I may be the most immature person I know.
I graduated from college in May, degree in-hand, wandered out into the real world, and it's really a wonder that I'm still alive.
I had to write a couple checks today to pay for a doctor's visit, and I had to Google "how to write a check," because I had been using a debit card since I was fifteen. I honestly had no fucking idea how to do it. And even with the Googled instructions in front of me, I still fucked up one of the checks and had to redo it.
The whole college education thing I paid thousands of dollars for (or eventually will, I guess) doesn't seem to have done a goddamn thing for me. I can write, I can hold a logical conversation, I can rattle off stupid meaningless facts that I picked up somewhere along the way, but I'm completely incapable of existing in society as I am today.
All of my college friends are living at home. All of them. We're all too broke to even begin thinking about moving out. Most of us have jobs. Some of us are going to grad school.
The difference between me and them, though, is that if push-came-to-shove and they had to move out and make a quick living and survive, they could do it. But I really don't think I could.
Sometimes I think I have agoraphobia. It'd be nice, really--having an excuse not to leave the house, ever. But really I just think I'm a fucking moron, and having to be around people day-in and day-out reminds of that, constantly. So really I'm not scared of people, I'm just scared of having my own insecurities and weaknesses reflected back on me by everyone I come into contact with.
My days now are just a series of fuck-ups, hesitant conversations, and awkward eye contact. I feel stupid every day of my life. I feel completely incapable of normal human communication, yet that's what I'm paid to do, eight hours a day, five days a week. At a college, no less.
I'm twenty-two, not that much older than the students I interact with--hell, some of them are my age, if not older--but I still feel that same incredible, numbing disconnect with everyone I talk to. As a result, I feel way fucking older than twenty-two. It feels like life is passing me by double-time. I'm wasting away in my khakis and dress shirt and completely phony attitude and appearance, because...well, I don't know.
I need money, I guess. To pay off my loans, which I used to get this college degree I clearly utilize so well. And to pay off my credit card, which I used in the precious few months of freedom after college that would've been totally awesome and amazing if I hadn't been hilariously depressed the entire time. And to pay for music, which is really the only thing keeping me going at this point. (Also beer.)
My dad says I'm buying music now because I'm growing up. Which is clearly bullshit. I'm buying music because I have money.
As much as I never would've admitted it, I've always felt guilty downloading music. Especially when it came to the lesser-known, independent label, dudes recording in their basements kind of music. Which I love. You can spin it anyway you wanted to (and god knows I did), but I was enjoying their art without giving anything back to the artist. And there's just no way to sit right with that.
I've probably bought more music in the last few weeks than I have in my entire life. I got a nice package from Parasol in the mail today (The Extra Lens, Black Dice, The Hentchmen, Brick Layer Cake), and it was such an incredibly satisfying feeling unwrapping that needlessly taped up box of music. Not just the feeling of getting something in the mail (admittedly an excellent feeling), but the fact that I was enjoying music as something other than a Mediafire download or a soulless Mp3. My asshole music friends here on the Internet will tell me that you can't even hold music, but goddammit, I held five different CDs today, and I was holding music. (I also got a Lake of Dracula compilation.)
I hate to be that cliché twenty-something rambling on about the glory of vinyl, but standing in a record store in a basement in Frederick, flipping through racks upon racks of albums, stumbling upon gems like Two Nuns and a Pack Mule, Freedom of Choice, or a copy of Sticky Fingers with the zipper still intact... I honestly can't remember the last time I was that happy. And there's not way to explain it or justify it, because it's fucking stupid, and I know it. It's a dead medium. It sounds like shit. It degrades over time. It's a pointless fetish item coinciding with a larger, mindless societal grasp toward a nostalgia I never even owned to begin with, and it's insane. But I don't really give a fuck.
People ask me that whole "what would you do if you had a million dollars" question, and my honest answer (after sleeping for like a week straight undisturbed) is that I would get a van, drive around the country looking for record stores, and build a record collection. Then I would get a room with a swanky stereo setup (not too swanky--my ears are too dead to really appreciate the good stuff), and just listen to music, all the time. Again, it's stupid, but it's real, it's my own, and it's fucking something, which is more than I have right now.
And right now... Right now all I want is to have my ears smashed in by two walls of flowing static. Just to cleanse and burn it all away for a few minutes, numbing me down and closing everything else out, giving myself a break from feeling like such a waste. Which, consequently, is all happening through a pair of brand new cans (HD-558's) that I bought with the pay from my soul-crushing job. So I guess I'm getting something out of all this bullshit after all.
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