Gainful Employment

I’m about to get back to coding the M.E. Caldwell pages. That’s the last major hurdle in re-designing the web site. I mean, there are a bunch of shot stories and other elements, but they can all be done individually. Caldwell needs to be put up as a complete work. Meaning that I can’t really put it up in sections.
I was just looking at jobs in this area. It’s depressing. I may have backed myself into a corner. Every job I come across that appeals to me says “High School diploma or GED required”. I have neither. All the warehouse jobs says “six months recent warehouse experience”. I haven’t worked in a warehouse since 1999. Trucking jobs are obviously out. I got three trumped-up speeding tickets last year and I pissed off my last employer. So … fuck. If trucking is out and warehousing is out, what do I do?
Well, except for my years at the family restaurant, trucking and warehousing covers my entire working lifetime. Obviously that leaves me flipping burgers. Which I could do, I guess. We do what we must, yes?
It would be nice if I could figure out an alternate way to make money. Maybe I should take a guitar and go sit downtown and play on the weekends with a tip cup. Fuck, it’s the only thing I’m good at. They only thing I stuck with.
How strange it is to decide it’s time to put aside these foolish, romantic notions of making a living writing and making music, only to discover that the real world isn’t all that welcoming to me.
I’ll work out something. Time has run out. I have to. Victoria afforded me a long grace period, which I was supposed to use to get something going with my music or writing. I squandered that time. Yet another in a long, long list of missed opportunities.
Sometimes I feel like all I’m good at is making sparks. There’ll never be a raging flame.
Right now I honestly feel like my best chance of breaking the cycle is to start submitting stories to publishers. And to record that album and get it on CD Baby. But I’ve let the time get away from me. And now there’s no time for that. From past experience, I know that once I get back to the old grindstone, the stories and recording will grind to a halt.
Not that I’ve made such wonderful use of my time thus far.