[LEMONS] 6.30.2003
30
I'm 30. I'm unemployed. I have a lot of gray hair.What happened?
It wasn't so long ago that I was young and promising and had the whole world ahead of me. Was it?
Where did the economy go? Where's my boom? Really, fellas, I was just getting started. I wasn't finished. I never actually got to, you know, make a big pile of money. I never got any recognition or accolades, awards or profiles written about me in glossy magazines that glibly toss off references to Cat Power, Jasper Johns and Crispin Glover, where I never appeared wearing a pair of sunglasses standing in front of the Bay with my arms crossed in front of my chest grinning yet ultimately looking bored and jaded with some sort of caption about my brilliance being matched only by my vision, and beauty. Never happened.
Where are my accolades?
There was a time in my life when I would casually stroll into job interviews, wrinkled and reeking of cheap booze and expensive sensimilla, half-asleep and a full day late, and would be rewarded with contracts and assignments. Promises of more assignments to come and a thrilling future that didn't involve sitting at home in my underwear weeping into a warm bowl of Gorilla Munch and soymilk. And today, when I show up sober and suited, eager to work for a pittance at a job with no promise, somehow they only seem to see my gray hair and legacy of failure to appear in those aforementioned glossy magazines.
And I feel myself creeping along now. Doubting myself and questioning whether or not things are really going to happen. And if they are, why they haven't already. You see your peers shine and sparkle in their youth, hanging out with Stephen Malkmus and Dave Eggers at cocktail parties where people casually throw around phrases like "postmodern dilemma" and "Penn-Faulkner Award" instead of "totally wasted" and "unemployment check." And you just get older. I just get older.
But the thing is... The thing is. I'm not really 30. Not really. Don't let the gray hair fool you. It's not true. I have the same dream today that I did when I was eight years old. That I did when I was sixteen and twenty and twenty-five. I may not have the job, but I've damn sure got the dream. There it is. Right there, big and tall in front of me. Always reminding me that I'm lugging it around. And sometimes it makes me unhappy and sometimes it makes me afraid. But I need it. And I'll hang onto it, even if it makes me feel like a failure or a fraud.
Because The Dream stands between me and 30. The dream rejects 30, denies its gray hair and aches and failures to do, and not to do too. It reminds me of my beautiful wife, whom I adore. Who adores me. It rummages through boxes from the closet, pulls out your old clips and tells you you're pretty. It says "look, look," and points to the miserable sucker stuck in the straight job, trudging off of the bus with a psychic limp. It belittles your rivals and tells you how interesting it finds your friends. The dream is good like that.
And on days like today--when CraigsList.org and MediaBistro.com and JournalismJobs.com and SoYouWannaBeALackey.com are as barren and void as Dubya's soul, when you look in the mirror and see every gray hair and nose hair and ear hair and eye hair and all those kinds of hairs that come with aging that you wish would just stay the hell over there on your father where they belong and your knee pops with every step because it's foggy and the damp air makes your bones ache and you have bad breath and you don't listen to new hip-hop anymore and and and and and--on these kind of days, it's your dream that grabs you by the scruff of your neck and says: "hey, bitch, fuck it. You know what? Let's go get some strong-ass coffee, write up that Dengue Fever pitch, and send it out to some punk-ass editor who's going to want to eat your doo-doo and pay you in cash. And then, when you finish, we'll go out and throw some motherfucking eggs at cars on Fell Street. What do you say?"
I'm 30. I'm unemployed. I have a lot of gray hair.
But I still have my dream. And two dozen jumbo Grade-A cage-free organic eggs. Watch out world.
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