Too Much Sleep

More and more I find I have to take a weekend and just sleep.

I think, I hope that it's just a matter of getting older and not being able to bounce back as well as I use to (the 'on call 24/7 365 thing does tend to disrupt ones sleep pattern).

But sometimes when I've done that (as I have today) I find myself thinking about things that I should probably not think about.


Tonight I find myself wondering how much further ahead I would be if I'd been compensated for all the hours I've been required to work over the years. 

I'm not talking about family stuff or anything like that, but the hours that I was required to work to get a job, or to keep a job that actually paid.

See I figure my current employer is getting about 6-10 hours per week for free, and that's not too bad. 

My last employer was only getting about 35 hours per year, and that was really good.

The most of the ones before that (with the exception of the day labor jobs) were getting about 50 hours per month.

Oddly enough, the jobs where I was working off the books, or independent, were the jobs where I was compensated the most honestly (usually not working any time off the clock, or at most a few minutes here or there to tidy up a job site or fix some gear).

Add to this the unpaid internships in college that didn't amount to anything (hard to make a good impression with 10-20 hours of sleepwalking through an office for free every week when you're working full time for minimum wage and taking more than a full course load)

So I'm sitting here adding it up, and I figure I could probably own a house by now.




But at least I have a job.

But at least I'm granted the luxury of being paid just enough to scrape by, while watching all my hopes and dreams for the future disintegrate.

But at least I have the opportunity to train people who are making more than I am.

But at least I can look forward to working until I fall, and dying in debt.

But at least I never had time to start a family, so I don't have as many people depending on me.

But at least the talking nob on the television says the economy is improving, in spite of any real world evidence to the contrary.

But at least some 'job creator' got to turn a profit.

Live long enough

you will embrace the abhorrent
accept the repugnant
revel in the disgusting
and accept the inexcusable

and when you have learned to love what you once hated
pursue what you once shunned
aspire to what you loath
and embrace your inadequacies

When you can rationalize giving up on all that you once held dear,
in order to become the person you have always despised...

Then, and only then,
will you be a man.

..

Fuck it
why keep fighting

Something, something, burning, something

A stones throw from the edge of the world,
moonset yards away it seems,
flickering light on the horizon,
breathing ash of burning dreams.