A lil' bit of angst

I haven't written because I've been unemployed. Theoretically, this would mean I have more time on my hands. In practice, it means I pad around the house in fluffy slippers, hangdog plastered across my face and make endless cups of tea to help me avoid the terror of applying for work. Adjusting to life back hasn't been so easy. I hate not being needed, or not having anything meaningful to do. I tried to start thinking of myself as a freelancer who doesn't have much work, just to avoid the hideous and soul-destroying label of 'unemployed'. I hate that work means this much to me. I left the country out of fear of the nine-to-five, or the contemporary version of seven-to-six which a few friends have recently discovered. In short, I've been kinda depressed. While I occasionally enjoy gloom, I'd prefer to be gloomy after some kind of warped love-tryst-gone-wrong, rather than the kind of meaninglessness that settles on me now.

Last week, I managed to scrounge some work out of my former employer. They called me as I was standing in a Centrelink queue, holding out a lifesaving offer of temporary employment. Work. It's given me a little more self-respect and an embarassing dose of Meaning, with a capital. Last year, I had three things that gave me Meaning: my riotous house/surrogate family, uni and work. Now, I am inhabiting my parents basement, I'm a graduate and I am jobless. It seems like everyone I know has made significant leaps forwards in the past six months, while I am left floundering and trying to remember what a pretty English sentence looks like. Yep, I am a whiner, but god, unemployment feels crap. I am trying to ingratiate myself sufficiently so they will let me stay and do things to words for money. Please, kinds sirs, please.

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Jaws 3-D 1983, third in series of Jaws films. It did badly at the box office. One critic summarised its plot as: “Killer shark attacks Sea World. Dennis Quaid’s career miraculously survives unscathed.” - pinched from Time because it made me laff.