Amidst the Squalor

Where the fuck can I even begin to start?  It’s been a long time.  A very long time.  Though it isn’t in here for whatever reason, the last time I wrote in here was in late July.  A lot goes on in the span of a couple months.  And yet, at the same time, nothing goes on.  For me, I guess that’s normal.  I just kind of live life on a day to day basis anymore, waiting for the opportunity to change a lot of shit around.  Everything seems to be a conflict with me these days.  Most of them inner.  Chief amongst them is work.  Since the entry in which I first spoke of that is now missing, I’ll get into that in some detail.

In what would be a surprise to many who have known me in my life, I sell computers for Dell.  It’s one of the last jobs my personality would be well suited for.  When I first started doing it, I thought, “Hey, this is easy!  I can do this!”  After my first couple of weeks out on the floor actually taking calls for the entire day, I realized I couldn’t do it.  I lack fundamental personality traits that are required to do the job 100% properly.  I don’t know how to be an asshole.  I don’t know how to be forcible.  I don’t know how to convince someone they need something they don’t think they need.  Like I said, I lack the traits of a salesman.  For almost all of August, I figured it was all just something I could work at and get better at.  As September rolled in, I began to realize it was not something I was going to improve at.  About two weeks ago was the lowest point, as I almost just quit right in the middle of my shift.  I had our team’s coach basically threatening my job because I was trying to convey to her that I didn’t have the personality to do the job properly.  She set me up with a script to follow verbatim, and ever since, I’ve been doing a pretty lights out job.  All my numbers have been way up.  And yet, I still hate the job.  I dread getting on the phones everyday.

But I have to.  I can’t quit.  I will not be unemployed again.  If I’m going to get another job, it’s going to happen while I still have this one.  I make good money at this job, especially considering we always work more than 40 hours a week.  Usually more like 50.  At twelve bucks an hour, that starts to add up.  And it’s money I need since there are a set number of things I’m working towards (car…apartment…the usual).  So I can’t quit.  Even though every workday consists of 9 hours at work and almost 3 hours of driving to and from, and I’m too tired to do anything when my shift ends, I have to keep going.  I have no choice.  Still living at home is killing me.  I feel unwelcome all the time, so I almost never leave me room when here.  And I have more shit than I have space in here, so it’s constantly a fucking mess…which all the garbage doesn’t help.

Add to this that pretty much all my friendships have disentigrated around me, and I’m not exactly a bucket of sunshine.  Not that there were many left anyway, but still…  It’s just really disheartening when the occasional email turns into the really occasional email, and the monthly letter turns into the bi-monthly (or later) letter.  I understand that life goes on (at least I like to think I do), and that I need to as well.  It’s just not easy.  Seems like not much is easy for me these days.  Then again, why lament?  The times I get the most joy anymore, it seems, is when I’m alone.  So who knows.  I truly can see myself being the unmarried 65 year old hermit though.  Really, I can.

Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox:  “Run” by Snow Patrol, “In Dreams” by Kittie, “Combat Baby” by Metric, and “Forget It” by Breaking Benjamin

Is it wrong of me to daydream about getting laryngitis?  I mean, that’s the only real sickness that would keep me from talking on the phone for work.  Is it wrong to wanna get that?  For more years than I can count, I’ve always wondered what that would be like…not being able to talk, even when you want to.  I mean, I have to willfully force myself not to talk for extended periods even when I’m alone, so I can’t imagine not being able to talk at all.  I think it’d be fun for a few days.  Is that wrong of me?

I think my biggest problem right now is just not knowing where I belong or who the fuck I’m going to be.  And I have to confess…I don’t have the first fucking clue how to figure it out.  Like I said before, I just keep waiting for the opportunity.  I know you really have to make your own opportunities, but when you don’t know how to make them, where to make them, when to make them, or why to make them…that’s a problem.  And that’s where I stand.

“Desperation strips me…these last days have not been free…stealing every breath from me…whispering defeat…”

Sayonara.