Happy New Year From the New Asshole at Work

Though this blog will post, like clockwork, at 7:18am EST, Sunday, I'm banging it out at 9:31pm EST, Saturday. COPS ended half-an-hour ago, a pleasing amalgam of a taut, breathless vehicle pursuit through the streets of Las Vegas and some moron in Hesperia who drunkenly plowed his sports car into a tree.

Now? I'm blogging while my wife puts cornrows in my hair.

Were it not for the Victoria League cloisonne pin on my hoodie and my orange, flannel pajama pants, I might very well resemble a suspect on COPS in half-an-hour. Of course, I'd need some tattoos on my hairline and boxers pouring out from my waistband.

It is another luscious, languid night of vacation. The heat is on 60 (that's tropical for us), the dog is snoozing away on the floor, we've just loaded up a bones-cheap shelving unit with my wife's fabric and I'm getting my hair braided or whatever. I feel like a Dionysian God. Except that I'm not drunk. I did have two virgin cranberry spritzers, though, and home-made pepper-and-onion pizza and garlic fries from Trader Joes.

MmmMmMmMMmMMmMmMmmmmm.......

So, why, in the midst of all this blissful, delicious vacationness am I feeling melancholy?

Oh, right. I have to go back to work tomorrow.

In my window-free, basement office.

With my passive-aggressive boss.

And my desk-chair that smells like farts.

I can has cry-paper now?

Seriously-- hold me.

I remember being a little boy and dreading the end of vacations from school. The days ticked by with merciless and brutal consistency. Sweaty-mouthed Mrs. MacDowell and arm-pinching Mrs. Wolpert were waiting for me. Vacations are never long enough. Never.

I wonder if retirement will be long enough. Probably not. Actually, I wonder if I'll ever be able to retire. Probably not.

I could sit here while my wife is twirling and twisting my hair into some ungodly formation and tell you that I've made a whole bunch of life-affirming resolutions about my job, but I like you way too much to lie to you. Besides, you wouldn't believe me anyway.

I know what's going to happen on Monday. I will walk up the path to the basement entrance and, as I put my hand on the door handle, I will say to myself, "Okay, you bad boy: be nice." And I will walk in, and my boss and I will exchange the obligatory pleasantries. I'll last two hours, maybe three. But then, after twelve o'clock passes and I will not have had a chance to eat my lunch, I will open up bastard throttles at full tilt.

You might like me on the blog, but, at work, I'm a prickly little fuck.

And why? I don't want to be there.

I'm restless and listless and feckless and, well, less. Less of everything than I was before. Less attentive. Less focused. Less driven. Less interested. Less into it.

I am always curious by peoples' reactions when I tell them what I do. The reactions range from "Wow, that's really interesting." (adults) to "God, that sucks!" (kids).

I tend to trust the reactions of the kids, because kids haven't learned that it's polite to lie constantly to peoples' faces.

I really don't want to go back to work on Monday, because the first three hours of my day will consist of assisting the Executive Director in interviewing a part-time "Development Specialist" to "help in the office." This individual, of course, is the person who, when my specified contract is up (August) will replace me.

Fucking duh.

So I get to help load the bullets into the chamber of the firearm that is pointed directly at my conk. I love doing that!

The thing is, I don't care. I want to be replaced. I wouldn't care if I were being replaced by some dump-assed middle-aged saddle-bag with nostrils, or an officious prig with a pencil dick and a handlebar moustache, or a Roomba, or a cardboard cutout of Carrie Underwood. I don't care. Replace me with a fig or a ferret. Go ahead. And good luck to you.

I kind of can't wait.

Notice the "kind of?"

Well, that's because I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do when I go, or where the fuck I'm going to do it. I'm kind of sick of being occupationally misdirected, and I'm sure my wife is kind of sick of it too. As I'm approaching thirty rather rapidly, I know that it's way past time to get my shit together.

I know.

I'm hopeful, of course, that, once I figure out where I am and where I'm going and what I want to do that I will no longer be the new asshole at work, or, as time progresses and my ass gets fat, the old asshole at work.

I don't know. But I hope so.

I want to have a job that I'm excited about. That thinking about returning to after 10 days of vacation doesn't send shivers down my pancreas.

Is there such a job?

Maybe not. One thing's for sure-- I know there's no job out there that's better than lounging around in pj's while your wife does your hair.

For now, though, hold onto your dreds, because here comes the new asshole at work.