2002-09-28 - 2:19 a.m.

So it's 1:03 on a Friday night, and here I am, all by my lonesome, with two days of relative freedom to waste.

As I kinda touched on earlier, you can't really be free when you have a job. A real one, I mean, and even though some who know me might think differently, I consider my current job at the Big Company to be real.

So, as long as I work there, I can't, say, take off for Mexico all of a sudden. Or go to Harvard Square at 2:00 PM and then go home. Or abruptly serenade my coworkers with a dapper selection from the Lloyd-Webber cannon.

Or get into a closing time bar fight and get a tooth knocked out. Or suddenly take off for Mexico.

So, yeah, having a job is annoying because it limits the amount of freedom I have.

But perhaps this can be a good thing?

Bear with me for a second. First off, lets get the money part out of the way. Yeah, if I got fired tomorrow, I could do whatever I wanted to and report to no one. OK, that�s cool, but how am I gonna eat, or pay rent, or buy those plane tickets to Mexico? I am not the kind of person who can live off the fat of the land. I�m a relatively adventurous person when it comes to food, but I don�t think I could acquire a taste for squirrel, and it would probably be more accident than luck if I could even catch one. So the money I make from working makes me a little more free, in that it provides me with the freedom to remain alive.

OK--so that one is obvious. Plus health care if you can get it.

Now--think about this one for a second. Yeah, having a job limits your freedom to do whatever you want, when you want.

But think about all those times at the bar when you took off �cause you had to work tomorrow. You didn�t, say, end up smashing windshields or, perhaps faces, at 4am with your jobless punk rock buddies, cause you had to punch the ol� time clock instead.

Extreme example, I know, but being bound has it�s advantages. Responsibility saves you from the reckless devil inside, the demon that is automatically repressed by that whole job thing.

Yeah, I have a degree from a pretty good college, but who doesn�t? I have a job that provides me with health insurance, enough money to scrape by, and it doesn�t usually suck.

I pass by trashy folks all the time, and I have to interview trashy applicants that have no shot in hell of working for the Big Company, and I�m amazed at how little separates me from them. More thin than a top sheet.

If I make too many poor decisions in a brief amount of time, I�m fucked.

Fucked. No online diary, for one, I�ll tell you what. No CDs. Eating fucking boxed mac n� cheez every night, and it can happen to you too.

No money, in other words, and therefore less resources. No computer. No internet. Less freedom.

And there are oh so many things I could do to put me there.

And the older you get, the more opportunities you've had to completely fuck things up.

I don�t wanna be there.

I don�t wanna have total freedom.

I wanna have some kind of annoying obligation that prevents me from making poor decisions.

I wanna have some place where I can, for 8 hours a day, be almost guaranteed to not make a life-changing and hastily-made poor decision, like wandering through the 105 degree California desert, beer bottle in hand, not a care in the world. And never coming back.

Whatever it takes to not be there. Whatever it takes to not have it happen to me. I�ll wear GAP clothing. I�ll never meander from the straight and narrow. I�ll squeal on my peers. Just don�t send me to the island of misfit toys. That�s a nice tie, by the way. From the Garcia collection?

It�s not cool, I know.

But here I am, 2:02 am on a friggin� Friday night, two days of friggin� relative freedom ahead of me, listening to a bunch of recording artists who have never sold out, wondering how to perfectly waste my two days.