Moving forward one shaky step at a time, Kind of like some baby hooved animal, vulnerable yet spunky

So, my trivial factory job is starting to get a little easier.  I kind of feel like an alcoholic as I move forward one day at a time, but not quite, because as I right this, I am drinking my second post-work beer, with one or two more in the immediate future.  Once again, I find myself actually drinking more frequently when I'm employed than when I'm unemployed.  Hooray, I guess.  Except I'm not binge drinking here, just having a beer or two (or four) to help be come down off the day.  Whatever works, you know, and unless I start freebasing Meth again, I need some way to come down.  And besides, Meth isn't chill, and last time I freebased it, i ended up punching a bus over due to my incredible methamphetamine muscles.

So anyways, I've been thinking how to make a better future for myself, and an idea is starting to formulate.  A lot of work is going to be involved, but ultimately worth it if I can make it work.  Also, my team the Wisconsin Badgers had their undefeated season spoiled by the Michigan State University football team again.  It was a hell of a game, and Wisconsin came back to tie it up after blowing their first quarter lead after the half.  Michigan State grabbed the ball with less than a minute left, after Wisconsin tied it up with a touchdown.  they drove past the 50 yard line, and the final play of the game, MSU's quarterback threw a hail mary back into the endzone.  Wisconsin Wide receiver Jared Abredaris was playing safety, miss timed his jump for the interception, and the man covering MSU's intended receiver swatted the ball but failed to follow through to send it to the ground.  A MSU player caught it on the one, and pushed into the endzone with no time on the clock.  Wisconsin's National Championship ambition came to an abrupt end due to luck, essentially.  I'm over it already, but I was really fucking bummed on Saturday night and all day Sunday.  But, that's football.

Here's Kurt Vile.  Been listening to his new release this week.  Pretty good.  Doesn't sound like his name, by the way.

Suddenly Gainfully Employed

Yup.  I now work in a factory.  8 hours a day, five days a week.  It is, without a doubt, the most bored I have ever been and work.  I spent 8 hours today loading die casts weighing about 12 pounds into a trim pack machine, which shears the excess material.  While screaming air the entire time.

I don't like to look a gift horse in the mouth; one of the other temps that started today was starting off of two years after getting laid off, and was a week away from losing his unemployment.  But, mindless factory work ain't my bag.  But, I need to suffer through this shit for the next 90 days at least.  I need to find something worthwhile, something worth doing for money.  I hate letting money control my life.  But that's  what i'm doing.

I feel bad thinking this way.  Why can't I just be happy and content with what I have?

Everyone's talking about the future. Everyone's fucking afraid of it.

I often find myself wondering what people in the future will remember about this era.  The early post-millennial decade of 2000-2009 saw the rise of the internet, and, while still mired in confusion, was a technological age.  The transition between millennium.  This decade, however, continues to be unsure.  What great works of art have been made over the past two years?  Even before that? What great novels have become touchstones for a generation of novelists commenting upon what they witnessed in this modern age?  Is the Tea Party and now the Occupy movement our great contributions to politics and social change?

Popular culture confounds and confuses me.  Then again, I have actively spent my time since roughly 2001 avoiding most (if not all) popular music, most popular books, most popular television shows, and most popular movies (then again, triumph of art over popularity.  Exceptions, obviously.  Especially in movies; there just aren't enough indie movies.  But I digress.  Yes, I disdain most aspects of popular culture.  But that's not what were necessarily talking about here.  This is a little larger than that.

I find myself wondering what people living in previous ages thought.  The 2000s have this obsession with the 1990s, this nostalgia of everything.  Everywhere within my generation, it exists, like it was this golden age of living.  My brother was born in 1993, and he always talks about the 90s.  I ask him how he remembered any of those things: he was 6 when the decade ended.  He says stuff I listened to, but I have a confession to make: I didn't care about music until I was about 12 or 13, and even then, it was shitty pop music.  Which was just as terrible as pop music in the 2000s, the 2010s, and probably the 2020s.  All these kids who were young as shit when the decade ended claim all this stuff these days.  Here's my question: has this been occurring since the beginning of time?  Do people automatically remember and pine old decades?

Life has been relatively stable until recently here in the United States.  I remember the day that President George W. Bush declared war on Iraq; it didn't really effect me at all, so I wasn't too worried, other than not agreeing with it.  But since then?  Nothing.  Suddenly, the recession hits and everything seems to be going to shit.  America's debt reaches crisis levels, according to economists, the European Union is close to collapse, and everyone is pissed at everyone else.  The future is looming, and just over the horizon, something big seems like it is about to happen.  And no, I'm not referring to the 2012 conspiracy.  It just feels like something huge is about to go down, something that can and will change the lives of people across the world.  So when that day comes, what will happen?  And will we be ready for it?

A year in retrospect

So, as it turns out, I have had this blog for an entire goddamn year.  Granted, I posted once at the end of last September and not again until March, but still.  It stands.  This ageneralmalcontent.blogspot.com  has stood since then.  Fucking good times.

This year has been yet another mark of a "lost" year.  Like the year that preceded it, and the one that will follow it.  I have not achieved any of the jobs I have applied for, I've burned out all of my savings, and I am sitting in the same amount of craptacular debt that I was two years ago upon graduating college.

But, there are upsides.  I have read quite an amount of cool blogs by cool people, made some blogbros, and have written some material that I'm pretty proud of.  I've done some cool things, and had some problems; I've loved and lost, and partied my ass off.  And although I'm nowhere near I would have hoped on my last day of classes two years ago, I regret nothing, and that's all someone can hope for.

I've been a lax bro recently, and unfortunately it may continue in the future: I may be employed as early as tomorrow.  A friend of mine threw a recommendation to the temp agency that placed him, they called me, and I passed the stupid little tests, so we'll find out in the morning.  Fingers crossed