more gloom

Why does one have to work? WHY? To quote The Clash, as one should always do in moments of extreme emotional stress;

It's no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You're frettin', you're sweatin'
But did you notice you ain't gettin'?

Word.

Seven working days in and I am over this shit. The work is not hard, but it is, how can I put this...soul crushing. Marketing is really not for me. I am far too emotionally fragile not to take rejection of my carefully thought-out schemes personally. I spend all morning thinking about how I can help various people have businesses that suck slightly less, and then when I tell them how they can be more awesome they shoot me down. It's just like high school all over again, except that my hair is way better these days.*

Even my diary seemed to be conspiring against me today. It's the Permaculture Diary, bought  because it was marked down to $4 in the ABC shop, and because I felt that professional people should really own diaries. Because it is designed for rudderless hippies (which is why it was on sale - hippies don't need day planners) it has little inspirational quotes scattered throughout the pages, and today's was from Kahlil Gibran; "work is love made visible". 

To which I say: Suck it, Kahlil.

I got my first job as soon as I was old enough to work, and up until I ran away to Spain last year I had basically never had time off. Having had five months of holidays, I am ruined for life. I mean, getting up every day at the same time? I can't cope.

The one thing that made this day not completely awful happened on the bus on the way home from work. I was slumped up in my seat by the window, not really looking at anything, when I noticed that in the lane next to the bus was a car with a kid in the passenger seat who was leaning out the window and waving wildly at the bus. I gave him a little smile and a wave back, and he looked as if it had made his day. Did you ever play that game 'sweet and sour' on car trips? It's a great game for when you've become too bored even to play counting games, and when you've lost the energy even to squabble. Basically, you wave at people, and judge them 'sweet' or 'sour' based on whether they wave back. We used to love it, but I never thought at the time that, just maybe, I'd made someone's day a little bit less miserable by doing it.

So thank you small child in the ridiculous Lexus 4WD, you will never know how much that helped me today.

*My 'best friend' in high school used to tell me on a regular basis that my haircut made me look like Fabio, and that I had hairy toes. If I knew how to get in touch with her, I would send her the bill for my anxiety meds.