my life could currently be labeled a lovefest. I have three friends who were also laid off in the past two months with jobs ranging from real estate agent to pool cleaner. Bummerific.

Anyhow, the search continues. It would be nice if I could at least get a callback for some of these gigs. If things continue like this, I'm probably going to have to resort to kicking in company HR doors and forcing employers to screen me at butterknifepoint. I wonder if I can make the lead story on the 10 o'clock news for forcible interview.

Well there's always the circus.

Have a good weekend everyone. And don't dread Sunday. Trust me, if everyday was a Saturday, then you um, probably need a job.

Monday, September 29, 2008

The Prodigal Bum...

Dear fellow bloggers,

Hi.

Since August 8, 2008, much has happened in my world. In those 53 days since I last wrote anything here an infinite amount of world events, have transpired. And even while being aware of this I felt as if only one thing of note had happened. As a result of it, I lost the direction I thought I had in life. I lost my creative spark. I lost my my confidence. I was laid off, which is something I never thought would happen to me for some reason. So, I'm no longer in radio, and I just don't see any real future in journalism. Bills are piling up. Applications keep going out, and I wait for a ringtone that never comes. I know...more important things have happened in the world. Boo-hoo, right?

Since August 8, over 19 million lives began, while over 7.8 million individual stories completed their final earthly chapter. Approximately 4.24 billion barrels of oil have been consumed worldwide. A fair share of this leaked out of my Pontiac onto my landlord's driveway. Despite of, or perhaps spurred by unspeakable ugliness in a world of abject poverty and trillion dollar economies, there's always time for frivolity. An average of 3.1 gallons of beer has been consumed per person worldwide since my last entry. And in my ongoing funk, I have personally done everything possible to make sure that every man, woman and child on earth statistically looks like a suds-swilling drunk. That's not a point of pride.

Certainly not my finest days...

I'm not writing this to inspire pity; only to illustrate my mind state during what has been during a truly tough period for me. This is honestly and truthfully, the very first time I have logged into this website since the last comment I wrote back in early August. Just prior to my vanishing act, I was down about my job and spent much of the time I would spend writing to look for a better situation. Fate provided me a hilarious cure for malcontentedness. My radio station was dissolved. The news was broken unceremoniously and suddenly. And company stock jumped three quarters of a point. I always wanted to use this blog as a vehicle to inspire laughter and original thought...not to lament personal failures. I didn't want to write bummer entries like this, and that's the reason I'm literally on a digital milk carton (very impressive work, Sus).

I don't know what I want to do anymore. My boss told me this type of thing will happen again if I try to stay in radio. Much of the same is going on in the newspaper industry. I wrote a post a while back about considering other lines of work, and now I have no choice but to do just that. To be honest, it's a scary situation; not knowing what you're gonna do with your life. Everything seems different after the really big plans don't pan out. It happens to most folks, I suppose.

I promise it won't be another 53 days until I write again. I also promise this dreary edition - which is my first outright bummer post - will be my last of that sort. I'm working hard to get things going and come out of this better than before. And I will. For those of you that checked and wondered or even left comments of concern, thanks. So many of you write such wonderful stories, and believe it or not, you became as much a typically anticipated part of my day as that first cup of hot coffee. Maybe looking at life through a perspective other than my own would be good for me. I know the past 53 days have felt like a lifetime in terms of what I've been missing.

Sorry this wasn't more entertaining. I'm not quite there yet.

Aub