Even without a job, some days I just need to take off
First thing's first... I have seen a lot of bad, local TV commercials here in Chicago. It's almost as if they try LESS hard than local Big Rapids/Mecosta County commercials... which is a scary thought. But the Chicago Music Exchange commercials are the exception. They are funny... and I don't mind whenever they come on. The tag-line is "For the guitar obsessed", kay? Alright, so there's one where a guy is playing a wicked electric guitar solo and then smashes the guitar. He then turns to a guy who works there and says "I'll take it." There's another one where a guy is playing the WORST guitar part I've ever heard (even worse than Ken's House... and that was shit on a stick). But he's got a song to match... it's sung horribly off-key and he sings something like "My love is like a salad, with an extra cruton... I'll take you back to my place, and we'll sleep on my futon". He puts the guitar down, and the guy who works there comes in with a huge, thick glove and grabs the guitar, takes it out back, and dumps it into a chipper. But the reason I brought this up is that they have a new one. A guy plays a pretty sweet guitar solo, puts the guitar down, and leaves out the front glass door. Then the workers start clapping... and cheering... and more clapping... and they start yelling "encore"... and then we see the guy come back up to the glass door, enter, and pick the guitar back up. Even though I could tell what was coming... it was still funny, because we can see that the costumer is hesitant to come back in through the glass door... and then he gives a little wave, and sits back down with the guitar.

Okay, so as you may have guessed, I did a lot of TV watching today. I call it "staying in" when I just don't feel like dealing with other people or the cold. There are days when I feel like this... where I just don't want anything to do with the "outside world". On these days, I can't help but feel a constant guilt... like I shouldn't be isolating myself; that I should be out "doing" something; that I should be spending time with people, etc. So, today, I told myself to just forget the guilt and go ahead and take a day to myself. I think the weekends of performances and the other days of rehearsals and class have worn me out a lot more than I let myself believe. So, today, I said "screw it"... let myself sleep in, and sat down to start playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (yes, that's how long the title actually is).
I loved the first KOTOR game, and KOTOR II (The Sith Lords) seems like it was made specifically for fans of the first game. They are constantly referencing the first game. But, a change from the last game, it seems as though I get to decide my character's back-story. My character (who I named Biggs Steeno this time [I'm so clever!]) fought in the Mandalorian wars which were waged by Jedi who defied the Jedi Council to stop the Mandalorians, a race of aggressive "war mongers" who were taking over the Outer Rim planets. How much of a virgin did that make me sound? Anyway, the Mandalorian wars lead to the Jedi Civil War which is where the first game starts. In the second game, the Jedi Civil War has ended... and most of the Jedi are dead, in hiding, or have become Sith. This is what I hope the third Star Wars movie will include... but my guess is they won't even get to it because they wasted so much fucking time in the first movie with "young Anakin" that we'll never get to the good stuff (I wouldn't put it past Lucus to write Star Wars 3.5, by the way). Regardless, in this game, your character is a Jedi exile who has lost his or her connection with the force... so you don't have any of your cool abilities yet. But the Sith believe you to be the last living Jedi, so they try to kill you and the adventure begins. I don't care how lame this game sounds... I love the crap out of it, and will literally lose entire days of time to playing it. I knew that before I even started that I would lose entire days to this game... I think I spent somewhere around 60 (sixty!) hours on the first one, and I still never took the time to beat the final boss dude. I just played up until that point, got my ass kicked about five times, and stopped. I guess I'm not persistent? Or maybe I'm not virtual persistent? I don't know. But one of the reasons my character couldn't beat the last dude was that my character (Wedge Steeno) was built to take out groups of enemies with two other characters aiding him. And, with two other characters, my guy just runs up to one of them and starts hacking away at them with his two light-sabers... he was AWESOME. It's just this one on one shit that Wedge is not about. So I'm making sure to build this character, Biggs, with the idea that a one on one battle is probably coming at the end, and my dude needs to be self-sufficient enough to handle it.

Another good reason to take a "day off" everything is that I finally figured something out today. What I figured out has to do with me getting a job... and why it's so hard for me to be motivated to go out and get another one. It's because my last job ended like a bad break-up, but worse. I guess I never really let myself realize how traumatized I was by what happened until today: one of the reasons I'm not looking for a job is that I'm worried, in the back of my head, that it's going to end as badly as the last job did. It's just like what happens after a bad break-up! I'm worried that I'm going to put my time and energy into something new and it's just going to end up being messy and painful. I don't want to put myself through that again, so I am hesitant to even look. The good news here is this: now that I've figured out my problem, I've already asked two people here to be my references for jobs; I've started updating my resume; and I've picked out the jobs in the Reader that sound like they'll best suit me. I just hope that with my resume being as quasi-impressive as it is, the people hiring for these crappy, part-time office assistant jobs won't think that I'm "over qualified" for anything. I hate the idea that someone can be "over qualified" for a job. Shouldn't it be my choice as to whether I want to "lower" myself to whatever work it is? *sigh* I just want a job I can do for a few hours and then leave. Is that too much to ask?

#5 Worst of 2004 - My Bosses Vacation This is exactly what I don't want now. The week that *insert name of former boss* went on vacation for a week in late February and early March was a terrible week for me. Making all the decisions; having us run out of so much of the inventory; having unreliable workers... I guess it was simply a sign of things to come. The Sunday of her vacation was one of the worst days of my "professional" life... finding me on my knees praying for divine intervention by the end of the day. While I learned a few things about customers that day... I should have learned not to care so damn much about a stupid ice cream job. I learned that eventually... but not before having one of the worst weeks ever.