Will it ever stop? Yo! I don't know

Yesterday Phillip came home at 7:30. He worked till about 6:30 and biked home. I worked till about 4:30, drove home and proceeded to eat the entire contents of my refrigerator. After hearing my pitiful self-loathing on the subject, Phillip said, "Why don't you take the laptop and go write for an hour after work?"

I hate it when my husband is right. So. Today I have the laptop in its ugly REI carrying case. I have my thumb drive. And I have a vague idea of where I might go after work to indulge my one-day-I'll-be-a-real-writer fantasies. Starbucks? Zoka's? Anyone want to meet me after work to actually ensure that I will do this?

I'm feeling down about the whole Work thing today, Internet. It's not worse, but it's not better either. There are plans and actual action being taken in order to make it better, but it's all going a bit too slow for me. Add to that my growing doubt that it's going to happen at all and, well, my natural sunny optimism is decreasing by the day.

The obvious option is to find a new job! Of course! But my near daily perusals of the want ads leave me more depressed. I can't find anything I'd like to do. I don't really want to quit my job, anyway. For one thing, I love my coworkers, all of them. From what I hear, this is rare? (I wouldn't know, as I've never really HAD coworkers, my last coworker having been a poorly behaved golden retriever puppy.) For a misanthropic social misfit, loving one's coworkers seems like a fairly big deal. Also, I love the two guys who own the company. They're not perfect bosses. They can greatly annoy me, as well as everyone I work with, but 99% of the time they are friendly understanding flexible people who listen to ideas and take you seriously. (Best of all, they leave me alone.) I work for a tightly knit local industry. I know a lot of people in a lot of different companies. And because my own company is so teeny tiny, I have the opportunity to do a lot of things I am totally unqualified to do, which is super fun. What I don't like is MY JOB. Because I am a smartass and incredibly cocky, I have somehow conned my bosses into crafting my perfect (?) job lest I flounce out of the office in a huff and quit, and they are actually following the master plan- it's just going sooooo sloooow. And I? Am not infinitely patient. I have the patience of, oh, a seven-year-old in the Barbie doll aisle whose mother tells her to wait and see what Santa brings.

Besides. My perfect (?) job is hardly anyone else's perfect job. Had I informed my senior English teacher that I landed such a job, the person I wanted to impress more than any other at age seventeen, his reaction would have been a resounding "Meh." I know that shouldn't bug me, that I'm a much different person ten years later (TEN YEARS OH MY GOD), but still. It'd be nice to have some kind of knock-your-socks-off job title to spread around at the family reunion.

But whatever. Things change. I no longer want to be a fancy pants Career Lady with an office and overtime and a bulging Rolodex. And the fact that I could be this person, if I wanted to, if I only worked hard enough, shouldn't matter. Like how I brush off Sloth with a lazy little flick of the wrist? But even if I wasn't the laziest human on earth, I still don't think I'd want to wear suits and heels and go to meetings and talking about how to make more money and have a staff. Ever. (Unless my staff was only there to head to the grocery store for Godiva ice cream every time I snapped my fingers. Because how awesome would that be?)

Ten years after my highly ambitious college essays, all I want to do is hang out with my husband, have a family, write a novel and find a day job I don't hate. Throw in some frequent European travel and I'm all set. I guess that makes me rather less than ambitious, but I'm okay with that for now. I have every hope in the world that my current day job is morphing into "the best day job I can imagine", and I really think it will, no matter how depressed I am right now. Still, I can't see how it will ever be more than a day job. Ten years and a college degree later and I still haven't figured out what I'd like better than sitting in front of the computer making up stories about imaginary people.  So I'm working on it. Really. Try instant messaging me tonight and you will find me at some local cafe pretending to be an Artist. And I will instantly write back because I'll take anything to distract me from the depressingly blank screen.

***Today's post title comes from listening to my new favorite radio station at top volume on my drive to work. You know how there are oldies stations? And then "classic rock" stations? Well, I feel like my generation was just given it's very own "classics" station. Because dude. Bell Biv Devoe? En Vogue? Janet Jackson from the Rhythm Nation era? They have yet to play a New Kids song, but if they did I'd probably have to marry the radio and they just want to keep me at arm's length.***