Paraphrased:

Posted by September Blue Thursday 17 January 2008

"So, how's the job hunt -"

"Don't."
"Fine, fine, tetchy. I was just asking."
"'m sorry."
"...right."
"It's just, um. The job thing. I think it's turning me into a teenager."
"You what now?"
"Well, you know. I'm sulky, I'm miserable, my parents don't understand -"
"- you're listening to a lot of Bon Jovi -"
"- I'm listening to a lot of Bon Jovi, my personal life oscillates between boredom and drama, and I just bought some purple lipstick. Really. I've been here before."
"Are you keeping the lyrics to Nirvana's 'Heart-Shaped Box' in your graphical calculator's memory again?"
"Oh, shut up. I did that once, and I'm sure I was being ironic."
"There you are, see? If you really were regressing into teenageness, you'd have thought that was cool."
"No, but I am. There's the stupid job market, and I have no money, and I mean really no money and I am in such big trouble come summer I'll need to sell a kidney or something just to pay my rent, and then I think, well, do I really want any of these jobs anyway, because it'll mean moving to somewhere else, which I don't want to do, unless it means working somewhere near here, which I don't want to do either -"
"Um, I'm, um, sure it'll work -"
"I'm not FINISHED."
"...sorry."
"And do I really want an academic job anyway? I mean, I do, but do I want one enough to move to a part of the country I don't know where I don't know anybody? And that's the best outcome here, isn't it? So, what if the best possible outcome is a bad one? You know when Anna Karenina had that thought, she threw herself under a train -"
"Anna Karenina?"
"All right, I'm not going to throw myself under a train, but I -"
"Anna Karenina? You're comparing your life to Anna Karenina?"
"You see how teenage I'm getting?"
"Okay, yes, that is quite teenage."
"And basically I just want to curl up in my bedroom and paint my nails black and listen to, I don't know, whatever the indie equivalent of a campus novel is."
Pause.
Pause.
"You feeling any better now?"
"Actually, yes. And I have coffee."
"...well, okay..."
"No, seriously. Rant a bit, make some coffee, dance around the living room to Franz Ferdinand, and I'm all fine."
"If only Anna Karenina had thought of that."
"If only I'd thought of that back when I was a teenager. Jesus, angst is tiring. How did I ever keep this up?"

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