Location, Location, Vocation (Recently Discovered Final Post)

This is an unpublished post written when I returned to Minnesota and moved in with my brother.... a long long time ago in a tundra far far away...... I couldn't resist this. Also I'm sure NO ONE is reading this anymore. Here goes; Location, Location, Vocation
by Christopher Andrew


All of my delusions about living a beautiful simple life here in Moorhead Mn had hinged on procuring a part time job at a local coffee house where I would suddenly become the toast of the social world and every college girls dream date as I passed on all their advances to pursue spiritual enlightenment and meditate on the meaning of life besides the adoration of me.

After two and a half weeks, I am still unemployed.

My dreams muted a little when every coffee purveyor in town has made it clear that I am not worth minimum wage or even the time it takes for an interview.

As of now, my dreams have been reduced to the color of Picasso's famed blue period after I resorted to turning in an application at a local fast food restaurant. The 20 year old manager almost grilled me on my education seeming utterly appalled that I had failed to finish my degree in Studio Arts. I have no idea what the process of printmaking or lost-wax casting have to do with stuffing a burrito and listing off a selection of side-dishes to compliment a large soda, but as she rattled off her last programed phrase, "We'll call you," all I could hear was "have you considered the rewarding career of janitorial assistant, or maybe homelessness? I hear they have great health benefits."

I am continually amazed at the way depression seems to give rise to the most creative excuses to keep myself from doing anything that may better my situation thus threatening my love affair with self loathing; depression is a jealous lover.

Applying for more jobs is just being a glutton for punishment. I couldn't possibly paint because I'm out of Alizarin Crimson. I can't exactly call anyone what with the plight of the Sudanese; and I can't make any new friends when I'm not caught up on the latest T.V. shows. However, drinking beer and trying to decipher exactly how many different shades of taupe are woven into the living room carpet? This is a worthy use of my time (there are 8 by the way; unless you include the strange muted greens hidden deeply in the tan synthetic forest.)

On days like this, I imagine my perfect prescription in the form of any town but this one. I watch Zoloft commercials in between the afternoon courtroom dramas and imagine the unhappy blob stumbling into Duluth, or California, or the unlikely Gettysburg PA. His face lights up and his eyes lift to heaven to thank the world for all its beauty as the formerly depressed bubble drops forty pounds, takes a job as a pin, and stabs that passing butterfly to become forever displayed in a trophy entomological exhibit.

I look through the list of missed calls that I haven't returned out of sensitivity to the Sudanese Refugees and imagine any differing phone number as if the area code were that of heaven itself.

My fantasies have often betrayed me as they always have a set of stipulations for happiness that are impossibly beyond my grasp. Some require a change of scenery, others a different occupation, but all of them involve a significant personal change. Often the character of me (in my fantastical world) is played by someone else who actually seems worthy of admiration. Sometimes the character looks like me, but most of the time my role is played by Brad Pitt or occasionally, Ellen DeGeneres on the account that we have the same haircut and that we are both men.

This is not the first time that I have felt this way. The last one had me convinced that I could never be an artist because I had run out of yellow ochre. So if logic serves me, things will begin to look up again, until they turn south, then exude joy all over again; unless I find myself on some effective bipolar medication.

But until then, I will count the new shades of brown that have appeared after I spilled my Guinness on the carpet and imagine myself as Brad Degeneress of Los Angeles, a recently discovered prodigy of non-talent to be loved and revered simply for my mere ability to exist and be awesome.