GARRRHHHHHHHHH! Your no-hugs rule has now pissed me off!
Prayers instead. Really.
Guin-(replying to my earlier post) See, the thing is, saving money is not by definition a quick life change–it takes time. It is during this time that you can contemplate what you are going to do. It is obvious to me that you need to do something different. If you can see past the immediate then you can start to see your future. Please get a job and save so you can move and become independent. It will be the best thing you have ever done for yourself.
I have been waiting for my security clearance for almost three years. I know some who have been waiting longer
Ah…I feel at home now.
raises hand
Almost 32 (in March). Live with Mom. No job. No money. I also need to get my teeth fixed (though I’d be just as happy to have them all pulled out and replaced with full plates). Haven’t been to a doctor in 3 years (been doing temp work until this last slump, so no insurance). Read everything in the house three times and I’m only kept sane by the tail-end residue of a three-year Dragon magazine subscription I got almost three years ago and the internet. No significant other and if past history is any indication of future performance, no overwhelmng likelihood of ever having one.
And I live with my mother. Oh, wait, I said that. It’s worth a repeat, actually. Not that I don’t appreciate the near-saintly patience and generosity of my mom at this point, but I was raised to believe that the offspring are expected to go out and make their own way in life, as separate beings, not to keep crawling back to the nest when they’ve gotten their wings clipped (three times so far!). It’s kind of embarassing, to tell the truth. I mean:
Guy in bar: So…you want to go back to your place?
Me: I can’t. I live with my mom.
Guy in bar: Oh…seeya.
And it doesn’t help that all the guys I’m attracted to seem to be out-of-towners or ALSO live with their parents. Blah.
What’s that Pink lyric? “Doctor, Doctor, won’t you please prescribe me something? Like the life of someone else…”
Guin, I have potato chips and dip, if you like
I have lots of clothes you could borrow anytime you want (I think we might have the same taste in clothing)
I will take you to get a hair cut, and then we can go to the city (NY) with some of my peeps (no, not the candy) 
I will not push my religion on you!
There are lots of little hole in the wall book shops in the city where we could find you lots of cool books, and if we can’t, I am sure Joe_Cool has something in his retardedly hugh collection of books.
My sister is a little snotty, snooty, spoiled bit*h, so I can’t help you there… 
I wish you could come to NJ and visit, we could have a lot of fun.
Not trying to give you a hug, just think it would be really cool if we could do this! Good luck on a job and insurance!!!
Damn Guin, I know exactly how you feel. From needing a haircut to people pushing their religion on you right down to that feeling you get of "damnit I just hate everything.
I lost my job the Sunday after Thanksgiving and it’s been pretty shitty. First time I haven’t had a job since i was 13.
And I definately know where you’re coming from with the medical/dental thing. I went to the doctor a few weeks ago for a list of about five different things (one of them being insomnia.) Basically all he told me was “Take Tylenol PM” and he just blew off everything else. This is coming from the same doctor that has already perscribed me Ambien and Restoril and neither one of them worked. Then he sent me a bill for $280. Two hundred and eighty dollars for advising me to take an over the counter drug.
I don’t need any root canals but if it makes you feel any better my dentist fucked up a filling about awhile back and I can’t afford to get it fixed.
Nothing is going to change unless you decide to change, Guin.
The feelings of boredom may pass, but they will be back.
Here’s the deal, and I don’t mean to be overly harsh sounding, but, I’m just saying, ok?
turn off the damn computer already.
You post in every thread it seems and I think (if I remember correctly) that you post elsewhere. As often as you post,I don’t know what else you do. Handy may have a million more posts that you, but his are usually one liners. Yours seem longer and more thought out.
You are letting an electrical box dominate too much of your life.
IIRC, you are in your twenties. While the Dope and dopers love you very much, I feel that you are devoting too much of your life to something so fleeting, so one dimensional. Don’t turn 40 and look back and think that your youth was spent on a chair in front of a glowing screen.
So, I know you’re just venting and you probably don’t want to hear it from me, a stranger, but life is out there (points out the window) and it’s NOT going to meet you half way. Go out, Volunteer some where, go to a museum, take up sketching, take a class…
Could you do it Guin? Could you turn off the computer for one week?
If I might ask, where are you? You spend alot of time with us in here, are there no other dopers in the area that you could hang out with, if for nothing else than meeting some people?
Wise words.
Re the volunteering thing—I recently attended a “How to find a job” seminar put on by the head of HR at a large company. He made a big point of saying that HR people would far rather see time accounted for by a volunteer position than time spent as “unemployed.” If nothing else, it gets you out of the house and forces you to interact with others.
Could you work part-time for a dentist, trading labor for services?
Good luck, whatever you do.
Someone already beat me to the volunteer aspect of being in limbo. But irregardless, it’s sage advice.
Also, being 24 with a degree puts you in position to do some radical lifestyle changes, if you want to. You could become an officer in the military. They need as many good, intelligent people as they can get. Plus, they’ll pay you well and fix your teeth You could join the Peace Corps and travel around, helping people. There’s a miriad of organizations in the US that would love to have your help.
If I had a large gap of time I’d be devising plans on hiking the Appalachian Trail, come springtime.
Guin, have you looked into AmeriCorps? It won’t put much cash in the bank, but it will get student loans defered, put some money toward paying them, and get you out of the house. The work would be more interesting than retail, and it would boost up a resume.
Full time members get health insurence. I don’t know about dental.
I forgot to say good luck. So,
Good Luck!
Some of the most rewarding things I now know stemmed from periods of mind numbing, stultifying boredom combined with bone crushing poverty.
After one such prolonged period in my life, I decided I had some choices. I could either continue to wallow in my self imposed feelings of hopelessness or I could do something. Anything.
So I started doing stuff. Learning stuff. The library was a free source of information for all those “I wonder how they…” questions I’d had, and the switch on my bedside lamp was broken. After a look at a book on simple electrical repairs and a trip to Goodwill for a lamp to use for parts (couldn’t afford new stuff from the hardware store), I fixed my lamp. It cost me twenty five cents. I had to take the lamp apart to fix it. I was amazed at how simply it was made. I went back to Goodwill, took a side trip to the Salvation army and bought 5 lamps. Took them all apart, combined parts and pieces and made three brand new lamps for the living room of my apartment. I had no lampshades, the ones on the lamps I bought were crap. Another trip to Salvation Army yielded a silk evening gown that I cut apart and covered the old lampshade frames with. I was 22 years old, and the amazement of my friends and family that stupid little Deej could actually do something was worth a million bucks to my self esteem. I seem to remember that you like making some kind of cyber doll character things…head on out to a thrift or secondhand store, grab an old porcelian head doll or two (dime a dozen in my area) and some old evening gowns and furs and make a real one.
What’s my point? I found something I could do with no money and lots of time that used my hands, body and mind. There’s no shame in learning and knowing stuff that requires the use of your hands and body, no matter how many college degrees you have. Check to see if your local public school district offers any self enrichment or community education classes. If the ceramics, basket weaving, sewing or quilting classes don’t trip your trigger, check out small engine repair, welding or woodworking. The last two classes I took were rustic stick furniture (I made a freaking chair out of some sticks I cut off a tree and a handful of nails. Unbelievable.) and tantric yoga. The two before that were on concrete pavers and stained glass.
“But there’s nobody my aaagge in those classes! How am I going to make any friends?” News flash: your friends do not have to be the same age as you are. I know it’s hard to believe from your age view, but not all people over the age of 30 automatically hate people younger than themselves. I’m 38 years old. I have two friends that I cherish…one of them is in her late 50’s and the other one in her mid 20’s. I feel rewarded by their friendship every single day.
Volunteer work is another excellent suggestion, especially this time of year. Show up at your local food shelf, take your coat off and let them tell you what needs to be done. Laugh, converse and socialize with the person next to you whether they’re 80 years old or 12 years old. Ask questions, do some heavy lifting for the old folks and when you go get some coffee or a pop for yourself ask if you can get one for anyone else. When someone asks you a question about yourself, don’t act all suspicious and sullen, they’re probably just making conversation. Answer them with a smile and look them in the eye.
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I know a lot of dentists, in order to pass their finals, have to perform work on volunteers (a friend of mine just graduated and got certified to practice in the state). I don’t know how you can hook up with these folks, but look around and it might net you some free dental care. Granted they aren’t licensed yet, but they are at graduation level so you won’t be dealing with complete rookies.
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You wanna’ come over and play Nintendo? (hearing this always cheered me up)
Guin, if you’re seriously interested in pursuing history as a career, see if you can volunteer at a local museum. I’m the volunteer supervisor at a history museum, and I would be thrilled if someone bright, articulate, and with a B.A. in history offered to volunteer here. Not only will volunteering give you experience with collections management, education, exhibit design, etc., it’s a great foot in the door. Believe me, the way to get a job in the field is to know people. Good luck!
This thread makes me feel better. Really. I was thinking about posting something like it just the other day.
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not exactly in a bad way.
I have a job, a house and a family.
However, my beef is still something akin to Guin’s.
I have some back problems that limits my ability to do things. All the friends that I have had where I live currently have either left, been booted, or their lives have fallen apart and fallen out of contact. This leaves me with the three people I work with - none of whom do I have anything but a professional relationship with. My wife is in Pennsylvania, having just finished the semester of college classes. She is there with her family, my family and all of our friends. I have the dog.
I make dick, so most of my cash either goes to bills or is sent to her so she can get by and pay for school.
Now that her classes are over, I was hoping she could come home ot spend some time with me, but her car died and now she’s working on getting a new one - this mixed with next semester’s bill will cost us the entirety of our meager nest-egg.
Thus, it gives me great pleasure that there are plenty of other miserable people out there.
I just wish some of them were closer.
I sympathize with everyone else in this thread.
My life, is without a doubt. Utterly boring.
I can’t get away from the lab. It’s a physical impossibility. I’ve by default become the person who actually runs this place, I place orders, make sure everything is working, browbeat repair guys into fixing stuff. I talk sales reps out of free replacements for things that stop working or were miss-shipped. I can’t get away from this place for more than 2 days because I have experiements and cell lines to take care of. I’m in and out of here at godawful times of the day… I’m back working 7 days a week.
Because I’m usually exhausted when I get out of work I don’t do anything interesting, sometimes I rent a movie, or I work up the energy to make a nice dinner… I’m also the youngest person working in this department by 6 YEARS. So the people I interact with on a social level are all married and have kids.
The one friend I did make, with whom I had a lot in common went off to medical school.
On the plus side, I made arrangements before I got here for this to be temporary. I KNOW I’m getting the hell out of here.
The only human being I regularly interact with I actively wish dire harm to come to. I want to watch him be slowly dismembers while brillo pads soaked in lemon juice are scrubbed across the open wounds. And I only interact with him because when he starts talking in the same office I can’t pretend he’s talking to a 3rd person…
I’m in Pittsburgh. Part of my problem is, I don’t drive-I’ve had problems taking the tests and all that.
Yes, I DO need to get off the computer. However, unless I can get out of the house…sigh
It’s a bitch.
And yes, I realize right now I am pathetic.
I was volunteering at a local museum, but then that didn’t work out and often, I have no way to get down town-the buses around here are a joke.
Plus, it’s hard to get downtown at night, and I’m afraid to take the buses-since there was that rapist on my bus line and all.
Yes, I know I sound like a whiny loser. And I have to get off the computer, but right now, I’m stuck in my house, with nothing else to do. (No books, nothing to sew, or draw, or anything, and I have a creative block right now).