9.09.2009

We Could Have Been Rubber Tappers

Being in the midst of a job search is discouraging, self-involved and desperate - much like a blog. I boycotted Labor Day and pretended to work all day Monday. I did what I used to do at my most of my previous legitimate jobs -- searched craigslist for free bikes and funny missed connection ads. Like a regular work day, nothing I did felt satisfying. It has been getting to me, my condition of unemployment (and all those mis-connected people). I don't worry about stuff very often but every ninth night or so I stay awake and imagine just where this downward spiral of my meandering career ambitions is taking me (please note the galactic-talent-guided arrow of my artistic life is still guided straight to unfounded heights of eternal cultural impact - nothing has changed in that arena, I just need expensive haircuts).

I noticed that these nightanxiety thoughts inevitably lead to worrying about car insurance, which my little sister tells me is also where her worries eventually end up. Even troubles seemingly unrelated, "Is he cheating on me? Will I be able to afford car insurance?" or "Is the cancer coming back? Will GEICO find out?" or "I only have PLPD! What will I put on job applications when they ask, Do you have car insurance?" And so it goes, maybe it has something to do with our father being a drivers training instructor and an extremely sensible man.

Further, I believe that it makes sense that my concern for the car, the last bastion of hope, mobility, and independence is the root of all my worries. An uninsured car, is an unsure life.

It is a racket though, all of it. Car insurance, job applications, drivers training... Henry Ford would have 1) Laughed at my troubles and 2) Never hired me because I'm not good at housekeeping and obviously a communist subversive. I know this after finishing Fordlandia, on Labor Day evening of all days. Reading about the enslavement of factory workers and rubber tappers in the Amazon should have put my at-least-I-have-a-roof-over-my-head situation in perspective but instead succeeded in depressing me to no end about the effects of industrial globalization on world economy, labor, and my fruitless search for employment and enslavement to western culture and social approval. 

I have a three options:  

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