It's been a rough few days. →[More:]On the plus side I got my new computer. On the minus side, I lost my signed Price book in the cab, my crazy landlady is hearing ghostly water late at night again (she waved a water bill at me and said "Another one like this and you're OUT!' [for best results imagine that in a geriatric Greek accent]), the computer company double charged us for the PC (we're still trying to work that one out), and today at work, two kids who have been there less time than me got promoted to management positions (I don't really want to be a manager, but I can figure out the thought process:'he's 37 and still doing this kind of work? must be something wrong with him!' Plus, maybe it made me flash back to the umpteen times I did try for promotions back in my early retail days and always got denied.)

I don't want a pep talk or anything. I'm mainly here to just grumble, but here's a paragraph that's been resonating with me lately:

"But what really drew him to the area wasn't it's full circle irony but it's nowness, it's right here and nowness, which spoke to the true engine of his being, a craving for making it made many times worse by a complete ignorance as to how this 'it' would manifest itself.

He had no particular talent or skill, or what was worse, he had a little talent, some skill: playing the lead in a basement-theater production of The Dybbuk sponsored by 88 Forsyth House two years ago, his third small role since college, having a short story published in a now-defunct Alphabet City literary rag last year, his fourth in a decade, neither accomplishment leading to anything; and this unsatisfied yearning for validation was starting to make it near impossible for him to sit through a movie or read a book or even case out a new restaurant, all pulled off increasingly by those his age or younger without wanting to run face first into a wall."- Lush Life, Richard Price

I can see the personality of that guy erupting in me sometimes and I sometimes think the only thing that would completely head it off would be an honest answer from the universe (devoid of self-help BS) about whether or not this is as good as it gets and whether I should just get comfortable and try to be content. As for the things happening, they'll resolve themselves, they always do, even if the parade of crises can be a bit wearying sometimes.