So I have been pretty busy over in the politics section but I thought I would pop back to the main page to point out an obvious truth: you don’t have any friends. No, it’s true. If you were to marry your non-existent significant other the only people standing next to you would be siblings of the same gender at least one of which you hate or resent. But whatever.

Most of your former friends were of the same background education wise. Some of them succeeded where you failed and some failed right beside you. But every failed man is an island. There is no joke about two unemployed people entering a bar because there is nobody to pick up the tab.

Yeah despite what sitcoms and wedding toasts would have you believe this happens. This is life. People walk in and walk out of our lives. Imagine if you had to bury everyone you ever cared about who died before you?

Next, don’t try to make friends. It is a futile exercise until you are in a better place lifewise. However if you insist on trying to make friends remember how you made every other friend you ever had: through shared experiences that usually involve acquiring a skill or a right of passage.

Sit tight champ. I won’t say things will get better but you’re not done meeting people and there is still a chance to be about something.

So apparently My sexual escapades are not fitting for blog entries. Now, any sensible person will tell you that your choice of life partner has more effect on your financial well being than any other BUT since certain of those among us who are celibant against their will are hating…let’s try a new topic, the art of casual conversation.

When I ask you, peon in Debtor’s Prison, how your day was, how you are doing, etc, the correct answer is “fine.” I don’t care if you just got your arm amputated and your puppy died in a vain attempt to save your mother from a burning building.

Next if I ask you a question you should immediately identify how I am trying to seguay into a conversation about myself. Obviously I don’t care what you think. If you just stare blankly I will eventually launch into a monologue that will amount to talking to myself without the stigma BUT you can create the illusion of dialogue with phrases like “I don’t know what do you think?” I could ask for your frikkin name and that is still the best response you can give.

Next if I ask “Are you around at [such and such time]” the correct response is no response simply wait for me to tell you where to be at that time. Of course you are around, you’re unemployed or underemployed. You have no money therefore no worth therefore no life. But for the pathetic sound of your voice a thank you might be in order.

The point is you are a non-entity. That’s why people talk over you, cut you off or treat your latest contribution to a conversation as if it never happened. The sooner you learn this and start playing by the rules the sooner your life will start to make sense albeit in a tragic sort of way. But buying into the rules has it’s advantages. It’s like hazing. Play by the rules, believe in the rules, work to get to the other side of the coin.

I haven’t written much lately.  I go to the statuesque bf worth missing sleep over.  That’s about all I can handle.  Unfortunately I have friends.  Friends who have alot more time on their hands than I do.  Friends who make demands on my time.

The sad phenomenon I am noticing is that when I do see a friend it’s not the friend I wanted to see most, but the friend guilts me into it, usually through pity.  Consequently I am distancing froom people I care about and confiding in people whose death would rank on par with a patient’s who I’d spent a total of about 10 minutes with, was old, and had family there.  I have always taken for granted that the average person values what I do and understand how long it takes.  benito and his new best friend Latrine always lament that just because they are unemployed and underemployed respectively that everyone thinks their time is worthless.  I for one do, but not because of their employment situation but because 1) I know Benito and 2) Latirne is called latrine because he seeks to maximize the amount of time he spends on the toilet.

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This is for my peeps who are pimps first and professionals second – the type of slick mothers who can hop on a plane to a country where they can’t speak the language with only the clothes on their back and spend three months with the type of women suicide bombers dream about.

This is also in response to Sweet Hot Justice who wrote a piece “Biglaw Bros: Why Slam Pieces DON’T Want You.” The article can be found here

http://www.sweethotjustice.com/2011/03/01/biglaw-bros-why-slam-pieces-dont-want-you/

and reposted on ATL here

http://abovethelaw.com/2011/03/biglaw-bros-why-slam-pieces-don%E2%80%99t-want-you/

Basically SHJ says that dimes aren’t interested because at the end of the day even the most successful lawyer doesn’t make shit compared to a finance guy and law just ain’t sexy.  And you know what? She’s right.  But dimes want you anyway.  Why? Let me explain.

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Benito is trying to find an under employed writer for the blog.  He hasn’t as of yet and for what it’s worth I don’t think he will.  Not because there isn’t an army of over-educated under-utilized talent out there but because to experience real under-employment is so violently traumatic that it’s hard not to store away what’s left of your soul and just remain dead on the outside. Even when you do this there is one thing that no matter how jovial a dance-for-the-man performance you put on on the outside you still can’t protect yourself from the knowledge of how you’re regarded by bosses who hold your livelihood in their hands…not to mention friends and family.

At least you have a job. Your job is easy. You went to so and so school for how many years just to become a [blank]. So and so is younger than you and he only has x degree from y school and he’s your manager’s manager’s boss? You better feed his cats while he’s in Hawaii and to hell with the fact that you live 35 miles away. That’s just for starters.

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I rarely go out. When I do I try and see as many people as possible. So I invite a buddy I haven’t seen in awhile to a fundraiser and he agrees to go, but warns me he is broke. Ok, whatever who isn’t. Then he asks if it will be an open bar. Now have YOU ever been to a fundraiser with an open bar? That an unemployed person invited you to?

As he explained the particulars of his circumstances, something about a lag between paychecks because he switched counties he was working in, all I could think about was the fact that he was essentially asking me to spot him, and this kid drinks like a fish.

Then a funny thing happened and I saw things from his perspective for a second
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I know it’s 2011. I have loans in 2011.  But 2012 is eleven months 4 weeks and several days away. Or it is at the time of my writing this.  I could have no loans in 2012.  But first let’s recap:

I get a call from Triforce complaining about this 3-D TV he wants and he wants to talk to ME about paying off his loans. So I talk about cutting spending, jobs that have loan forgiveness, and rolling up his non-dischargable student debt into dischargable debt like a house. He then stated that he was determined to do it by next Christmas.

So I hear about this and the first thing I think of are all the lame blogs where kids with 200k in debt beg for money. I told him that we definitely weren’t going to do that. We then began to shoot down each other’s ideas. My first idea was to get a book published, maybe make the year’s worth of entries into a tiny book, something you’d buy at Urban Outfitters. Triforce asked If I had learned nothing from my “Tales of an Unpublished Author” series.  So that was out.

Triforce suggested we add a dating option to the site or create another one called “Dating for Debtors.” No wining, no dining, no problem. I vetoed pimping out our readers.

Ideas decreased in quality on both sides if that was even possible.  We came to no solid conclusions and the meeting ended with my asking the others to weigh-in on the feasibility of the proposal and any specific ideas they might have.

A year is pretty much shot once it becomes tainted with the sourness of reality. The best years are ladled with hope beyond the Horizon or myth and nostalga. But 2012 could be my first loan free year.

So I am out at a restaurant with SG and some of her doctor friends. The night is a waste. All but one of the male doctors came in their scrubs which is a non-starter and the only one who didn’t removed his until then welcome hand on my knees when his buddy not so subtlely let it slip that he was engaged. The tool then turns his conversation to Egypt where he had recently vacationed with said fiancée and turns out half the table had been. I hadn’t said anything in awhile so I make some cliche crack about rich doctors.

The table goes silent. They look indignant. They say that as residents they make “nothing” and that I make more than anyone at the table. They then proceed to nominate me to pay the bill. I am speechless.

For a split second my half-lawyer instinct kicks in and I drop plastic. They proceed to order drinks and after dinner appetizers. Yes, they ordered more food after their entrees as soon as it became free to them. I had to sign the name of one of those douche bags and report my card stolen and I hate using Mike Triforce tricks.

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I have a friend who is married with kids. I help him with yard work and in exchange I get to keep the yard waste which I compost and sell at a meager price to the women in my mother’s book club.

Later we go to dinner with his family. We go to a seafood place. I am allergic to seafood but I can’t afford the place anyway so it doesn’t matter. I ask about his healthy, present children. He asks about my absent, sick mother. He tells me of a brother’s recent success. I tell him about an uncle’s losing battle with depression. He tries to sound less upbeat. I try to sound less morbid. My natural expression, a broken, listless scowl scares his youngest and the mother cannot comfort her. They do not notice. To them I just look like Benito. But the child knows.

I cannot relate to having a child, family or home. To me it’s like driving on the left side of the street or using a hot-air balloon as your primary mode of transportation. Similarly I know he cannot relate to being over 30 (he is younger than me) and having fewer means than he/we did in high school and having no expected future potential (aka earning power will increase with experience in a field).

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I’ve got alot of pills
And Not a Single Reason Not to Take Them
Suicide? No. Depression.

I can’t explain it
I just want to die
Suicide? No. Mental Illness

I’m me – I can’t not be me
Society says that’s not ok – or worse I am evil
Suicide? No. Collective Murder

I’m me – I can’t not be me
Society says that’s wrong so I keep it a secret. You outed me.
Suicide? No. Murder

Arguably the worst kind. Your ugliness makes me sick.