Economic prospects.

It's been quite weird lately to realize that I've given up any immediate hope of improving my economic prospects, and that I don't see home ownership or even saving for retirement at any point in my future, even though I'm almost forty.

Technically, I'm now established enough in assisted living to where I could go get some degree or certification or start trying to look around for better paid jobs, but I just don't feel like putting that effort in.

I'm fine if something falls in my lap, but I've spent so much time on academia and then my campaign, all for nothing economically, that I just don't feel like doing that right now, even though maybe in a couple years I'll start poking around in assisted living, though even then it will still be a slog to get credentialed and then established enough to start saving any significant amount of money.

Some family members have wondered why I don't keep applying broadly for jobs, and I tell them that I did that for like five-to-seven hours a week for over a year-and-a-half, and I got what I got and in any case I'm a weirder candidate now for many jobs than I was then, since I'd now be pivoting from a second sector in short order from the first, rather than from just the first alone.

True, I could get a consulting job, but the ones available there involve hacking up other people's jobs into temporary stuff and screwing existing employees, and that's just not right and it's just not me...  I could also get an organizer job, but those are low-paid and like sixty hours a week or more and stressful, and who needs that.

Also, all of my time of applying broadly only really got me interest for 2 decent jobs, only one of which I got an interview for, and neither of which I got.

Really, how much of a person's life can they spend casting about for one of the dwindling number of good jobs out there?

I feel like I'm choosing just to disconnect from the employment and money crap out there now... It's just not worth my time.

A few months ago I had bumped into a guy I know who had moved into working on TV and film sets, and he encouraged me to look into that...  It only takes a few years of nosing around and working your way in, in yet another sector where I have no toehold and where I'd have to spend all my time trying to get one going!

[insert eyeroll emoji here.]

He also said I should be open to jobs through connections, which I am.  I just explained to him what I've told other people in the past, that my social networks aren't big and are pretty limited in scope to people in the same boat that I'm in, and it doesn't seem like that will change anytime soon, especially since I'm working fifty hours a week with commute and my weird jobs hours and my very physical jobs making me need to rest on my days off keep me pretty limited from interacting with others. It's not like I wear a suit and can pop into professional organization happy hours after work!

A few months ago I caught up with an old acquaintance and her (Dutch) husband.  She was one of the only people who really got it, and they both said that society was wasting my education and that that wouldn't happen as much in other countries.  Just like an acquaintance of mine from Chile and another from Brazil and another who's working in Singapore, they suggested that I just move out of country, other places would respect my education and my expertise...  You have no idea how often I've been told that, but that just isn't appealing now, I'm pretty set in place right now.  And, you think I'd have more options, in one of the country's biggest cities.

Overall, I have a meaningful job and am in a place that I like, which is very important to me, but it's a complete mismatch to my education on paper, and economically I'm downwardly mobile and really not making much at all.  It's just very, very odd...  One other Ph.D. person I know is in the same boat, he's trying to position into social work, and right now he just has a mental health screening job at a juvenile facility.

It's good, but "you work like a dog and we're not even making fifteen dollars an hour," he was like.

Statistically, I match up to what's happening in the generation just below me, so I think the problem isn't so much = me or my attitude, but others' expectations of me and my future, and my attitude is actually quite healthy and appropriate, one of the best things a person can do is to stop hoping that high and being invested in their future in the same way that a person might have in the past.  It's healthier, and allows a person to enjoy life more.

I figure, things are so bad with so many people, my best bet is to enjoy life, and hopefully in the future they'll bump up social security and I can find a room in one of those subsidized places for the elderly.

And, I'm serious about that!

A person on the subway the other day:

The other week when I was going in to work on a crowded subway car, a (tall) (young) (cleancut) (blonde-haired) (white ) guy came in at some stop and ended up in the seat next to me.

At first, he was slouching forward onto his knees, then he pulled out a Chick fil-A bag and ate a Chick fil-A sandwich while still slouching forward.

Then, later, he pulled out his phone and answered this text from a friend whose last name looked (Polish):

What's the deal w the security deposit?

- to which he replied -

I blew it all betting black at the casino. :(

A bit later, he reached into his Chick fil-A bag and pulled out and ate another Chick fil-A sandwich, and then a bit after that he got off the train.

The stop he got off at is one where there's a major university in the city.

Alumni contact.

My alumni contact is so weird.

Stuff from my college degree advertises local lectures with like $40 ticket prices, and alumni travel on cruises and stuff.

From my doctoral program, I also got a call a few months ago from a (presumably paid) freshperson asking me to donate $100 to the school.

In what world do they think that I have that kind of money?

It's really quite striking how I've downwardly mobile.  My attempt at an elite profession (academia) took up like 15 years of my life, consumed a huge part of my family wealth to pay off student debt, and has left me starting over from bare wage jobs, after over a year-and-a-half of effort to find full-time work of any capacity in another sector.

I'm not really the sort of story that they think of, tell, or want told.

I really do wonder how many other biographies there are out there like mine.

Blerd sighting on the subway.

The other week I was on the subway going into work, and there was a blerd sitting opposite me.

("Black nerd.")

He was like thirty and a bit chunky and he had a Power Rangers baseball cap on and a Power Rangers t-shirt on, and he was watching something that sounded like a cartoon on his phone, and at one point he started humming along with it.

I wonder if he was partially autistic.

Middle Age Bro Sighting at a Park.

The other weekend I was at a park reading on a bench, and this (white) (middle-aged) bro guy walked by holding something in his right hand.

At first I thought it was a case of beer since the box was around the same size, but the color was an odd light blue, so I knew it probably wasn't a case of beer after all.

So, I look closer, and it turns out that it was a thing of Pampers.

My guess is that he and his family were out with the kid and they ran out of diapers, so he had to go run to the store or their car and go get some?

Probably the store, is my guess, since it was a fresh box and unopened.

An occurrence at the (black) neighborhood bar: A smell.

The other week I was back at the (black) neighborhood bar in the one neighborhood that I used to live in, and there was this awful vomit smell in the restroom.

"What is that smell?", I said to a (shorter) (young) (black) guy at the urinal when a (tall) (young) (black) guy came in the door and very visibly and automatically mugged a face when he got a whiff of it.

"Someone must have vomited," the first guy was like.

Then, like an hour later, I was taking another piss, and the smell was still there, and someone pointed out that someone had shit all over the toilet.

And, I glanced over to the stall and the stall door was open and you could see right directly into it, and there was shit like down the side of the toilet tank and onto the seat and like all onto the floor.

That must have been where the smell was coming from, but that wasn't vomit.

A story of a beggar in the city: His system.

The other week I was catching up with my one lawyer friend from Missouri since another friend of ours from Missouri was back in town, and our one other friend of ours from Missouri told a story about a beggar who would always be outside begging outside this one church downtown that she used to go to.

When he would be outside begging, he always had a walker with him, and then one day she saw him walking down some alley with it, towards a bikerack.

When he got there, he unlocked a bike, used the lock from the bike to lock up his walker to the bikerack, and then hopped on the bike and rode off.

That was his system always, it seems, everyday when he would go out to beg.