This is True, Just Not for Me

I spend hours at work reading things on the internet that are not related to my job or my continuing education (in the formal sense). I read from sources that more or less align with my world view, because I am human, and from a few reputable gossipy trash sites that the filters will let me get to. Some days I get little bits out of what I read, occasional history lessons, reasons to become a vegetarian and/or a better person, affirmations that i'm not a complete twat, confirmation that I am exactly the person that i don't want to be.

Last semester I took Psych 101, because I needed a fluffy class to flesh out all the harder sciences and numerous labs i was taking. My professor often sent out links to articles that he thought the class would find relevant, both personally and for the class. When I ran across an article on Slate about the inability for millennials to grow up I thought,"how fitting," and composed an email to my professor.

I never sent that email.

I read the article twice, I couldn't tell you why, and the first time through it was a very good assessment of the people I was surrounded by. The second time through hurt.

I am in some ways (thank goodness not all) this person.

Yes, at 26, I am a millennial. I don't like it but as far as discussing demographic I fall firmly into the first decade of this group. I am a product of the internet, of instant, of a very tiny world.

And like most millennials I am lost. You know that, you've read this blog once or twice and are well aware that i can and will bather on about myself and my lack of happiness and my inability to connect with people. I'm basically a narcissist, don't want to think that but it's more true than not so much so that in twenty or so years the DSM of the day will have eliminated narcissism because it'll be the norm.

That little break through isn't special, you've seen it before and you'll see it again.

Here I am at 26 working on what will probably be a second bachelors degree with the hopes of medical school. Part of me is already looking for something new, i am restless and tired of being broke. I like to label all of this as wanderlust.

Wanderlust is now defined as the avoidance of failure .



Does anyone want to fund a spring break trip for me?

The Boomerang Always Comes Back

It has been a year and a half since I have sat in front of a computer and thought, hell with it I'm going to write. It has been a year since I woke up and decided that I couldn't take it any more. It has been ten months since I went on vacation on my own. It has been six months since I quit my job, five since I moved, four since I started back to school full time.

I'd venture to say that it is an improved state, independence, though some days it's no fun, with bills and what not.

I think I'm going to try (eff off Mr. Miyagi) to use this again, if only to keep out of that dark space at the back of my brain box.

Insomnia

I am awake. It is nearly 1:30 AM as I write this and I am in bed, too hot under the covers, too cold with any One layer removed. I am hungry and tired and for the second night in a row I have what feels to be the headache of a hangover despite my lack of boozing. This wakefulness is troubling but not surprising. Tomorrow my youngest sister graduates from high school, so what the fuck does that mean for my life? It seems that in the year and a half that I have been out of school that I have slowly lost all momentum and am finally coming to a full stop. My perpetual position shifting at work neither helps me forward at work or in any other aspect of life. I'm feeling old. The harder I fight the deeper I feel it. I have lost my small handful of friends to stagnation and the lack of an outside driving force has me about over the edge. I still try to have adventures, but more often than not my second ticket goes to complete waste. I'm independent, sure, but it's nice to not be the awkward weirdo standing around by herself at a tiny concert. Being lonely in a crowd is one of those feelings I'm sure everyone feels at some point but I imagine that its the tipping point for crazies and psychopaths (if I end up in a loony bin or incarcerated you're welcome to point back to that thought). I am very far from the Norman Bates-y terror that just crossed your mind but if I ever go there just remind people how long I spent sleeping in a child-sized bed on risers. They'll understand, especially once they find out how many times it just collapsed. I shouldn't be allowed to be up this late. I can only think of how much I'm pissed about family vacation. How much I hate people who have forgotten how to have fun without being wasted. How insane it is that when VI slows my eyes it feels like the world is rocking. How bad my head hurts. I just want chocolate chip cookies. The stats say that 52% of us live at home. It's not comforting. No matter what you say a door somewhere has shut for us and moments like this when my mind is off on a dark that I am honestly pissed. Pissed. It's an ugly feeling, I'd kill for happiness, I'd settle with contentment.

The Boomerang in freeze frame

I have had a bit of an extended hiatus. Things haven't changed. I am still one of the 52% of twenty-somethings living at home and with my 25th birthday fast approaching (ok, it's still five months off but you can see the panic in my eyes from here) I am ready for a change. And by ready I mean if something doesn't change I'll just join a convent and call it a day.

But more on that later.

I'm going to go job searching now.

Some Substantial Discouragement

Today is the 23 month mark from the day I graduated. In the last few weeks I've been fighting the dark pit of job despair, I need more intellectual stimulation and the distance between graduating and today grows ever larger.

The stats are frightening in their own special way, with October bring something like 800,000 new jobs I'm still not in one of those, and with something like 50% of people under 25 living at home I'm about to hit the two year mark for that too. Yes, I have a Care Bears comforter on my bed because I refuse to buy a twin sized bedspread for fear of jinxing myself and never moving out.

I have this weak hope that I'll escape, when I compulsively buy things, they're kitchen things. I have a nearly full kitchen, all matching and well thought out, in bags and boxes in the corner of my bedroom. I am asking for china and a bookshelf for Christmas, even though, if we're being completely honest, I have no use for either.

So my options are looking bleak, but, but! I'll enroll in community college for the spring semester if there is anything worth taking, and I'll apply for grad school. I lack both the fundage and the time for it but it's potentially the one thing that can pull me out of the funk.

It also looks like I'll have to take on a second job. I can't afford to work one job, even if it is sort of full time. Case and point: last month my car broke down and now I have $40 in checking and half my savings. Half is a lot to watch disappear knowing that the real problems your car is having are going to cost you much more than the half you have remaining.

I guess it's just a matter of time before driving on a prayer becomes purchasing a car I can't afford to make payments on, but at least if that's the case I'll have a new car!

Considering again: The Peace Corps.

Falling Flat: Another Boomerang Setback

For my birthday my mom took me to a concert. Her new thing is to not drive and when she asked me to drive I just didn't want to but she cannot handle being lost and lost is a pretty common theme when getting to the specific concert venue. So lost we got and that is where the trouble began.

We're sitting in a long line of traffic and my dash starts lighting up. Started with my check engine light, its on more than off these days anyhow so that didn't worry me, my battery light came one with my brake light, always bad news but even worse when things are beeping and switching on and off, it was only topped with an Anti-Lock Brake System light came on. We did make it to the parking lot. But my car never left.

So now that I have some money in savings I'm going to have to blow it all on repairs and a massive towing bill. Any success I have in regards to getting out seems to be rendered null in the blink of an eye.

My fingers are crossed for good news but if you have a newish car you want to give to me I'll take it!

The Lazy Boomerang

Yesterday, I was at work and one of the regular clients came in and was chatting, they do this sometimes, and he brought up some current news topics. So he sidles on to the Occupy Wall Street protests and that is where the encounter goes south.

I should have learned by now that I am of a different world view than most of the people that I work with, live near, and am forced to interact with in a fake-smiley work way, and at this point I should have learned that the fake smiling gets me farther with people than opening my mouth and expressing an opinion. All that said, I am human and apparently like the abuse that comes with being a young adult that can't afford to live on their own.

So he blabs about the protesters being lazy, no-goods, and says, and this is a real quote, not something like a quote that I'm putting in quotation marks, "This is America, there are plenty of jobs, they can have any job they want." Ok, Herman Cain, whatever you say.

I stupidly said, "we (referring to my fellow teller and myself) only work three days a week," as in the company that we work for, that I actually like, doesn't have the money to employ full-timers, so I'm happy to have my sad hours instead of nothing, while I try to figure out what to do with the BA I earned in three and a half years. Though, I only said the stupid part, so when he called me lazy and said I should get a second job, I probably deserved it, right?

I don't think so.

But we're all entitled to our opinions and Fox News in a legitimate news source so I guess I should be happy he isn't completely ignorant.

For the record, I am many things but I am not lazy. I quit my second job because I was actually spending more money to get to it than I was making. I hated it, I hated myself while being there, I hated how I was treated by customers, I hated how I was treated by fellow employees and I hated how it looked on my resume. So I quit, I am picking up gigs that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, I am picking up hours that I wouldn't have been able to pick up otherwise. I am still looking for a job that is both satisfying, interesting and pays enough (because I can't hold out for decently or even reasonably). And I've been called pretty twice in a week by people who had never seen me outside of my former work place. As in, "You're so pretty, that place must of been aweful! Look at you're smile!"

So I don't regret backing down to one part-time job. But walk a mile in my shoes.

Also the man is a small business owner. I don't have much money. He has the same amount as me in all of his accounts combined. He makes daily deposits that are twice the size of my savings account, so somehow I win.

That was mean. But I'm not lazy.

The Moral Dilemma: The Boomerang Considers Politics and Jobs

Don't be frightened this is not a political rant, it is the investigation of how I can bend my belief system to make money.

There is a job opening, I am qualified for it, it is fairly local, it is with an association that I am ideologically opposed to. So do I apply and more or less double my salary and get better benefits, or do I stick with my soul suckingly (really this is an adverb that doesn't exist and isn't needed, because what adverb is needed? but I'm letting it lie)boring job where I kind of like my co-workers and get to read books and news for good portions of the days?

My friends are not ideologically opposed to this association, well most of them, I have one who would probably disown me and stay in her happy London flat if I did work for them, the rest would high five me for embracing their one insanely out-of-our-mutual-political-ideology  passions.

This friend who would disown me, she has a point. Why compromise? I will not change their minds, they are too many, instead I should rise up and fight against them (with a peaceful discourse and some powerful elections, woot! for signs in your yard!) But what if I apply for this job, make this money, infiltrate the system, use subliminal messaging and win them to my side of this ideological debate.

What do you think?

Other Blog

If you haven't read my other blog, which is even less purpose driven than this one, please do so at.

Maybe It's Time For a Boomerang Reread

Martin Page wrote a brilliant book, The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection, that I need to reread, and I'm not a rereader. Rejection seems to be running rampant these days, can't get a job, can't get a date (to the point that I'm beginning to question my gay-dar) can't get the job I quit to stop calling (that is the opposite of rejection, though it is the rejection of my free thought) and I need a reminder to how awesome rejection is.

Boomerangs and Dirty Business: The Challenge of Networking

I hate networking. I hate it because it's a filthy game of soullessness and greed. Now that said I'm working on the whole idea of networking, because, if I throw up a pretend statistic that is close to right, 90% of the people I know who have gotten jobs in their fields after graduating had done so because they know someone or their parents know someone.

I know people, they're just not the right people apparently, so I am on LinkedIn, I'm emailing the heck out of people asking for advice, I'm studying the bossman's technique (he listed networking as an "interest" for a class he is taking, he is a pro at it if one can be), and I'm reading and researching.  I can do these things. Maybe.

So far the bossman's technique has gotten me a client who may or may not have asked me to visit his son out of state with him, so I'm not great at it yet but I'll keep working. My mom's boss is willing to put in a good word for me in the places where she can, which helps. I'm on HR's mind when new jobs come up, I have them thinking of me, inventing ways to make it work. And I'm meeting people. The one person who emailed me back with advice said business cards were a biggie, so now that's on the table as an idea.

I've discovered a new in today. One that is sort of "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" but isn't that how this game is supposed to be played? If I knew people who could help me, wouldn't I already be out of this situation?

Here's to networking, then taking a shower.

Gossip: You Throw It Out and It Comes Right Back to You

I think I've made it clear how I feel about working retail, especailly my current retail job. My Independence Day blow up (which I turn a pretty shade of purple when talking about, I wonder what a psychologist would say about  mixed sense pride and shame?) is still haunting me. And I know, the situation is one of those that will take a bit to get to disappear, but the people that keep coming to me telling me its still being talked about aren't even people I work with. The people talking about the whole thing aren't the supposed unsophisticated-youngins' working their first job, traumatized by the horrors of working for a company who knows that you are utterly replaceable.

No the gossipers are the middle aged ladies with real jobs and children my age. Children, who, if put in my position on that day, would have angry mothers breathing hell fire. But since I am somehow less human then their flunky children I deserve much worse than I got, which was nothing. My boss sighed and asked me not to quit, apologized for something she had nothing to do with and accepted my apology for not handling it better. Since then with few exceptions work has been rather peaceful, the talking behind people's backs still runs rampant but I suppose that's just the nature of the beast.

Now, because the incident was with a lower manager and the gossiper is her equal I'm stuck. I either suffer through the my already painful job with the added bit of whispering and backstabbing or I quit. So, I'm going to quit.

And if I'm being honest, I'm not good at quitting. I've quit twice in my life, once after the managers decided that I was lying about being sick because I didn't sound sick (I'm polite enough not to take the phone to the bathroom with me) and the second time was my July 4th incident of this year (and that didn't stick).

I need you to hold me accountable. Keep me from going back to the lack of respect and the lack of pay. Today, the curmudgeons win. But I'm looking bigger picture here.

Living in the "Right" Place: A Boomerang's Tale

At my bank job I am allowed an hour of silly internet time a day. I rarely use that hour because 1.Though we are a slow branch there is only so much of People.com one can handle and 2. I have access to internet news free and clear. I spend a bit of time on the culture pages, read some of the more tasteful news blogs, check out the Guardian online (the sheer enormity of the site can keep me going for days) but out of habit, and perhaps ease of spelling, I always start my day on CNN.com. Yesterday, I made the mistake of ending it there.

I have to clarify this upfront my outrage and hurt have nothing to do with CNN, they were just creating a top ten type list and it so happened to pique my interest, I don't hold CNN responsible for my heartbreak.

I'm clicking through links and more links and end up here. The article is a wonderful place to read and dream, and there are pictures to aid me in this endeavor. I really wanted to know where the jobs are, and where I need to be to find these jobs. I clicked next after the first slide and nearly cried. Number two: Loudoun County.

I live there. I live here! I have for the majority of my twenty-three years. Most of my jobs have been in Loudoun County. All of my jobs in Loudoun County have been menial (with the exception of my internship at Weider History Group, that was intellectually stimulating, it was fun, it was professional) mindless jobs. I've worked at the outlet mall in Leesburg for nearly seven years. I've worked in labs and banks and doctor's offices for little pay and usually no benefits.

Before you get too agitated about the above point you need to know that for the last, well, no less than five years, Loudoun County has been either the first or second richest county per capita. So, yes, I'm jaded about making $8.51 an hour helping women who claim an income of $250000 a year only to be declined for a credit card that starts with a $250 limit.

Back to the living in the second best place to find a job. Verizon, Aol, and some other large tech companies are headquartered here. Verizon is having union troubles right now. Makes me wary of even considering working there, though I'm not qualified for anything. Aol is only anything anymore because it acquired Huffington Post recently and with that they acquired higher standards when it comes to experience.

Loudoun County is still a bit wild around the edges, my neighbors have cows. I just got bumped from a farm sitting gig while the farmers, a nurse and a federal law enforcement agent, are on vacation, they're Virginia Tech-student of a son is leasing himself to other farmers to make a bit of cash before heading back to school. Twenty miles east is where creepy suburbia begins, and not all Starbucks and WholeFoods, just white people, houses and expensive cars to go with credit debt and teeny-bopper clothes on the forty-somethings. Suburbia is a new invention, my parents moved to Loudoun County so that my father could help draft the plans for that evil.

So I'm in the right place. I have been applying to jobs and beseeching people to help me. So what if I lived in Loudoun County when people ate the chickens from their backyards. So what if my childhood friends were very successful in 4-H. I have the education. I have some of the experience. And the places I've lived while not living in Loudoun County have been dreams come true. London, New York, Harrisonburg. Dreams lived, and I can't find a job in my hometown.

The Boomerang Drives

Two of the girls I work with, colleagues from the same job, totaled their cars with past week. And being a supposed mediocre driver I didn't pass judgement, mostly I told them I was glad they were alive. Then I heard the stories.

Girl one was driving in the rain and hydroplaned, scary, everything would have been fine except the spot where her car stopped was a hunk of cement that tried to rip her entire undercarriage to shreds. With school about to start and her hours being a bit low at both of her jobs, a wedding to plan and the like she cut her losses and settled for an older but nice used car to replace it and went on her merry way.

Girl two hit a tree, because she was driving too fast around a bend, misjudging the whole speed/curve thing because she was inebriated. She passed all of the sobriety tests but she blew a .1, above the legal limit in Virginia since, well, a while. How she didn't get a DUI, I don't know. But the bragging about this fact is kind of sickening. Is it cruel that I hope that when she goes to court for her reckless charges she gets it good?

Then today while stopped at a stoplight I noticed I a police car behind me, what really caught my eye was that the police officer was using his computer. If texting is illegal shouldn't Googling be as well?

It is said that drowsy driving and distracted driving are as dangerous as drunk driving so my real question is why did, when the light turned green, the officer keep his eyes glued to his screen, especially when the station was a mere half mile past the light? Could it have been that urgent? Was he running my plates for kicks and giggles? Maybe. But what if the roles were reversed?

I've been pulled over for driving too slow, I was changing a CD and trying not to get caught out after curfew, it was indeed two in the morning. I was questioned about drinking and eyed suspiciously before being sent on my way with a warning, he pulled me over outside of then town limits. That was embarrassing enough to keep me worried about actually drinking and driving, not driving drunk, having a drink and a few hours later driving home...what if I speed, what if?

Texting is freighting no-no, one that I'm guilty of.  Distracted and dangerous, a friend nearly scared me straight while driving down Interstate-81. Swerving, swearing and speed nearly did the trick. But I'm not stupid, I know that despite my ability to blind text, I could indeed kill myself or others. I'm slowly being cured by the habit, that police officer on the computer sure did help that cause.

Lest we forget, cars are death traps. We get complaisant, comfortable driving our 1000 miles a week. Keep me alive a kicking. Don't drink and drive and I won't. Don't text and drive and I won't. 

The Communicating Boomerang

Enough is enough. If I send you an email, directed at you, in response to your email, and with questions that are not rhetorical in nature you have to send me an email in return, potential employers included.

On that note, I shouldn't be saying that, I do have this blog linked from some conspicuous places.

Communication is one of those things that job ads are always noting that the ideal candidate should be an excellent communicator. And I, at least I hope, am a decent communicator but then again shouting into the abyss isn't communicating. So, I think as I type that last sentence, is this communicating? And my hope is that it would be. My hope is that it is.

The stats show that nearly daily someone looks at this thing everyday. And I am working on when to keep my mouth shut when it's appropriate. I'm working on telling people what I need. And asking questions has, for the most part, been a strong point.

I've been told, and I'd like to believe, I'm an ok writer. I'll never tell you I am the best, I read a friends blog today, it was like being in creative writing again, he sparkled brighter than I could.

I have room for improvement but it hurts, it actually feels like a personal dig, when the communication goes out, no matter how feeble, and there is no response, none.

For all the boomerangs out there, it is indignant enough to live at home with very little independence financially, please just write us back.

Job Sympathy for the Boomerang

In an interesting turn of events, the last few days have been filled with questions and condolences regarding a promotion I recently lost an outside hire (I was unqualified, I was considered based on personality and speed). I knew long before I was officially turned down that the woman I would have been assisting was looking elsewhere for that experience I didn't have, so when I got the call saying they had hired someone else (I know, first reject call in a long, well, ever) I wasn't terribly disappointed.

My boss, reassured me it was for the best, though I think he's being selfish about the whole thing. He needs me to edit the papers he has to write for the class he is taking, even he knows I'm in the wrong profession. And in quick passing the HR person in charge of the whole debacle expressed her deep sympathy over the whole thing. Like it was somehow her fault. It couldn't be.

I'm not sure how I feel about this now. I wanted the job for the money. I wanted it for the hours and the prospect of getting out of retail. But it's not a path I'd like to take, it's not me. I'm not numbers. I'm words. But the mounting number of rejections and the looming two year anniversary of my college graduation have me reeling. I'm digging myself deeper into the black hole that is a black mood and am having more and more trouble seeing the light.

The Boomerang's Dilemma

I have discovered a problem with my situation, the underemployed, living at home situation. It is keeping me from getting a job. In one sentence: I live with my mother because I can't find a job and I can't find a job because I live with my mother.

Now tell me what to do about this?

The Simple Things Make a Boomerang Happy

Let's have a chat about rejection. Today, I was rejected. And yet, you think, the title of this post is suggestive of something positive, why? 

Well, dear readers, first thing this morning HR called me, asked me about my vacation, had a laugh and then she explained that the promotion I had applied for went to an outside candidate. Bummer right? Yes, the money would have been nice, the hours would have been nice, the whole thing would have been nice. But my follow up email after my interview was met with doubt, for lack of experience.

What made me happy about the phone call was the sheer fact that someone picked up the phone and said "hey, thanks for trying but we went with that other guy." How hard was it? Probably not very. Yet, it is the third response saying as much that I have received in the last two years. The first one came in an email the day before my second interview for the position, the second came in the form of a formal letter and the third was today's phone call.

So please other rejecters, take note, Boomerangs and our fellows can handle it, so stop our wondering and just tell us. Thank you.

The Boomerang and the Family Vacation

As a boomerang I am faced with the daily challenge of being an adult and being treated like a child, it doesn't help that the walls of my bedroom are painted with clouds and my single bed is covered with Care Bears. Between both my jobs and their particular dramas, my household chores, my mother lecturing me as if I were fifteen and a week at the beach with my family  I am ready for a vacation.

I'm not complaining about the family vacation, we had a ton of fun, took a stand-up paddle boarding lesson, sat on the beach, ate out at some delicious places, there is nothing to complain about. The problem is coming home. As an adult I should be able to spend a week with my family and then go back to my life and enjoy they time we had together.

Instead, the drive back is a smattering of abuses and agitation. The unpacking is more discontent and then dinner is a fight. This is normal, this was one of my mother's biggest complaints against my father, even long before they divorced. It has to do with roles and expectations. And in some ways it has to do with my mother.

I love my mother but she had indeed forgotten that I am an adult. Friday when we left the beach, forced off by the blazing heat, she started in on setting a tight schedule for packing. She was upset that my vacation bed wasn't made and she spent some time admiring her handy work from the beginning of the week when she rearranged most of the furniture.

She is an A personality. Unfortunately, I am the person in the family who missed that gene. I let it go, I let it go, I let it go, but after vacation I need the space to not make my bed and not fold my clothes and leave my shoes in the middle of the floor to be tripped over, not because that's how I like it but because that's how I function.  I need to function a bit outside of the family.

How do Italian men live with their parents so long?

Abandoned by Facebook Friends

There is a car commercial out there where a girl sits behind a computer confessing she is worried about her parents' social lives, they only have 19 facebook friends while she has more than 600 "friends." The parents in the commercial are off biking with friends and having a great time. The commercial is a disgusting, though potentially true, depiction of the generation gap. I laughed at it, believing that I am above it, sort of.

Then, today, I went to post something on the wall of a friend only to discover that we are no longer friends. This is the second time in a week that I have realized that I have been unfriended. The first one didn't hurt so much, it was a former classmate that I was never particularly close to, but today, that hurt.

It hurt not because I have one less facebook friend but because facebook was the medium of communication with this particular friend who has a habit of being challenged by life and disappearing into the unknown for periods of time. And, please don't tell him this, I look up to him, I need him because I am also not sure what is going on.

Granted our struggles are worlds apart, and I tend to find out about his though strange sourced, but he is/was a a buddy though it all. Usually he was just a laugh. And a laugh is pretty important at this point in my life.

So here's to missing my facebook friend. A tear shed.