Second and Long

Here I sit, waving goodbye to yet another month ... and the first quarter of 2009. WTF? Time seems to be slipping by awfully fast considering that nothing has happened yet this year. It's 11 a.m. and I'm at a coffeehouse in Doylestown, Pa., sipping from a 20-ounce cup of black coffee and listening to vintage Cure and Twisted Sister songs. And to think, someone might suggest I'm doing nothing with my life. You can't stop rock n' roll, you know. Just ask Dee Snider.

/

I've been on the job hunt for nearly six months now, having sent resumes and clips and cover letters to anybody looking for a decent journalist. Packages containing my life's work have gone to Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Vermont, Connecticut, Missouri, Virginia, Arizona, Oregon and probably a few places in between. I'm getting close to the next phase of my life, methinks, but close only counts in ... well, you know. I have dreams of the Chicago Blackhawks knocking on my door and asking me to join their communications team ... and then, serendipitously, one of their defencemen -- Duncan Keith, perhaps -- goes down with an injury, opening a slot for yours truly. I played ice hockey for six years post-college, after all. I'm a decent skater and play solid defence, as long as I don't have to touch the puck. The Blackhawks don't need to know I have zero puck-handling ability.

/

Or maybe all the writing I've done over the past few years will magically make its way into the hands of an agent who believes I'm the next Chuck Palahniuk or Michael Chabon (apologies to Chuck Palahniuk and Michael Chabon for comparing myself to them) and he/she signs me to a six-book deal with a six-figure advance. Everyone has to have a dream. I've been watching the TNT show "Trust Me" about the joys and perils of running an advertising agency in Chicago. That's got me lusting for a creative job like that. But I used to work for an agency -- two actually, one of them in the entertainment business -- and never found life to be quite like how it's portrayed on the small screen. Maybe I was running with the wrong crowd again.

/

I'm reminded of the funny-as-hell film "Dumb & Dumber," in which losers played by Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels stumble upon a new life. ("Tell her I have a rapist's wit.") Toward the end of the film, they are wandering aimlessly and waiting for a new opportunity to find them. On cue, a tour bus filled with bikini-clad women pulls up and one of the women asks for directions to town so they can find two guys to oil them up before whatever job it is they do in bikinis. Daniels' and Carrey's characters don't see the opening in front of them and merely point the girls in the opposite direction, lamenting that opportunity will find them one day. I sometimes feel I've let the same thing happen to me. I had a few job offers come my way early this year but turned them down for different reasons. But here I am, wondering when my ship will come in. Maybe it already came in -- twice! -- and I let it chug out of the harbor without me.

/

That's a bad way of looking at things, I suppose, though I am conscious of what I've left behind. I don't blame anyone. I made the choice with open eyes. But I soldier on, confident my life is about to change. It's always changing, isn't it? Isn't everyone's? I'm going to live somewhere else, do something else, working in a different industry than I have for the past nine years. And it's going to be great. I'll be part of a team. I'll be vital. I'll be important. I'll be making money. I'll be making decisions. And I'll be back on my feet, growing into a new, different and better person.

/

Tomorrow the second quarter of 2009 officially begins. It's going to be the best quarter, like, ever! I've got my fingers crossed that it will at least be a.) more interesting, b.) not quite as lonely, and c.) a lot less painful. Something's got to happen.