Day Job

When I moved to Chicago about six weeks ago, I looked for a way to pay the rent. I applied for anything that I thought I might be remotely qualified for. My biggest fear was running out of money.

My thinking was, I don't think I have the fortitude to be homeless and starve or freeze to death. I might as well try slow death by boredom. It is, after all, the American way.

I resigned myself to a life of 9-5, Starbucks, dress shoes, and consumerism. I work in an office. It doesn't matter what I do there. I mean that in every possible sense of the phrase: It does not matter.

I told myself that I would still write in my spare times, in the evenings. That I could do revisions of my new play this winter, then have auditions in the spring, and I'd have some money and health insurance, until something better comes along.

I'm not worried about starving/freezing to death anymore. Now I just worry that I could be stuck in this "day job" forever. I might never accomplish anything as a writer, as a director, as a theatre artist. I might do nothing for the next five, ten, twenty years.

I think if I were really bitter, I couldn't be this afraid.

On a Scale from 1 to Bitter: Scared
1-800-Bitterness.com Radio: The Gin Blossoms - Day Job
1-800-Bitterness.com Reading List: Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins