It's funny that way.

I don't want this to be a complaint. Something really wonderful is happening right now: Virgil is standing by the glass front door, on full alert, birdwatching--like he's at a Wimbledon final. And he reminds me so much of Andre that sometimes I feel guilty. I want to go out today and get some birdseed for the feeder, just so he'll have something to do while I'm laming it up in here. Should I feel guilty for loving him the most when he reminds me of Andre?

So, I'm waiting for this job--THE job, the hard one, the one I want. I've been doing what I'm told you're supposed to do and not give up on your dream for something else. So the fuck what if my dream is to stop drinking like a sloppy fish out of water, be good to my lover, and land a low-paying job doing what I wanted to do when I was about five. I wanted to be a veterinarian, and that was something they could be proud of me for doing, so they wanted me to do it. Then they saw that I was a good writer (was), and wanted me to do that. Then I went to college, and people thought I was smart. So maybe they could be proud of me for being an editor. A writer. A something with words. Then I got into grad school, was forced to teach Composition, and was just lonely and miserable enough to throw myself into it wholeheartedly, so they thought I was good at it. Some of my students did, too. So, maybe I could've done that.

I didn't.

I did some other shit in the middle. I was good at that, but I couldn't or wouldn't do that either, for whatever reason.

So I quit grad school, because it's full of assholes who only want to hear how smart they are talk about shit that absolutely does NOT matter in order to convince themselves that they are as smart as they think they are and how one day they'll get to just be writers, but in the meantime pretend to care about the tiny minds they piddle into while drinking with their other friends who want to hear how smart THEY are and talk about things that also don't matter. And they know where they're headed. Some little shithole community college where they might eventually meet a decent lay at a conference and get hitched even though they told themselves their whole lives that smart people are too smart to believe in marriage. How is it that I feel like the failure here?

Oh wait, that's right: because just once I stood up for them in a way that took balls and shouldn't have caused anyone any harm. And it backfired. And the only friends I had (save one, who I might also have just completely accidentally lost for good) got pissed at me, but didn't tell me for a couple of months, until I finally had the courage to actually go out among them, one last time...and I find out that they were pissed at me for months for something I didn't mean to fuck up, which I did on their behalf. And so now, that's failed, too.

And of course, I fucked up suicide as well.

Now, I'm just depressed. I guess that's what happens.

If I don't get this job, I don't know what I'll do. Probably the same old failing shit that I always do.

Please, God that I don't believe in, just let me get a job where I can go back a little bit and feel like I'm saving the dog I failed to save.

I think I'm even making my dogs depressed.

At least I just wrote something. Something no one will read.