Again, I find myself seated in front of this console in the late hours of the night. It seems later than it really is, because I got off work earlier tonight. More time has passed since I arrived than usual.

I listened to the new Marilyn Manson album twice tonight. The first time, it was just in the background while I surfed the web. The second, I devoted my full attention to it, reading the lyrics while I listened.

It's probably still too early to guage my full reaction, but early interpretations.... Somehow I get the impression that the Reverend has made a sort of peace with the fucked up nature of things, and this album is an expression of celebration in the carnal, brutal, meaningless insanity of it all. Emptyness to the fullest.

Anyway... His journal can be entertaining too, even if it doesn't get updated very often. (I guess the Reverend must be quite a busy guy. Too busy to spend hours blogging every night like some of us. Duh.)

I think I'm going to find myself compelled to see Reloaded again soon. Perhaps next week. Perhaps.

Now I'm listening to Lords of Acid, and it is hypnotizing my brain into a slow, steady funk.

Sometimes, I wish I could just take a pill that would let me find answers to all of life's vexing questions.

The one most pressing on my mind right now? If it does indeed turn out that this newspaper selling job is available for me, do I quit my current job to take it?

[Bitscape decides it's time for a change of pace and mood, and switches on the Enya.]

It would be a risk. I find myself half-wondering if my vision has been clouded by recent difficulties at my current job. Could all the suckiness that has been happening there, combined with the oh-so-nice prospect of making a decent wage again be inducing me into a mode of wishful thinking? Might I be about jump off of a cliff, mistaking the clouds below for a soft cushion of cotton into which I will fall?

Even if it could make me more money, I must not delude myself into thinking that making this leap will lead me to anything resembling a satisfying career life. (For my dad? Maybe it is, maybe not. But that's his shit, not mine.) I have every reason to believe that it would be, for me, yet another wobbly, slippery stepping stone on which to place my foot as I cross the raging river.

If things go according to the tentative plan, in which I get offered a job selling newspapers (which would seem quite likely, if I follow through), I quit my current job, and take on this new challenge, the big risks I see are as follows. This is what could go wrong.

1. I end up sucking at it, don't sell anything, and get fired or quit. No sales == no money anyway. Then I would be without any job at all. No income, period. Suck.
2. I find that I am good enough at it to make some decent money, but the job itself is so utterly miserable that I find myself wishing I was back in the deli on a daily basis. Emotional breakdown leads me to either sabotage my own competence as a way out, or I just quit and sleep for 3 weeks on end. Not a pleasant prospect.
3. I turn out to be "okay" in terms of skill, enough to earn what I do right now. I dislike the job, but not enough to do anything drastic about it. As long as the slump continues, I find myself trapped and unable to find other work. Continuing in a sort of pathetic limbo, I make enough to get by with some niceties while still living with my parents. This would be very similar to the situation I currently have.

Now, on the other side of the coin, here is what might go right if I am lucky.

1. I get the job, and even if it's not the most enjoyable gig ever, it beats scraping grease, slicing meat for picky idiots, and being expected to perform an impossible quantity of tasks within a finite amount of time. Maybe I even enjoy it, just a little, on some days. (Nah, that would be too much to hope for.)
2. I find that I am good enough and/or the product sells itself well enough that I can make a decent wage. Even an average of $15/hour would be enough to move out on my own again, into a modest apartment. That would rule!
3. Maybe if I do really well, I could earn money to save some capital to finance... well, whatever turns up in the future. Going back to school without indenturing myself for the foreseeable future, if I decide that's what I want, or investing in some kind of solid business. Anyway, that's far away, and it's probably way too early to hope. What was it that the Architect said about hope in Reloaded?

Here are some known factors, for better or worse:

• Working weekends would be a fact of life pretty much all the time. Not only that, but LONG days on weekends. 12 hour days on Saturday and Sunday, and occassionally Friday and Monday too. 8am-8pm. Ouch. (Right now, this doesn't sound too terribly bad, because I end up working most weekends at my current job anyway.)
• On the flip side, that also means you get 3 or 4 days off during the week, every week. That time could be used for programming, sleep, school, other jobs, or whatever. (Sit and watch entire seasons of tv shows on dvd in a single stretch, yeah!) It's a tradeoff.
• Sales meetings, regularly. My instinctive reaction is a big "yuck". Not much more to say about that.
• Driving around the metro area a lot. More gas to buy, more wear on Tobias. Although again, I'm making a fairly significant commute every day as it is right now. Westminster to Boulder and back everyday. With 102.1X gone, I think I should increase the priority of installing an mp3/ogg player in the car. But that's a topic for another day.
• Wildly fluxuating income. (Hopefully with more spikes than pits.) Maybe the first step toward truly tasting life as a freelancer.

Blah. Anyway, I still think it's quite likely that I'm going to go for it. We'll have to see what the guy says on Monday though.

I need more sleep now. Peace out.