Jim Thompson, �Cropper�s Cabin�
Mopey, mopey, mopey.
Yup, that�s me. I�m a mopey little monkey. You would think that spending the entire day with a pizza with garlic sauce and doing nothing but playing Final Fantasy, only getting up to watch The Daily Show, and following it up with Family Guy would put me in a better mood.
Nope. Mopey.
Mopey, mopey, mopey.
Even having a Thompson book doesn�t help. One, because I finished it over a month ago and don�t remember much about it, with one exception � it had kids being beaten.
Oh God, even that doesn�t cheer me up.
Two (following One from way back there), from what I do remember about the book, it wasn�t really very good. It wasn�t bad either, however. It was just there.
What I could use right now is some sort of excitement, something that inspires some sort of reaction in me. As it stands now, I feel like I�m sleepwalking though life. Or like I�m waiting to die.
I laid out and instituted my plans for school, hoping that would help. And the plan is a solid one. I�ve still been studying my ass off in preparation for the GRE so I can enroll in Master�s courses. But I got sidetracked by the ex-girlfriend's birthday and the super-crafty project I was making for her. In order to apply for the next semester, I would have to gather all the materials, hunt down the old instructors, figure out how I could pay their outrageous entrance fees, take the GRE test within the next week (and figure out how to pay their fee as well.
And I would have to do it all within the next week.
Fuck that.
But it�s now been a year and a half since I graduated, and I haven�t done shit except schlub books around at the same job I had when I was a sophomore. Not that I�m complaining about that. I like my job. I like my job a lot. My boss once asked if I would consider staying with the job for as long as the store stayed successful, which should be until the end of time.
I considered it. But it�s not mine, goddamn it. I need to do something for me.
The situation I�m now in is my own fault. I�m the one who transferred out of the journalism department after butting heads with the administrators. And the department I went into (Radio, television and Film, with a media communications emphasis) welcomed me with open arms. But when it came time to try and do something in the real world, they had nothing for me. They don�t know anybody in my field.
That didn�t matter either, at the time. I was all set to go to Columbia University. After all, if I had a Master�s Degree from Columbia, would anybody give a shit what I got from San Jose State?
There was one problem with that plan. Columbia might not want me.
Which is exactly what happened.
Now I�m finished with school, and have the diploma, the hat and tassel, and license plate frame to prove it. And what did it get me? Another year and a half of selling used books.
So the plan, now, is this: I�ve picked a school. Not to get my Master�s, which every school but Columbia wants the GRE for, but to get another bachelor�s degree, this time in journalism. Technically, I could do this in this area, even swallow my pride and go back to SJSU. But I�ve been playing it safe for too long. After being the punk rock icon of San Jose for so long, I need to go somewhere else, somewhere where nobody knows me. Force myself out of my cozy existence.
One of the problems with that plan is that means I leave California. The problem with that is that I don�t like any kind of weather I can notice.
Which is why I sent off my application to the University of Hawaii.
There are a couple of benefits to this. Hawaii has weather I don�t notice. I also don�t know anybody there, with the exception of my father. He lives in a senior housing project, so I can�t shack up with him. I�ll be on my own. If I�m starving, then perhaps I can ring him up, but since he hasn�t worked since 1980, I don�t think he�ll be much help in that department. He can, however, show me where he did his dumpster diving during the lean years.
I addition, I�ve read the newspapers in Hawaii. I figure that after scoring an internship (which these administrators would be in a position to set up), they�re going to beg me to join staff. I�ve seen so many errors in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that it made my work as Editor in Chief on the community college newspaper look like a cakewalk run by genius robots from the future. Their staff would misspell the �What� in the �Who, What, Where When, Why, How� lede.
The application to the university was easier than getting a job at Olive Garden. Now I just play the waiting game. In the meantime, I just hope that something can remind me why I give a shit in the first place.
