Hiatus

It's with a heavy heart and a saddened tone that I issue an official hiatus for this blog.  I don't know when I'll be back and I should at least stay relatively current with the multitude of blogs I follow, but A General Malcontent needs to have some time to lie fallow.  I don't know when I'll be back to it.  I'm not sure what the future holds, but I'm going to focus my energies on my other blog, the one that features my fiction writing.  Time for me to become pro-active.

Garden of Your Mind

I will show you fear in a handful of dust

Last Saturday was my reluctant birthday.  The day commemorating my burst from womb those 26 years ago.  Twas my golden birthday.  I hate my birthdays usually, but the lead up and the fall out of this one has been the worst.  Well, the worst so far.  I have become a hollow shell, not to mention incredibly unhappy over the past few weeks.  God, fuck this shit.

Return to Hell

Diablo II is one of my favorite games of all time.  I have played the shit out of that game over the course of my life.  The first Diablo came about in my formative computer gaming years, and I played it and loved it.  So when Diablo III was officially in development, I was pretty stoked.  I waited.  And it got pushed back.  And I waited some more.  And it got pushed back.  And just when I was about ready to forget about it, it got pushed back one final time.  Then, it came out.  And I bought it, got it shipped the day of, and have subsequently played the shit out of it.  In that idea, I come to my definitive statement regarding the newest installment of one of my favorite franchises of all time: It still feels like Diablo, and I am having a blast playing it.  There are changes, some of which I don't like, but overall, I really like it.  So that's what I've been up to.

Huh.

So, it's no real secret that this dude is a big fan of the punk rock.  Like no secret whatsoever.  I'm punk as shit son.  So I figured I'd share a little news from the Punk world with you guys today.  Because it's inspiring as well.  Tom Gabel, of the band Against Me!, has come out as transgender and is planning on undergoing treatment to live as woman.

If you do not know Against Me!, they came out of the Gainsville in the late nineties and fucking rocked the shit out.  Their most recognized album, Reinventing Axl Rose, has become a modern punk classic.  They were one of the most recognized folk punk bands.  I'm a huge fan or Reinventing Axl Rose, and I will admit, I was one of the people who has seen their recent major label transition (well, like 2005) as disheartening because it seemed to suck all the passion out of their music, catchy though their recent releases have been (you are probably familiar with "Thrash Unreal" if you don't listen to punk).

So, this is pretty big news.  There are not a whole lot of transgender rock stars on the front lines of popular music, let alone one who will be undergoing transition as the public watches.  I'll fucking admit, I know exactly zero transgender individuals, so my pronoun use may be offensive, but I'm not 100% certain of when to start using she instead of he.  I realize the prudent thing to do may be to just refer to the individual in question by their desired gender as soon as they reveal their intent, but it just seems a little strange.  So, regardless, and with apologies in case of offense, good for him.  Take a personal event to begin with and magnify it to the extreme, and that's what Tom Gabel is going through.  I wish him/her the best of luck.

Speaking of, here's some Against Me!

A Rough Patch. Like, Razor Wire Rough.

So, I'm kind of having my world rocked pretty hard at the moment.  I'm supposed to be filling out an application to go permanent at my job, but I don't want to.  I hate that place.  I hate the monotony, I hate the overtime, I hate waking up and knowing that if I just didn't go, no one would give a shit, and they'd have another temp in by the end of the week.  Because all they need are warm bodies to push buttons and handle parts.  That's it.  It really sucks having to wake up every day and do something you don't want to do.  When you know you have the skill and the intelligence to do what you want, but that opportunity never presents itself.  But, I have to endure, because if I get a permanent position, I get health insurance.  Because my health coverage under my dad runs out next month on my birthday.  My 26th birthday.

Of course, it's not just one thing.  It's a complete avalanche that started with my job as the initial snowballing, but now, more shit started piling on top of it to make me feel like a complete fucking loser.  I'm sorry for the pity party, but I'm just so low right now, I can't focus on anything else.  Besides, blogging always makes me feel better, especially when I have vented enough.  So here goes.

I know life isn't a competition.  I know that.  But the success of others, for me, is always a way to examine my own falters and gauge my own success.  Is there a bit of jealousy when others succeed over me?  Of course.  I'm only human.  Very human, despite what previous drunken blog posts might indicate.  I have two cousins who are my age.  We're completely different people, but we were bros when we were younger.  They're family.  A month ago, one of them bought a house.  He's a foreman for a contractor, has been working since he graduated high school.  We're talking 60+ hour weeks for most of the year, and now that he's a foreman, he's got bank.  So initially, I ignored it.  I could potentially be in the same position if I had foregone college and just started working.  But, as I found out earlier this week, my other same age cousin has also bought a house.  He went to college, and afterwards, was unemployed for like a year.  Now, he's buying a house.  And I live in my dad's basement.  Feels bad, man.

So, the avalanche grows.  Now, I don't have the greatest track record with the ladies recently.  I'm in a funk.  I've been enamored with a friend of mine, who is pretty, nice, funny, interesting, witty, fun to be around, makes me feel good about myself, and in general, just makes me want to be a better person.  So, I finally worked up the courage to ask her on a date. She declines, says she's not looking to date anyone.  I accepted that, who cares, we're still friends.  Figure I can wear her down maybe, or keep looking around, maybe things will work out.  It was like two months ago.  Over the weekend, meet up with some friends I haven't seen in a while, we're all drinking out at the bars, having a good time, and this girl is there.  Has this dude with her, I don't think too much of it.  Until I see them kissing.  And find out that she's been dating this dude for two weeks.  So clearly, by saying she's not looking to date anyone, she clearly meant that she didn't want to date me.  And instead of being honest, which means I could have gotten over it, I now have to deal with this on top of everything else that's been going on.  So I got drunk, crashed at a friend's place, went with his roommate to get breakfast after staying up all night after this roommate had a gay old time in the shower with another friend of mine.

The last straw that sent me into this despair spiral was on Monday.  My brother is graduating college next month.  He was worried about having a job. He had interviews set up last week.  He got a job after his first interview.  A pretty decent first post-college job.  In the almost three years since I graduated, I have not had a single interview for the dozens of jobs that would utilize my degree; in fact, 90% of them didn't even contact me saying they were not interested.  It's been three years of rejection and constantly being confused as to what I've been doing wrong, and not sure as to what I've been doing right.  It's fucking frustrating and depressing.  I mean, I love my brothers, and I'm glad that he doesn't have to worry about post-college employment, but it's hard being the perennial family loser.  I'm the oldest brother, yet both of my younger brothers are better than me.  They got better grades in high school, got into a better college, and are getting better grades in college than i did.  They played in sports, were popular, all that shit that I don't think about, until I'm reminded of it by circumstance.  I've got nothing to show for the last three years of my life.  And that's why I'm depressed.  I had a rare burst of inspiration at work today for a story, independent of my ongoing saga over at my other Blog, but as I've sat down to start writing it after jotting down some notes during work, it's just fucking depressing me further.  So I'm going to fill out this fucking application and give it to my boss tomorrow, and try not to drink myself to death because of it.  Wish me luck.  I need it.

Jawbreaker and a Three Day Weekend

My boss is a forgetful bastard.  Tomorrow (or today rather) is a holiday according to the company I work for, and every other shift has been asked to work.  Except mine.  And I'm not going to correct his fucking mistake.  So three day weekend for this motherfucker.  Hopefully I can try and get some things accomplished, but I doubt it being Easter weekend and all.  It's kind of Irconic: I'm an avowed atheist, but I have all this shit to do involving Easter, mostly due to my family, who are Catholic as hell.  So I've got to do all that family shit, plus my lesbian friend's birthday saturday, and a little bit of fishing tomorrow.  And tonight?  Skyrim.  Haven't had a chance to play in a while, and I've almost got my enchanting to 100, meaning my character becomes a fucking badass when coupled with my almighty 100 in smithing.  Even though I'm a badass now.

Anyway, I was recently reminded of my love for all things Jawbreaker, so here you go