if i had written this journal entry about four hours ago, it would have an entirely different slant than what it has now.

allow me to explain. i worked today. like i worked yesterday. like i worked monday through friday last week. like i worked in my office during the day and again from my bedroom computer at night. all on this jails directory. i typed in countless names and statistics for the juvenile facilities section of florida. and then i did corrections for the adult facilities section, which involved the removal of countless names and statistics that were already in the database. and i just know that juvenile florida is going to come back with a bunch of edits taking out the countless names and statistics i spent all week putting in. and that's when i started getting really frustrated and frazzled because i began to realize how pointless this all is.

it's pointless. complete and utter pointlessness. and not just my work on this project, but in a larger sense: this job. what i'm doing here. settling. wasting my time. metaphorically, i feel like a majority of the past year, i've been in that state where i'm somewhere between being awake and asleep. i've never really been into this job, but i learned to tolerate it after my 50-some (yes, i counted) attempts to get another job failed. i got tired. it was an OK nap, but now i'm ready for some coffee, a cigarette and a full tank of gas. and them's fightin' words.

if i had written this journal entry several hours ago, the tone would be less passive and more bile-spewing. i was pretty furious. computers were crashing, text files weren't importing, editing marks weren't intelligible. i've calmed down considerably, but there's still a fire in my belly, and it ain't the chinese food i had the other night. 25 is creeping up. bret easton ellis had already written several books when he was my age, and john lennon had already recorded with the beatles and rubber soul. have i done anything of significance in my life so far? hmm, let's see. i pissed away several promising opportunities, got fat and stupid, cared for a diabetic hamster, made sarcastic comments under my breath about people with the drive and ambition i only wish i had, and went down with the ship that was the disgusting latter half of my college experience. (i like to call it tim burton's the nightmare before graduation.)

so, yeah. in the immortal words of soulwax, "something's gotta give, something's gotta give ... i don't know."