I just finished reading The Corner and since it was by David Simon [the same man behind Homicide] you know it was awesome. Nonetheless as I started to finish the book I realized some things. While the book mostly talked about living your life on the corner, and trying to find the next bit of money so you could get your hit and have your world go from being really really shitty, to only mildly shitty, there were some similarities between the characters and also with myself.

Yes I know I’m no coke-fiend, and yes I know I have a nice house to live in, but that’s not what I’m talking about. In the book it tells the tale of a Fran Boyd who tries to get clean, goes to detox and comes out 28 days later with her body not needing the drugs to feel normal anymore. How she starts to get her life back for herself and her two sons, only to realize that while she’s now clean, it’s staying clean and getting a “normal” life that proves the hardest part. Simply because she’s used drugs before people are hesitant to hire her, and because no one hire’s her she has no way to keep food on her table, and pay the bills for her row-house. Because of that she ends up getting sucked back into the hole that is the habit again.

And as I sat sitting in an office of a place I don’t technically work at, doing absolutely nothing simply because I wanted to escape the idiocy that is the service industry I felt a bond. While I said to myself “I want to quit this shit and find something that matters, find a job that I know what my paycheck will be, and what my hours are going to be like,” it’s a lot harder than that. Sure I have some skills, but to an employer my resume just looks like I’m any average bum who’s been working in restaurants for years. And because of that I don’t get jobs, or I have to settle for ones that in the day-to-day activity I feel like I’m going back a few years and being an idiot. Not to belittle anyone who’s a receptionist, but really it’s boring as fuck. I literally sat around for almost 5 hours today and did little more than sign for some packages and transfer about 10 calls. But I have to put up with it, simply because my resume does look the way it does. Because I don’t have experience, or references, I have to do jobs that I know aren’t exactly up to my standard of work. Just so that I can get that little teeny-tiny foot in the door in the hopes I can eventually open the door to something bigger and better.

But ya know what? That shit sucks. I thought about it today since well, I had nothing else to do, and I realized that the money I make in this job will probably be less than what I was making waiting tables. But I’m putting up with it because I know it won’t be forever, and because I really don’t want to have to be someone else’s little bitch simply so they feel some sort of fake connection with me and tip me 20% as opposed to 15%, because while it might only seem like a few bucks to normal people, it’s a helluva big difference to a waiter.

I just sit here lately and feel like I’m sitting on the lip of something that’s big, big enough to change things for the long-run. And honestly it excites and scares the piss out of me, at the same time. It’s kind of like that feeling you get when you’re at the top of some mountain while skiing [or snowboarding if you want] for the first time. You sit there high above everyone and everything else, feeling almost as if you’re at the top of the world, but knowing at the same time that you have to go down somehow. Since this is your first time however you’re not too sure if you’re going to end up going down on your skis, or on your ass, but no matter because before you have time to worry too much you’re going down the mountain-side.

Sometimes you’ll fall on the way down, sometimes you’ll go through large patches where it’s smooth skiing, but it’s life, so nothing is constant for too long. So I guess I gotta bite my lip and jump on down the mountain and hope I make it to the bottom without too many scratches.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2005 at 11:46 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.