Plan... Z
Getting off my high horse and going back to the drawing board (and other mixed metaphors)
Greetings, friends!
Sometimes it’s easier to think of myself as a character. Call it dissociation, but I’m finding it useful to put a layer of distance between my ego-driven self and the self that might have to pick up some dishwashing shifts if my job search doesn’t turn around soon. (There’s nothing wrong with washing dishes; it’s just not what I thought I’d be doing this year.) But hey, anything for the character arc, right?
There’s a certain amount of irony to having just finished a draft of a novel in which an overeducated liberal-arts type finds himself stuck in a cycle of independent contractor gigs. As I click through my robot-narrated food handler certification course, I am becoming some kind of method actor. The reassurance works, but it’s unstable, ebbing and flowing in sync with my self-esteem.
I am trying to be patient. I am trying to imagine the character of myself on his great journey, motivated by various pressures (capitalism, ego) as he claws toward some kind of disco…