My parents’ willingness to harbor me seemingly indefinitely has allowed me to only apply for jobs I actually want, which makes rejection sting that much more. It has even reached a point where I actually appreciate rejection emails, since so many people don’t even bother with that. The fact that I get so excited about each potential job also means that I have even more reason to be upset when I do impossibly stupid things.

My dad tells me that someday I will see the humor and rehash these stories at a cocktail party. Fortunately, I can usually see the humor quickly, and I believe that everything should be a cocktail party. A few weeks after I sent in my first three applications, I was looking through those applications to see what pieces I wanted to use and combine for another one. While reviewing them I realized a pretty significant error and had to resist the urge to cry. This was the precursor to my three-day wine-and-Community binge. I sent off not one, not two, but THREE applications where, in the opening paragraph of my cover letter, I reference work that I did in the District of Colombia. Shockingly, with international experience like that, none of those people wanted to hire me. Then I had to look at my life and look at my choices and wonder why I did a silly thing like graduate from college when clearly I should have just stayed in college forever because oh my god look how much fun community college would be if Joel McHale were there and maybe I should just do that or maybe I should drink more wine and pass out.

I can console myself with the fact that this is generally a bad time to be in my situation, especially since more potential employers are telling out-of-work applicants not to bother applying. Awesome, right? Also, US News & World Report seems to believe that nearly every job held or sought-after by someone I know is overrated. Obviously I should stop wasting my time and just stay at home and watch more TV.

For further proof that I need to start reevaluating some of my choices: I made an attempt to research useful things to add to this post. After growing bored with the obvious and uninspired results google gave me (Monster, stories about the economy being awful, etc.) I decided to tell Google I was feeling lucky after asking: “why get a job when you can sit on the couch and watch tv forever and ever?” The results were useless, as I do not have a PS3 nor do I have the money to purchase a PS3 or pay for MLB.tv because I’m not getting a job so I can sit on the couch and watch tv forever and ever. Damnit, Google, get it together.

These are the things that I do when I feel like my brain is on the brink of exploding from reviewing job applications or preparing for the GRE. That and make silly doodles and put them on the internet and feel oh-so-accomplished. And dig through old family photo albums…to try and figure out how/when/where this all went so terribly wrong.

When I found this one, I realized that I haven’t actually changed at all since I was 5 so either things are exactly as anyone could have predicted or I am developmentally stunted. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m the goob on the far right. I’m making almost the exact same face that my little cartoon girl is making. I realized today that I may or may not have peaked as a child. It is entirely probable that I will never be as awesome as I was at 4 and 5. Maybe instead of using my cover letters to talk about my nonexistent foreign employment history, I should use it to tell people about chopping off my toddler hair or the fact that police officers had to lie to me in order to scare me into remaining in my car seat. Potential employers might not decide I am actually qualified to do anything besides make their office a more awesome place to be, but I feel capable of bringing 10–12 dollars an hour worth of awesome to any office.

Or maybe not. It’s whatever.